Brandistics - India's First Sports Marketing Blog

The Waving Flag of FIFA WorldCup 2010

2010-07-05T16:59:00.000+05:30

Coca Cola has been a corporate partner to FIFA since 1978 and has now extended this partnership till 2022. It has been profitable brand association for the company and continues to be with the awesome global following for the FIFA WorldCup and other events organized by FIFA. But, brand building is just not advertising, in such partnerships its a massive involvement in all the campaigns that FIFA plans like encouraging young talent which are an equal responsibility of an associated brand, and majorly a top brand like Coca Cola.

Now,lets talk about the "OPEN HAPPINESS" campaign by CocaCola which captures the iconic moments in the Football WorldCup of players celebrating their goals,the moment when all supporters cheer and there is a sudden burst of emotions.This prominent TV commercial briefs more about the campaign

CAMPAIGN REVIEW

An excellent campaign that positions CocaCola as the drink for celebrations and targeting moment of celebrations in a WorldCup when we hear the commentator say - And Its a GOOAAALLLLLLL!!.The TVC is again a fantastic creation that targets the global markets potraying almost all the teams participating, and the popular music track - waving flag which sends across a motivating social message to all the young footballers that encourages young talent.
So to this complete package of global branding and perfect brand association Brandistics rates 9/10

South Africa 2010-Fifa Football World Cup Match Schedule Time Table - Week 2

2010-06-20T17:05:00.005+05:30

Here is the schedule of the matches being played from June 21 to June 26. These are Subject to Change and Brandistics have No Responsibility for changes.

June 21 - Monday
12:00am – Brazil - Côte dIvoire – Johannesburg - JSC
05:00pm – Portugal - Korea – Cape Town
07:30pm – Chile - Switzerland – Nelson Mandela Bay PE

June 22 - Tuesday
12.00am – Spain - Honduras – Johannesburg - JEP
05.00pm –Mexico - Uruguay – Rustenburg
07.30pm – France - South Africa – Mangaung - Bloemfontein

June 23 - Wednesday
12.00am – Nigeria - Korea R – Durban
12.00am – Greece - Argentina – Polokwane
07.30pm – Slovenia - England – Nelson Mandela Bay PE
07.30pm – USA - Algeria – Tshwane - Pretoria

June 24 - Thursday
12.00am – Ghana - Germany – Johannesburg - JSC
12.00am – Australia - Serbia –Nelspruit
07.30pm – Slovakia - Italy – Johannesburg - JEP
07.30pm – Paraguay - New Zealand - Polokwane

June 25 - Friday
12.00am – Denmark - Japan – Rustenburg
12.00am – Cameroon - Netherlands – Cape Town
07.30pm – Portugal - Brazil – Durban
07.30pm – Korea - Côte dIvoire – Nelspruit

June 26 - Saturday
12.00am – Chile - Spain – Tshwane - Pretoria
12.00am – Switzerland - Honduras – Mangaung - Bloemfontein

Stay Tuned.... We will be back with the next round schedule soon.....

FIFA WorldCup 2010 - The Marketing Game Begins !!

2010-06-15T15:02:00.005+05:30

FIFA WorldCup is the biggest global sporting event followed by millions across 200 countries, so probably the best brand to talk about in our Brand Of the Week segment. The sponsorships are hard faught for this mega event but, only a few get to eat the pie.
But, the bigger challenge than getting the sponsorship right is to be able to utillize it completely. In this context, Brandistics gives you the Big 5 rules of the game (marketing with FIFA WorldCup) that helps marketers/sponsers design the gameplan

1. Marketers get a huge field to play on i.e. the success of their campaign depends on how they ideate non-traditional promotions (other than traditional print, television etc..). The more innovatie and engaging campaign, the higher the brand recall achieved. So, it depends on the skills of the marketer if he is able to do the tricks with the ball and impress the audience.

2. Huge Target Market : The marketers get to capture all the segments as according to the top three most-cited TV viewing habits: "mostly watched with friends and family," - not only soccer crazy audience but also their pals get targeted
"watched even if my national team was not playing," - the non-playing nations get targeted
and "liked watching other players from other nations competing" - the national brand ambassadors are now global brand ambassadors for example, Indians like Cristiano Ronaldo rip through England defence to score a goal, Castrol the brand association of Ronaldo gets to target Indian market.

3. The goals are defined - According to the FIFA framework for sponsorship they are categorized under 3 levels:

4. Localization matters : Blending the local culture into your campaigns is important. This how you get more association to the bigger game, that is, when worldcup comes to Africa get all the celebration, dancing, noise into your campaigns.This gives an insight of how closely your brand is associated to FIFA WorldCup ,which has been an important consideration for audience to elevate the brand's image.

5. The final rule says follow the 4 rules stated above .period

FIFA 2010 Sponsorship - Importance to USA, Germany, India, China, Japan and South Korea

2010-06-13T10:54:00.001+05:30

FIFA 2010 is on, and Brandistics is trying its best to report on the World Cup, whether it comes to the schedule or the betting odds (see widget at the top). But considering that we are a sports marketing blog, my attention on FIFA 2010 has involved the sponsors to the FIFA 2010 World Cup, more than a lot of things.

Figure this:

FIFA Sponsorship can be broken down into FIFA event partners and international sponsors apart from the local sponsors. Considering that the local sponsors should be belonging to the African continent, we decided to find out which countries do the other sponsors belong to. It is a huge event after all, the returns on this investment for the companies, might as well make or break them.

FIFA Partner	Home Country
Adidas	Germany
Coca Cola	USA
Emirates	UAE
Hyundai Kia	South Korea
Sony	Japan
Visa	USA

FIFA WC Sponsor	Home Country
Budweiser	Germany
Castrol	UK
Continental	Germany
McDonald's	USA
MTN	South Africa
Mahindra Satyam	India (Yeah!)
Seara	Brazil
Yingli Solar	China

Now, you see what I meant with the title. USA has got 3 companies, Germany has got 3 companies, UAE, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, UK, South Korea, Japan have each 1 company. Certainly, FIFA World Cup 2010 is more important to these countries than the other ones like Argentina or Spain who are poised to fight hard this World Cup!

