Ad Campaigns
Nike football presents ‘The Switch,’ featuring Cristiano Ronaldo
MUMBAI: Nike launched “The Switch,” a new film featuring Cristiano Ronaldo. Below are 10 behind-the-scenes insights from the shoot.
BEHIND THE SCENES
1) In addition to Cristiano Ronaldo, 16 professional players make cameos in “The Switch:” Raheem Sterling, Joe Hart, Harry Kane, Chris Smalling, John Stones, Ross Barkley, Megan Rapinoe, Ricardo Quaresma, Andre Gomes, Jose Fonte, Cedric Soares, Vieirinha, Raphael Varane, Anthony Martial, Sergi Roberto and Javier Mascherano.
2) Megan Rapinoe’s scene required more formal attire than what she wears on the pitch (the suit is her own), but she made the most of production pauses by switching into sneakers and juggling between takes.
3) The shoot was the first opportunity the players had to wear the final, badged versions of their new national team kits. While many had been involved in the testing and feedback process, there was palpable excitement on set when they finally got to don the finished product, several weeks before the kits were officially unveiled.
4) Nike partnered with long time collaborators Wieden+Kennedy on “The Switch.” The film was directed by Ringan Ledwidge, who also directed Nike’s 2014 “Winner Stays” film. The cinematographer was Matthew Libatique, known for his film work on “Straight Outta Compton,” “Black Swan” and “Iron Man.”
5) “The Switch” is the longest brand film Nike Football has ever produced (5:57 seconds), supplanting “The Last Game” (5:28).
6) The song that plays throughout the film is “Turn Up” by The Heavy.
7) “The Switch” is the most extensive brand shoot Cristiano Ronaldo has ever done, for any company. It required five days of filming, all completed in Spain. Ronaldo performed his own stunts in the initial collision scene, which was done in just three takes.
8) The car Ronaldo is driving in the film is not from his personal fleet of vehicles but he was quite comfortable in it. The dog is also not his own, as Ronaldo’s dog does not bark at him on command.
9) UK football announcer Jim Proudfoot makes a cameo in the film, playing himself. Proudfoot has covered more than 2,000 football matches in his career.
10)The young man co-starring in the film is Gerson Correia Adua. He is 16 years old, an avid footballer and speaks fluent English and Portuguese. This was Adua’s first foray into acting. He was originally the understudy for the part, but when the actor who was initially cast injured his leg in a car accident, Adua stepped up. The previously cast lad is on the mend and still appears in the film at the 5:15 mark.
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
