Ramanuj Shastry’s maiden voice-over effort in his 30-year career for Under Armour film

New Delhi: Under Armour’s latest film takes the ‘A day in the life of’ route featuring Javelin gold medalist Neeraj Chopra. Being one of India’s finest, Chopra was a natural choice, according to Ramanuj Shastry, Co-Founder and Director at Infectious Advertising.  

In a conversation with BestMediaInfo, Shastry revealed the nuances of the film, the BTS experience and his unexpected first try at doing the voiceover for a national campaign.  

What began as a conversation with Chopra transformed into the inspiration for the film’s tagline, ‘Zidd For More.’ Shastry recalled the conversation fondly and added how Chopra had attributed much of his success to his determination and ‘ziddari,’ which is Haryanvi for ‘zidd.’  

Shastry added, “We wanted to use this kernel of thought as it is something that the athlete believes in,” while shedding light on how the authenticity factor makes it easy to conceptualise the ad.  

The film’s shoot took place in Turkey, where Chopra was training for the Paris Olympics and Shastry and his team placed cameras to record the events of Chopra’s days. 

The TVC captures Chopra’s routine as an athlete, prepping for the Olympics from early morning workouts to attempting multiple throws of the javelin to get it right. 

“I have never shot a film for 5 days,” Shastry said, “and it was the first film of mine that I shot for 5 days because we had to shoot what he was doing. It was also liberating in a way because there is nothing fake about it; everything is genuine.”  

This is the third film the brand has done with Chopra since the brand onboarded Chopra as its ambassador two years ago.  

Talking more about Chopra, Shastry added that his ‘lack of showing off his star power’ is what made him a good fit for the ad. “He wears his greatness with ease,” he added with a chuckle as he recalled the filming days.  

Initially, Chopra had confessed to the infectious team about his time crunch and that he could only spare 15-20 minutes per day for a whole film shoot. 

“Whatever Chopra did, he did with intensity, and we wanted to deliver authentic content,” Shastry added as he emphasised how this ad film was not another ‘commercial venture’ for Chopra. 

He differentiated Under Armour’s ad series with Chopra from the rest of the celebrity endorsement ads as being a film with a story. The film is not just about Chopra wearing Under Armour gear; it is a slice of life from Chopra’s training to become an ace athlete.  

Another standout point for the film is towards the ending, where the silhouettes of kings and warriors from Indian history submerge into Chopra’s silhouette as he attempts the javelin shot.  

Shastry called it a ‘hat tip to Indian history’ as javelin (bhala in Hindi) has been around for ages and has been interwoven in the Indian microcosm for a long time.  

“Chopra is carrying that tradition with valour and we used the help of AI to showcase that,” he explained.  
The whole film has a voiceover in a mix of Haryanvi and Hindi to maintain the authentic roots of its ambassador, Chopra. This is the first film by the brand to steer away from an English voiceover.  

Shastry recalls with a chuckle, how he recorded his voiceover for the ad film’s approval and the brand wanted it on the final copy as well. This was the first time in Shastry’s 30-year career that he had lent his voice to a brand-new film.  

“I am not from Haryana so it is not nearly as authentic but since it’s a pan-India film, the client believed it could work as the final voiceover as well,” he added, shedding light on how people who had worked with him recognised his voice and flooded him with texts and calls.  

The film was also supposed to have an English version, which Shastry mused over and revealed that the translation of the script could not do justice to the Haryanvi-Hindi mix of the original conversation with Chopra that ignited the tagline.  

The tagline ‘Zidd For More’ loosely translates to dedicated/stubborn for more and was used to encapsulate Under Armour’s positioning as a preferred brand for athletes.