South Africa 2010-Fifa Football World Cup Match Schedule Time Table

2010-06-12T17:32:00.006+05:30

Looking at the immense popularity gained by Fifa World Cup 2010, we at Brandistics have thought to present our readers with the schedule of the matches on a weekly basis.

Here is the schedule of the matches being played from June 11 to June 20...

June 11 - Friday
07.30pm – South Africa Vs Mexico – Johannesburg (SC)

June 12 - Saturday
12.00am – Uruguay Vs France – Cape Townr
05.00pm – South Korea Vs Greece – Johannesburg (SC)
07.30pm – Argentina Vs Nigeria – Port Elizabeth (Ellis)

June 13 - Sunday
12.00am – England Vs USA – Rustenburg
05.00pm – Algeria Vs Slovenia – Polokwane
07.30pm – Serbia Vs Ghana – Pretoria

June 14 - Monday
12.00am – Germany Vs Australia – Durban
05.00pm – Netherlands Vs Denmark – Johannesburg (SC)
07.30pm – Japan Vs Cameroon – Bloemfontein

June 15 - Tuesday
12.00am – Italy Vs Paraguay – Cape Town
05.00pm – New Zealand Vs Slovakia – Rustenburg
07.30pm – Ivory Coast Vs Portugal – Port Elizabeth

June 16 - Wednesday
12.00am – Brazil Vs North Korea – Johannesburg (Ellis)
05.00pm – Honduras Vs Chile – Nelspruit
07.30pm – Spain Vs Switzerland – Durban

June 17 - Thursday
12.00am – South Africa Vs Uruguay – Pretoria
05.00pm – Argentina Vs South Korea – Johannesburg (SC)
07.30pm – Greece Vs Nigeria – Bloemfontein

June 18 - Friday
12.00am – France Vs Mexico – Polokwane
05.00pm – Germany Vs Serbia – Port Elizabeth
07.30pm – Slovenia Vs USA – Johannesburg (Ellis)

June 19 - Saturday
12.00am – England Vs Algeria – Cape Town
05.00pm – Netherlands Vs Japan – Durban
07.30pm – Ghana Vs Australia – Rustenburg

June 20 - Sunday
12.00am – Cameroon Vs Denmark – Pretoria
05.00pm – Slovakia Vs Paraguay – Bloemfontein
07.30pm – Italy Vs New Zealand – Nelspruit

Football in India

2010-06-09T20:13:00.020+05:30

The idea to write this post came into my mind when I was having a look at different groups of the World cup. I was really overwhelmed with a patriotic feeling and found myself wondering on the fact that, how is it possible that a country with population of over 1 Billion cannot produce 11 world class football player.

The primary reasons being:

The first thing which struck me was the lack of infrastructure in our country. I tried to compare the number of cricket grounds to the number of football grounds present in our country and believe me the ratio was as low as it could get.
Having left heartbroken from the government's side I turned towards the corporate India. I found out that the craze for football is immense in the corporate world. The Big Cats have already selected their sides and are backing them, but I was not able to find any answer as to why not even a single company is coming forward to sponsor our Indian Football team. I am not against Hockey or our Indian Hockey team but even they have got a loyal sponsor in form of Sahara, no matter how they perform.
Then I turned towards the common man or the mango people or the aam aadmi of India and found that the following which cricket has in India is far more than that of football, but somehow I was not able to find good enough reasons to blame them because they buy what they see and at present the visibility of football in India is as low as it can get in a country like India.
The improper functioning of the organization handling football in India is also a factor for such a pathetic condition of a beautiful game like football in our country. Consider the recent case of the Indian coach Bob Houghton, the organization did not had money to pay for the hike in salary requested by him.

But saying that Fifa will never be able to make into India and draw a significant amount of audience towards it will be totally wrong. Infact it has already started to form a grip on the Indian markets. Many Indian companies are launching their products in Fifa World cup instead of launching it long back in IPL season 3. The reason being that Fifa provides a global audience as against IPL.

Now I will be listing some of the factors which will play a significant role in laying a strong foundation for football in India. Who knows once we get a good enough fan base in our country we might be able to get a team who can qualify for the world cup.

20-20 cricket format has changed the preference of people to the shorter version of different games. Football is one such game which is getting an advantage due to this.
Rise of sports marketing in India with the advent of large scale events like IPL. Who knows in future a major corporate house bids for the sponsorship of our football team. That day will change the way football is treated by the Indian masses.
The Youth. Yes I am talking about you, me and the others who are in their late teens or early twenties. I have seen an immense following for football in these people. And I can bet you on this that they will act as a major driver for the upcoming of football in India. That time is not far when India will be having its own Ronney, Ronaldo and Messi.

There is hardly any reason as to why football will remain out of our focus for long. The driving factors are far more than the restraints and challenges faced by it. So lets wait and watch....

"With a little less than 36 hrs for the World cup to kick off, the excitement level in the Fifa fans is really worth seeing. I along with my team members at Brandistics will be supporting this mega event, with a wish in our hearts to see the Indian Flag flying high in the Fifa World Cup 2014."

"May the Best Team Wins" - (our apologies to all the die hard fans of different teams)

Stay tuned as Brandistics takes on the Fifa World Cup 2010...

Brand Ronaldo - CR9

2010-06-07T20:53:00.003+05:30

CR9 is the trademark for brand Cristiano Ronaldo, an aggressive,talented,furious young footballer from Portugal who rose to be a 94 million euro ~~player~~ brand (as at brandistics we treat players as brands).A brand with such exuberant soccer skills and popularity across the world that he gained mainly with his association to world's best football clubs, an opportunity that few football talents achieve made him the most valuable player in the club history. This was exactly the thought put behind the unprecedented purchase done by Real President Florentino Perez ,his major objective was to increase the club's revenue and its brand value which could only be done by buying in the best of the existing brands and surely Ronaldo was one.

