When Goibibo signed Rishabh Pant as their new brand face, they didn’t just want an announcement – they wanted a moment. Something so culturally sharp it would cut through the IPL clutter even without being a sponsor. And India had already given us the perfect cultural raw material.

During the Border–Gavaskar series, Pant played that shot — and Sunil Gavaskar erupted with the now-iconic: “Stupid! Stupid! STUPID!” The clip broke the internet, flooded feeds with memes, reaction videos, angry rants, podcasts and cringe edits.

So we did something delightfully reckless. Or rather, reckless. We flipped the controversy on its head. We put Pant and Gavaskar in the same frame, and recreated the moment as a playful ad. In the films, Pant channeled Gavaskar’s meltdown, shouting “STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!” at the legend’s terrible hotel choices… until both break into a hug.

In 20 hours, the ad was everywhere — sports channels, fan pages, meme accounts, even Harsha Bhogle himself reacted with a wink: “And he goes ahead and does a spoof on it! What a guy!”

The controversy became chemistry. The meltdown became a moment. And a risky idea became Goibibo’s most talked-about campaign ever.