Jimmy Nelson’s teenage years were traumatic. He was away from the warmth of his archaeologist parents in a boarding school in the UK, afflicted by an autoimmune condition triggered by stress and medication that made him lose all his hair. At 17, inspired by ‘Tintin in Tibet’, and armed with a camera and two rolls of film gifted by his father, he embarked on what was meant to be a short trip to China. He was probably the only foreigner in Tibet at the time, with restrictions on entry and stay of foreigners in place. He was in all probability the only one with a camera. When he returned to the UK after two years under the radar, he had found his calling.
As he says on his website: “In a world that had once made me feel like an outsider, photography reignited a sense of belonging and connection.”
At a pub back in England, he mentioned to someone about the 48 pictures he had captured of the people of Tibet, while trekking across the region. Word reached the Editor of The Geographical Magazine. The February 1988 issue featured 20-year-old Nelson’s picture of a woman from Tibet on its cover, and several more within. That was the first. Several more covers and awards followed, as he championed the cause of tribal and indigenous people, documenting vanishing cultures and traditions across the world.
A Parallel Journey
Closer home, VML (then JWT) CCO Senthil Kumar was facing a different kind of challenge. Nike India, for whom his team had conceptualised ‘Parallel Journeys’, wanted to retain the iconic #BleedBlue theme conjured by the agency but did not have the budgets this time round to indulge in a production of the ‘Parallel Journeys’ kind. Coming ahead of the T20 World Cup, the brand did not have star cricketers to feature either.
Parallel Journeys, 2012
Thus was born the idea for the brand’s next campaign. Lacking the budget for an Abhinay Deo who directed the Parallel Journeys spot, Senthil was forced to take on that role as well. Though he had directed ads before, it was his first for Nike. It was also the world’s first film made entirely with still images – 1,440 of them coming together to tell one story of shared passion for the religion called cricket. The pictures were handpicked from over 2,25,000 crowd sourced moments from thousands of grounds across India. It stemmed from the brief of celebrating India’s “Cricket Crazy Youth’.
Make Every Yard Count, 2014
The film, which wowed global advertising festival juries, went on to win over 50 medals including seven at the Cannes Lions. It still features in the Global Nike Hall Of Fame in Portland, USA.
A one-minute film that used still images to garner global fame did not go unnoticed by photographer Nelson. He went to the Amsterdam office of JWT, asking to meet the director, Senthil Kumar. Bas Korsten, now Global CCO of VML, directed him to Senthil in India.
“When you tell good stories, it leads to better stories,” reflected Senthil, as he recounted Nelson’s life story and how he ended up working with him, during his talk on ‘Split Second Storytelling’ hosted by Ad Club Madras on 28th March 2025.
The collaboration led to another celebrated piece of work. Nelson’s life’s mission to celebrate indigenous cultures through photography, was brought to life by director Senthil Kumar and composer Dhruv Ghanekar. The trust had been earned thanks to the Nike film that made every festival count.
Blink. And they are gone. 2018
On Facebook (now Meta), a feature made the film stop playing when a viewer blinked. The sequencing of images was thought through – a human ends up blinking once every 10 seconds or so. So the film used highly bright and highly dark images every 10 seconds, punctuated for the blinking. It was not a campaign that you blinked and missed. People took notice. A longer version followed.
Save Our Sentinels, 2020
‘Work That Betters Benchmarks’
During the course of his talk as part of the Ad Talks series, Senthil noted that in the case of ‘Parallel Journeys’, the approach was to look at what was being done globally and try to create something that met the best there was on brand Nike. It had its share of popularity in the market and ended up winning awards, but not as many as Senthil and teams would have liked.
“There was no budget problem and we only had to focus on the idea. Yet, it fell short, because it looked like every other Nike film. Okay, it’s a great idea, but how is it different from Nike’s global work? Does it meet the global standards or does it better those benchmarks?” he introspected.
In contrast, the constraints for ‘Make Every Yard Count’ made the teams think differently, he noted. White there were no elaborate shoots, 108 photographers did go around clicking still pictures of grassroots cricket to a brief – bowlers right arm fast over the wicket, batsmen front foot hook, fielders collecting the ball and throwing and the keepers breaking the wicket. It took a young editor Priyank Prem Kumar three months locked up in a Bangalore room to arrive at the final cut.
At award shows like Cannes Lions, the team had to send a flip book to demonstrate that the film had been made with still pictures. It may be difficult to tell for the uninitiated.
Stories in Seconds
Nelson wasn’t the only one who wanted something on the lines of ‘Make Every Yard Count’. When Star Sports wanted to launch a Tamil channel, they gave the same film as the reference. How to make it different and culturally relevant was the challenge.
The agency chose the musical anthem route, with lyrics drawn from sports played across the state and utterances on the field.
“The musical narrative was a melting pot of sports and culture, documenting all the games children play in Tamil Nadu into a modern soundtrack for sports as the culture,” explained Senthil.
Star Sports Tamil | Solli Adi, Are You Ready? 2017
Keeping with the theme of the talk, the CCO took the audience through examples of advertising on different platforms with differing durations.
Faced with a Facebook brief of promoting storytelling in 10 seconds, the agency came up with #ThumbStoppers.
The intent was to underline that one can tell any story in 10 seconds.
“Can you play a one-seconder on loop?” was the thought that triggered a campaign driven by Gifs for Tata GlucoPlus. The campaign was branded #Energifs. What better way to convey non-stop energy?
Asked about the process of ideation and how one hones it, the advertising creative head said, “Artificial Intelligence is training a machine. Human Intelligence is training oneself. I guess it is about training oneself to think in a particular way.”
His Life’s Story
Senthil treasures the 2,000-page book of pictures that Nelson sent him to prepare for their first project together. What he treasures even more is the three-day storytelling session with Nelson in Amsterdam, where the photographer took him through the story of his own life. He wants Senthil to direct a film on his life’s story.
“I have his entire story. I can make the film someday. I haven’t yet found the courage, time or budget to make it. It’s a fascinating story. I cannot believe this man approached me to make his film. I don’t know how that happened,” he said.
It seems to have been a case of parallel journeys that were destined to meet.