As a result, Real Madrid jumped up to no.2 from no.5 on the media brand list of advertisers (research done by University of Navarra's Economics, Sport and Intangibles Research Group who assigned 83 pts to Real Madrid based on their analysis, leading the list was Barcelona FC with 96.6 pts)and Real Madrid had taken over from Barcelona and Manchester United in some key markets, especially in South America, where the English club was no longer the leader in any country.Also,The sale of Ronaldo to Real had contributed to United losing their position of dominance in 13 out of 21 countries in which they were previously number one, including the United States, China, Brazil and Portugal.

The CR9 label has been created by Real Madrid for the promotional activities of the club as they position their brand asset in promotions pertaining aggression, youth , success, skills, and the hero who is now a soccer icon for a lot of markets around the world. This helps brands like Nike, Castrol and Pepe Jeans to position their products with this brand personality. Apart, from being a fierce footballer he is also very talked about amongst the girls so that helps brands like Emporio Armani and Clear Shampoo to position their products for the young machos. This has contributed to Real Madrid being regarded as the most profitable short term success in the media industry is and a valuable proposition to associate their brands to. Now,what else lies in the box will be revealed in the FIFA World Cup 2010 as it is a great opportunity for marketers to promote their products in the Portuguese markets, target the Portugal supporters worldwide and obviously the player's huge fan following.

And maybe this was the point in time from where it all begin.

"After we played Sporting last week the lads in the dressing room talked about him constantly, and on the plane back from the game they urged me to sign him. That's how highly they rated him!"
-Sir Alex Ferguson on C. Ronaldo

Athlete Endorsements and Effectiveness - What makes it?!

2010-06-05T11:40:00.000+05:30

Both Ankit Chhabra and Sankalp Kohli, my partners in crime @Brandistics, had recently made a post on Brand Sachin. You must have read them, or if you have not then do that my clicking on their names. For once you read their posts, a few questions that beg to be asked comes to your mind.

Is Brand Sachin one of its kind? Can Athlete Endorsements and the analysis behind a Sachin Tendulkar be extended to other athlete endorsements?

To answer the first question, you could have done that yourselves. Of course, Sachin is not one of his kind in this respect. All over the world, you could have had various athlete endorsers that have lent their celebrity status to a brand, that may or not be related to their sport. You have had footballers advertising Gatorade, an energy drink, and you have had Maria Sharapova endorsing a Power Shot. So, Sachin is definitely not one of this kind who has managed to advertise a Aviva Life Insurance in spite of the fact, that Sachin as a great sportsman has probably never really worried about his future income.

The answer to the second question is what grabs my attention the most. If Sachin is not one of his kind, and there are numerous other examples, than it allows to form a hypothesis that Brand Sachin could be extended to other athlete endorsements as well.

And so I decided to do some research. This is what I found out.

Sachin can be classified as a Multi Dimensional Endorser. Not only can Sachin advertise the products and services that are related to his sport, he can as effectively market the products that are seemingly not even remotely attached to his cricket. So what makes this effectiveness?

The fact is that for the Indian audiences Sachin is both, Attractive (some regard him as the same 16 year old cute kid) and Expert (well, he has been on the international cricket scene for 20 years straight) and research has proved that both this attractiveness and expertise is what is effective in Athlete Endorsements. An attractive athlete grabs the audience attention and his expertise helps them convince that the master must be right.

Thus, the multiple dimensions that make Sachin a multi dimensional endorser can be broken down as follows:

Trustworthiness
Expertise
Physical attractiveness
Familiarity
Likeability

Of course, they will never play an equal role in the case of all celebrities. For the role these dimensions play, you will have to come back to Brandistics. Till then...

Brand Sachin Tendulkar - I

2010-06-01T22:18:00.010+05:30

We have spoken about how big brand sachin is in the world of sports marketing. There have been some remarkable brand associations with brand Sachin for the last 20 years of his career.We will talk about some of them in our coming posts for this week, and understanding the marketer's mindset and the content they produce to utilize this association to its full potential.

PEPSI

A cola brand is sold on the basis of impulse buying by the customer,which requires high brand recall.Now,what a global brand like Pepsi Co does is to optimize this brand recall by associating theor brands with some big stars around the world. In India, a cricket crazy nation Sachin Tendulkar is the best brand to associate with inorder to earn high brand recall.So, what did Pepsi do ; lets take you back to the famous worldcup 2003 campaign by Pepsi - "iski to gai" the perfect placement of famous Sachin-Warne rivalry that earned them huge revenues and great brand recall.

MRF

Yes, a tyre manufacturer that should position themselves with a F1 driver, chose brand Sachin. Why?? A product like tyre is reflected by its quality, durability and performance which are all synonymous with only one sportperson in the country who has consistently performed (performance) for years(durability) and is a genius(quality) at what he does. So, a perfect association that continued for long till last year, when the Genius MRF bat went out of sight of the cricket fans and got replaced with Adidas that promotes ST logo of UNEP (United Nations Environment Program)

AVIVA Life Insurance

This association in my perception is the best promotional campaign.Why ?? because by this campaign the marketers were able to give an insight of Sachin's personal life and how he is also the common parent who cares about his son's future and plans for his well being. A perfect depiction of Dad-son bonding in the content and how AVIVA insurance helps you plan your son's future. If Sachin does the planning even yo need do it and what better than AVIVA.

Sach(in) Ka Saamna

2010-05-30T14:16:00.062+05:30

I still remember the first cricket bat bought by me was a bat having a MRF logo on it. Any guesses as to why I went for tht bat and not any other bat..... The reason is that at that time SACHIN used to play with MRF bat. This is one such example which shows how blindly we Indians follow Sachin, I can quote hundreds of other examples which will prove the power of Brand Sachin and the day Sachin scored 200 in an ODI he got the status of GOD by us and brand Sachin became an undisputed champion.

So the question arises that how can one value a brand like Sachin??? Well in an interview Sachin himself mentioned that he should be valued in runs and not in rupees, thus setting up a perfect example of the fact that he is true to his profession. Because the more the runs scored by him the more space will be acquired by him in the hearts of people. Big brands like Adidas started with some small endorsements with him (during the earlier stages of Sachin's career) and have move on to create private labels with him. This evolution of his brand association in a way reflects the role played by him in the Indian team.

The list here mentions various record deals associated with Sachin.

In order to give a more appropriate view of the power of brand Sachin we would like to present you with the stats of Share of Voice (SOV) for some of the Indian players (Share of voice is the percentage of advertising of one brand in a particular category as compared to other brands in the same category).

Most of us will be startled to know that the SOV for the brand Sachin gone below 30% just once or twice in his whole career (Its just AWSUM, a boon for the companies who are associated with this brand). Tendulkar very rarely gets associated with a negative brand, instead he always gets associated with niche products and premium brands an that is the reason why he is not above Dhoni.

According to us Brand Sachin will become even more powerful in the coming days the reason being current form of Sachin and coming up of Cricket World Cup.

With this we will end this post. We will soon be coming out with more such analysis for our readers.
So Stay tuned......

Performance and Popularity may not go hand in hand

2010-05-30T11:25:00.000+05:30

Now, popularity in IPL 2010 is guaranteed. You know that, or you should! What I am here to tell you, that it will be guaranteed even if the teams never perform. Why am I saying this? Because I have empirical proof for this.

The above table that you can see is the points table that was created at the end of the league stage of IPL 2010, after the coverage of IPL 2010 at All Padded Up.

Now, look at the following table:

This table was created at All Padded Up through a poll, a poll in which 973 votes were cast for the most favoured team as determined by the readers of All Padded Up. The readers were allowed more than one vote in the poll. This was done so that the choice of the readers, and the popularity of the teams is not confined. This is the reason that the % figures add more than 100%.

The poll was conducted during the league stage of IPL 2010. Thus, the two tables were being created at the same time.

Thus, while the first table was a measure of performance of teams in IPL 2010, the second table is a measure of popularity.

The following points are something that we note:

Kolkata Knight Riders is the most popular team, inspite of the fact that they were placed 6th in the performance team. In fact, the votes cast for KKR (68%) is higher than the votes cast for all the four top teams combined (59% combined).
Delhi Dare Devils (Placed 5th in Performance table) has got more votes, that is more popular that 3 of the four teams that made to the semi finals of IPL 2010. Only Mumbai Indians have got more votes, among the top 4 teams.
Mumbai Indians, which were the runners up in IPL 2010, must have lost the IPL 2010, but they were clear winners in terms of popularity beating the winners (34% as against 10%)
Kings XI Punjab show that performance still matters. They are the last team in the points table, and have also received only 2% votes. That is because their performance was horrible right at the start of IPL 2010.

Thus, we come to the conclusion that while popularity is not confined to performance of the teams, performance of the teams does act as a parameter.

We are in the process of determining our own methodology of rating teams and brands. Wait for it!

Brand of the Week - Season II

2010-05-26T20:17:00.006+05:30

Brandistics is back with a bang - we had an exciting reporting of marketing in IPL season #3. And, now we have new segment of posts highlighting the some of the biggest brands in the world of sports. Yes, indeed they are legendary players of their games but at the same time have been legends for the marketers across the world.

In these posts we will take up each of these players (brands) weekly and update you about how these players developed as a brand and how the big brands (companies) developed brand associations with these legends creating some historic campaigns in the world of advertising and promotions. These posts will also throw light on the various markets these brand associations target on and how they are able to convert it into success. And, then we leave it on our readers to decide weather these players are Brand Ambassadors or Brands themselves !!

So, we start the journey with Brand of the week - Season II exclusively only on Brandistics.

IPL: A Black Swan Event

2010-04-30T21:05:00.000+05:30

Just a thought……Does IPL come under the umbrella of Black Swan Events? or Is it a scripted tournament, if yes than I must say it is better than even most of our Bollywood movies (to avoid any controversies I will not be talking about the latter here). Well according to me it is a Black Swan event the reason being:

IPL 1 Rajasthan Royals won the trophy. (At no point in time one could have said that they will emerge as winner)

Then in IPL 2 last year’s toppers came down and last year’s bottom two teams were put in the final.

The sudden shift of IPL from India to SA in season 2 (but everything was managed in such a way that it felt like they knew it was going to happen…U cannot make an event of such a big scale happen in about a few weeks time).

In IPL 3 when everything was going in favour of IPL, it was struck by a controversy (I think we all are well aware about it THE LALIT MODI CASE). Now the question in front of us is that, will IPL still enjoy the massive support it had managed to get in past 2 years?

And last but not the least: Will Lalit Modi regain his lost position? We here at Brandistics support Mr. Lalit Modi and hope to see him back in action. Because according to us: If IPL is ‘Manoranjan ka baap’ then Mr Modi is ‘IPL ka baap’. Well whatever the result may be we think it will again be a random one, which will come as a blow to us.

We have already seen in our previous posts that IPL stands way ahead among all the other sporting events. Now let us see how this greatness of IPL has lead to growth of various things with respect to India. They are:

Emergence of Brand India (As it is promoting itself as a game played by the Indian mass. Ad campaigns like Saare Jahan se Achcha are helping it to achieve the milestone)

Emergence of a business within cricket, thus making it a very lucrative option for Indian business houses who are ready to invest in sports.

At the game level, it has provided the young talented players of India, a stage to showcase their talent (I think this is the main reason why most of us are seeing cricket as a career).

It has promoted cricket as a commodity rather than a brand. This has brought down the emotional attachment of people with the game as a whole, but it is exploiting there emotion by targeting different states/parts of India by forming different teams representing different parts of India.

It has lead to the emergence of cricket as a competitor to football and basketball.

With this we will end this post. Stay tuned.....

Lalit Modi - Man behind the Brand IPL

2010-04-24T20:15:00.000+05:30

Well everyone remembers the climax scene of the movie GURU ,where the witty businessman gets away with all charges just by the dialogues and the thought that whatever this man is doing is for the betterment of the country as a whole. But, this is no real life. Not in the case of, Mr. Lalit Modi the man who idealized the brand IPL and has worked diligently for 5 years now to make it to the list of most innovative global brands.

Lalit Modi, a great visionary who rose from the backdrop of his bad college days, to be a part of around 5 businesses that also include the mega-brand IPL has been asked to clear his image of all charges in the governing council meeting of the BCCI. This is what politics does to some bright careers in business. Personally, (being a bit positive and with all respect that I have for the brilliant mind in Lalit Modi) I think that though the man is minting money, so are the other business houses in India - now majorly because he went against the government to hold IPL out of India the last season in South Africa, does not allow everyone to fire all guns at him. He surely is involved in the charges raised on him, but I would list some brilliance of the man that cannot be overshadowed by the criticism he receives.

The vision to take IPL global through international partnerships with Google-Youtube.
His strategy to keep the IPL alive even after the season by organizing international off season matches to keep the audience engaged and boost the brand recall of IPL.
The inspiration that he imbibed in every youngster in India who dreams to be the next generation Sachin Tendulkar,Kapil Dev or a Saurav Ganguly. He provided the platform for players like Asnodkar, R. Khan who could not even dream of earning such huge sums from their cricketing abilities. IPL inspired them to believe in themselves and put in their hard work so that they get the chance to play for their nation and this dream has been realized by players like Manpreet Gony, Murali Vijay, Ravinder Jadeja who have got their bright chances.
Lalit Modi provided us the ultimate product mix of Cricket + Bollywood which has no other match in terms of entertainment value delivered.
And, ultimately to take on the other commercial sport events of the west like the American Baseball , the English Premier League or may be other soccer leagues in the Europe. As, the growth rate of IPL in the sports industry clearly poses a major threat to these leagues in the coming future. So, he is making India shine on the world map as ultimately it is the INDIAN premier league and an INDIAN running it successfully for the last year( which has now been acknowledged by all management thinkers worldwide).

Yes, the ethics are necessary in the business you do - but such an attitude by the government raises questions on the sustainability of such brilliant innovations. The kind of environment that has now been created by the government with their "media partners" surely leads to degradation of the brand and the vision of the man seems to be all dark.

To end up probably my last post of this IPL season, I would quote Sachin on his 37th birthday. Probably, the only hope who will save this commercialization of cricket through hi true cricketing skills.
Sachin in a recent interview said -

"At the end of the day the competitiveness on the field is what the audience want to see, what happens off the field doesn't effect the cricket on the field and Indian cricket is strong enough to cross all these hurdles".

It is also true that no such controversies can ever stop an IPL fan to watch the master or any of their favorite player play on the field.

3 M’s of IPL

2010-04-23T01:26:00.000+05:30

If you want to rate a brand, you do it on the basis of the value it fetches. What do you think is the brand value of IPL.... No idea... So let me put this like this... The recent bidding values for the new teams (Pune and Kochi) touched $700 million mark, which was almost at par with the one whole Manchester Untied team. Apart from it, IPL also enjoys a TV rating which constantly extends 4. No doubt IPL has arrived, and it is posing a threat on NBA and NFL.

According to us, the main reason for the success of IPL is the 3 M’s which it follows. A detailed description about them is given below:

Match Format:

IPL offers its audience a short and enjoying 20 over format cricket popularly known as T20. This formula of Modi, of coupling cricket with drama, emotion and above all bollywood (and other celebrities) has made it more of a family affair thus taking away the TRP’s of the family Saas/Bahu serials. The fact that this format fits into the Indian style of living also helps it to gain the viewership.

Money:

The Auctioning of players, the selling of Team ownerships, selling of tickets, Sponsorships price, broadcasting rights everything involves money. And why not IPL is here to make money. This factor has also contributed in adding a huge amount of fan following to it. (I recently got a goodie bag from KKR, just because I clicked on some of their adds and answered some stupid questions... Ppl or rather sponsors are throwing out money in IPL, so someone has to be there to catch it). This act of giving gifts to the audiences is really helping it grow exponentially (and specially in a country like India where people are crazy about the gifts).

Marketing: IPL is using every kind of marketing strategy from traditional medium to latest social media tactics. You name it and they have it. So let’s try to list some of them:

(Note: we are specifically dealing with the latest marketing activities adopted by them)

The collaboration with Youtube to stream the videos

Coming out with an official ipl website

Wikipedia telling the people about IPL

IPL coming out with face book fan page for its viewers.

IPL YouTube Social Media Promotion Banner Ads

IPL Cricket Fan Club Website and blogs like All Padded Up

Orkut has come out with a doodle for IPL

All the above mentioned promotional schemes followed by IPL are online in nature. We covered this here so as to lay a backgound for Viral Marketing postwhich will be soon following this post. So stay tuned.

Brand Deccan Chargers - Positioning

2010-04-22T17:57:00.000+05:30

The last time we talked about Positioning of a brand, it was for the KKR brand. It was the team that had won the wooden spoon in IPL 2009 tournament and still continues to be a big brand. But this line of thought brought us to another big brand, that of DC or Deccan Chargers who have the dubious distinction of paving the way for KKR by winning the wooden spoon in IPL 2008.

But the way they position themselves is a lot different.

They do not have a glamorous owner and they are not associated with a glamorous brand ambassador. Not surprisingly, their brand valuation has been lower than most other teams.

In the first IPL, DC were the star studded, being positioned as such, considering it made the costly purchase in Andrew Symonds and boasted of the presence of hard hitters in Gibbs, Afridi and Gilchrist apart from Symonds. In the initial years, the brand was more focussed on individual players and not the team.

Deccan Chargers' latest ads, on the other hand, be it McDowells or Idea, show it as a team of friends who play together and win together. In the parlance of brand positioning, it tells us the following three things:

Deccan Chargers win in IPL 2009 did not do much for its individual players, but created a distinct team identity.
There is no single player in the team that can position the team brand on its own.
It is the only brand which has got foreign players which act as better brand ambassadors than their Indian counterparts. However, these foreign players can never carry an ad alone in the Indian waters.

We believe that Deccan Chargers have a lot of work to do with regards to their brand, and not just on the field. May be, the next time we sit down to evaluate them, they will have worked harder as a team and make a turnaround like they did from IPL 2008 to IPL 2009.

Deccan Chargers - The Brand for The Week

2010-04-20T18:02:00.000+05:30

We started with the brand leader in IPL- Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and now we discuss the brands relatively lower in the valuation table

The Deccan Chargers (Hyderabad Team)

The DC was regarded the best team on paper after the first auctions, attracting a lot more followers with a legendary lot of international hitters - Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Symonds, and others. But, gave a lackluster performance in the first season, which failed not only the cricket strategies but also the branding strategies.

The team Deccan Chargers, in the first season was placed as a performance oriented team with the best team players that were the major brand equity of the team. A blistering hitting by these top of the league hitters was what got people excited about the brand. At the same time the owners Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd are not a well known brand by themselves.This all failed and thus called for a major marketing step up by the brand. The facts say that :-

Owners:	Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd.
Franchisee Fee:	US $107.01 mn
Sponsorships and Brand Associations	Idea,Puma,Odyssey,Kingfisher,McDowell's,Pepsi,92.7 FM
Income in Sponsorships (2008 and 2009)	Rs. 70 crore.
Income in Central Pool	Rs. 111.5 crore
Eyeball Factor	The foreign hitters - Gilly,Symonds,Gibbs,Afridi
Team Logo

Source : livemint.com

Now, in the last 2 seasons still the brand has concentrated more on performance, with no major steps in adding to their brand value. There have been no glamour, no controversies and not much of marketing tools applied by the owners - probably the team's performance spoke for it in the last season by winning the IPL and in IPL-3 they rocketed to semis with consecutive wins.So, wonder what the Deccan Chargers' vision to earn profits because its just not cricket, afterall its sports marketing and we at brandistics tell you this week ,how the Deccan Chargers have still developed as a brand.

Positioning IPL

2010-04-19T23:11:00.000+05:30

Ok..... let me start this post with a question....What is the first thing which comes to your mind when an advertisement says: “We’re number two; we try harder”? Yes we think of only one company that is AVIS. This advertising campaign made us forget all about the number 1 company in that field that is Hertz, and all our focus shifted to Avis which positioned itself as a number 2 and promised to work harder so as to satisfy us.

Positioning has now become a process by which marketers try to create a distinct image in the minds of the prospect for its product, brand or organization. We will not be wrong if we say that Positioning is a game which companies play in the today’s me-too market place. Before the launch of IPL the only thing which would have been in the mind of Mr. Modi would have been that how to position this event in the mind of people of India.

So in 2008 Max came up with a wonderful concept in the form of an advertisement which placed IPL as “Manoranjan Ka Baap”. The idea here was to show that the IPL was better than anything and everything which was in existence at that time. It was a pure source of entertainment for the audience and had everything in it drama, action, emotion etc. All in all it was like a 3 hr blockbuster movie which could get audience bounded to their seats.
So looking at the facts mentioned above I would like to give this advertisement a mighty 8 out of 10. Because it left no stones unturned to seek the attention of the audiences and made the event a true hit.

Then in 2009 Max came up with a 60 second commercial which was a series of shots which showed different people from all over the country doing the same thing at the same time. In the first shot we saw, many people are sitting in a park, reading the newspaper and turning the pages of it at the same time. In the second shot cooks in a restaurant twirl rotis in the air at the same time. In the third shot, a class room is full of kids and all ask for permission to go to the washroom at the same time. Then we see people at Mumbai’s VT station are hailing a taxi at the same time. Then a final voice is heard which says – ‘Ek desh ek junoon, DLF IPL sirf MAX par’. This advertisement was a true classic because this created a binding between the people of India and IPL, which was being projected as an Indian entertainment event (the significance of this advertisement also increases because this was the year when the venue of IPL was shifted to SA due to security concerns, so coming up with such a concept of promoting an event as a nations event was wonderful).
I would like to give this advertisement 9 out of 10 because this was successful in holding the Indian audience’s attention even though the event was shifted to South Africa in a limited span of time. And hadn’t this commercial been successful the whole existence of IPL could have been under a major threat because of a simple fact no audience means no sponsors.

Then finally we come to this year’s IPL which is again back with an interesting commercial which says – “Saare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan Humara” which shows captains of different teams standing in a stadium.
This ad campaign acted as a medium to get IPL back to India and position it in the mind of Indian audience as an event which is truly Indian in nature. The background music of the ad further exploited the patriotism of Indian population. So I would like to give this ad campaign a 8 out of 10 because of the wonderful concept of clubbing an ad with the nations tune of “Sare Jahan Se Achcha”.

With this we end this post of how did IPL positioned itself amongst the Indian mass. Stay tuned....

Innovative IPL

2010-04-18T12:51:00.000+05:30

Any guesses as to what is the biggest mantra for this mind-boggling success of IPL is..... Well according to us it is....”Jo Dikhta Hai Wo Bikta Hai “. It is well said that “Nothing succeeds like SUCCESS!” No matter where (we are talking about the change of venues from India to SA), no matter rain or shine (difficulties faced in SA) the IPL has been a tournament to watch. The major factor contributing in the success of this tournament is that it has been successful in exploiting the EMOTIONS of us the INDIANS (For whom Sachin is no less than a GOD and cricket is a religion).

Strategy, Marketing, Advertising..... You name it and IPL has it for you! With this post we will be analysing the strategy being followed by IPL so as to promote the entities related to it and the event itself.

When it comes to strategies, a company can follow one of the two ways:

Ø To do something innovative which gives them the first movers advantage (Such companies are visionary in nature and comes up with the things which are totally new to the world, we will not be wrong if we call such companies to be CRAZY)

Ø To blindly follow a strategy which is already tried and tested but others present in the industry. (Companies following such strategies are traditional in nature and are adamant to any kind of change)

IPL according to us is following an innovative strategy wherein the different entities involved in it (broadcasters, team franchises etc) are very cleverly selling off their rights and other publicity instruments to the sponsors so as to get a greater return on their investment (and why not you get such an opportunity once in a blue moon). Our previous article Related Rights of Broadcasters – IPL threw some light on how the broadcasters are selling of their rights to gain maximum profits. Teams like Kolkatta Knight Riders are becoming the first choice of the sponsors because endorsing such a team provides them with two of the biggest celebrities of India: The Dada of Bengal and The undisputed King of the Bollywood at the price of one brand in the form of Knight Riders.

In order to understand the attractiveness of IPL from the sponsor’s point of view or rather the people who are pumping in money in it let us do a SWOT analysis of IPL.

To end with we can say that IPL and innovation are going hand in hand at present. New and new strategies are being employed by the different entities involved in it so as to get more and more return on their investment.

Related Rights of Broadcasters - IPL

2010-04-16T19:21:00.000+05:30

Since the time IPL has started everyone is benefitting from it. The team franchises, team squad, team members, boards governing the event, franchise owners, broadcasters etc. This post will be more inclined towards the profits which are being made by the broadcasters and the related rights which they posses on the broadcasting of an event (which in our case is IPL). Coming as a surprise to many of us IPL became the first sporting event to be broadcasted by the popular video sharing website Youtube. As per the UK-based brand consultancy, Brand Finance Indian Premier League’s brand value is estimated to be around $4.13 billion (which comes out to be Rs. 18,000 crore) in 2010. If we rate IPL on the basis of team salaries then it takes away the second slot, next only to NBA league.

Now let us have a look at this Mecca of Marketers from the broadcaster’s point of view. The rights of the broadcaster are very important in relation to the sports program. These rights provide them with the exclusive license to broadcast the sporting event of which the rights have been assigned to them, thus making the overall offer of providing a large sum of money in advance to get the related rights of the event look attractive and lucrative.

For IPL the global broadcasting rights were given to a consortium of India’s Sony Entertainment Television network and Singapore based World Sport Group. The duration of this deal was 10 years and its cost was $1.026 billion. Later due to a dispute between the Sony/WSG and IPL the price of the deal was raised almost by two times to Rs 8,200 crore for duration of 9 years. But this was not the end of the road for Sony/WSG, they further resold their broadcasting rights to other companies thus getting in some margins for themselves. They kept broadcasting rights of India with them (because of the reason well known to all). Below is the summary of broadcasting rights around the world.

WINNING BIDDER	REGIONAL BROADCAST RIGHTS
Sony/World Sport Group	India
ONE HD	Australia
Spy Network Television	New Zealand
GEO Super	Pakistan
SportsMax	Caribbean
ITV	UK
Astro	Malaysia
PCCW	Hong Kong
Star Hub	Singapore

IPL as a tournament has been very creative in giving its broadcasting rights. In no time companies will be coming up with the new concepts of 5 minute delayed rights, 10 minute delayed rights etc. Already such an instance has happened in UK. Where ITV holds the right of broadcasting both on TV and on the internet and Youtube also is broadcastin but with a 5 minute delay.

So our recommendations to all the marketers will be that they must staytuned to this mega event of IPL as it introduces new concepts of promoting as event as a brand.

Brand Kolkata Knight Riders - Sponsorships

2010-04-13T21:11:00.000+05:30

What is it about Kolkata Knight Riders, that despite the fact that the team has performed poorly in both the seasons, it has been able to garner sponsors, and a lot of them at that, at will?

What I mean here is that any corporate player (and these sponsors, all of them, are just corporate players at the end of the day) would wish to get associated with a brand that is a winner in its field. It is a basic rule which we call the "Implication by Association Rule (IBA)". This attitude of the corporate to get attached to a winning team is to send out a message to its audience that the corporate is a winning outfit as well.

But KKR has not been that, at least not in the past. So, what is it that gets corporate players, all market leaders in their own way, to sponsor a team that is not a leader in its field?

The answer lies in the table of this post. You remember the table of facts, don't you?!

Couldn't find it? Well, let me spell it for you then.

The answer is the first eyeball factor, given in the table. The answer is Shah Rukh Khan. No, IBA does not fail in the case of KKR, either. However, in the case of KKR, IBA is not signified by the association with the team, but with the owner of the team, who is a leader in his field of entertainment.

You don't agree with us? Figure this:

Nokia, Belmonte, Tag Heuer were associated with Shah Rukh Khan before KKR existed. Star Plus had an association with SRK from the KBC 3 times. Reebok got product placed in My Name is Khan (MNIK), a Hindi film released by Fox worldwide, as it got associated with SRK. Sprite, XXX and Lux Hosiery feature SRK in its advertisements and simply because they are associated with KKR. SRK needs to make an appearance on the advertisements to promote his own investment in the team of KKR.

Yes, the team has got a load of sponsors. But aren't these players really getting associated with Shah Rukh Khan and that is about it?! You tell us.

Ankit Chabbra talks about Positioning of KKR brand in another post. Find out how KKR have positioned themselves.

Brand Kolkata Knight Riders - Positioning

2010-04-13T00:09:00.000+05:30

Well, the team of the week requires an extension to another week folks !! .. just couldn't post the last week a hectic one for both of us.

So, it is KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders) an excellent brand nurtured by high face values of ShahRukh Khan ,Juhi Chawla and bollywood star power. Plus, the cricket crazy( or say "DADA" crazy) Kolkata crowd,one of the best cricketing grounds in India - The Eden Gardens and yes a successful brand positioning.

Brand Positioning, is what I would emphasize in this post.

The team KKR is positioned to be the "People's Army" - an army of soldiers with their king as the "Badshah of Bollywood" and their commander as the "dada of Kolkata"
The Armour designed jersey of the team further positions it right as an army.
The battleground of EDEN GARDENS.

This is exactly how the company want to position the brand, but it is important to know how to position it the way you want; so let's put up some efforts of SRK through these 3 IPL seasons

It all started with the 'Dubbing the Knight' ceremony ( an ancient ritual in which the knighthood was presented to a soldier by gifting him a sword) when all the players of the KKR team were presented the gold plated Knight helmets as was done in ancient days by the kings to their knights.

Next, the team song "kerbo,lodbo,jeetbo re" , the video and the lyrics both inspiring the army to victory !!

Finally, the arena of battle - EDEN GARDENS ,a well decorated ground with iron grills at the boundary as it used to be in the ancient arena.Then, the king inviting his friends and foes to view the battle - his bollywood star power.
All have positioned it right as the people's army - the bengali army - KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS.

Kolkata Knight Riders - The Brand for The Week

2010-04-06T13:17:00.000+05:30

For those who are reading Brandistics would know, that Brandistics is the first Indian blog to treat players as brands, and teams as mother brands. Indian Premier League, by that analogy, would probably then become the grandfather brand of them all.

Yes, IPL is a huge brand name today, and Ankit Chabbra has told you that it is so, because it is the 22nd most innovative company in the world today. This company gives us some awesome entertainment, some brilliant cricket, a lot of glamour, and stars that become so, almost overnight.

But if there is something that IPL gives us, apart from all of this, that makes the marketers very excited is the 8 established brands other than itself that IPL brings along. Yes, I am talking about the already established 8 teams, which would soon be joined by 2 more (Pune and Kochi) from IPL 2011.

For the sake of KISS (Keep it short and simple), Brandistics here will be taking one brand a week, and talk about it from all perspectives. Of course, if there is a lot more that we wish to discuss about that particular brand, we could extend that brand to the next week too.

So, the Brand for the Week is:

Kolkata Knight Riders

The team hasn't had the best of runs in IPL 2008 and IPL 2009, and while the performance has been better in IPL 2010, it is certainly not enough for the side to be counted as one of the favorites.

But the side definitely is a favorite among the public, which makes it a favorite for the marketers. We know IPL is a Mecca for Marketers, and KKR is one of those most desired seats.

So, this week, we would be talking about what makes KKR such a strong brand, in spite (or because of, as they case might turn out to be) of poor performances on the field.

But before we get down to any of that, let us find out a few facts about the team.

Owners:	Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt. Ltd
Franchisee Fee:	US $75.09 mn
Sponsorships and Brand Associations	Nokia, Belmonte, Star Plus, Gitanjali Jewellers, Sprite, Boomer, Reebok, Bilt, Tag Heuer, PlanetM, Next, XXX Energy Drink, Lux Hosiery
Income in Sponsorships (2008 and 2009)	Rs. 125 crore.
Income in Central Pool	Rs. 111 crore
Eyeball Factor	Shah Rukh Khan (Co-owner of the team) Sourav Ganguly (Captain for IPL 2008 and IPL 2010)
Team Logo

Data Courtesy: Live Mint

The facts are out of the way, our opinions will now hit you. Wait for our opinions and come back for the same. Till then....

IPL: Mecca for Marketers

2010-04-04T12:15:00.000+05:30

Mecca is the holy pilgrimage for Muslims, where once a year, the Hajj, the greater pilgrimage, takes place in Mecca and nearby sites. During the Hajj, three million people of all races worship in unison.

So, I am right in stating a cricket extravaganza, held once a year in the holy country of cricket INDIA; that engages millions of followers of their cricketing gods – a Mecca for marketers. Where else, will you find such an engaging audience and viewership to display your products.

I have been talking about IPL boosting the internet audience so a fantastic potential to get viewership on social networking sites, sports blogs and the sports websites. Next, it was the television media where the ad agencies are trying hard to gain the primetime slots on high TVR IPL matches that are beating the viewership of GEC (general entertainment channels like Star Plus , Colors etc..)

[In Television media the ad agencies usually estimate the high TVR (TV Rating) programmes and book their slots so IPL being a high rated TV show is always on their cards] .

But, how do they do that? Is something we need to learn and understand in the subsequent posts.

IPL hits the box office hard !!

2010-04-01T00:12:00.001+05:30

Yes, this is what we have been hearing since IPL started 3 years ago.

But, on the other side of the coin actors are earning huge with appearances at IPL matches and the movie theaters earning high with match telecasts. Hence, the lone suffering parties left out are the production houses (barring Red Chillies who opted the idea to co-exist )

We need to figure this out and choose one side of the coin. First, I throw some light on the heading that IPL has actually hit hard on the box office. This holds true as in general, the success of the movies releasing on the box office determines the revenue that industry generates. With virtually no big banner movie releasing during the season, the success is far off to talk about.

This IPL season 3 the only movies released have been Well Done Abba’, ‘Hum Tum Aur Ghost’, ‘Mittal V/s Mittal’, ‘Prem Kaa Game’ and ‘My Friend Ganesha 3′,LSD, Right Yaa Wrong.

So, the main box office earnings have been by LSD (love,sex aur dokha) and atithi tum kab jaoge who have leveraged the situation

these are low budget movies so that the investments are easily recovered with small earnings of around 6-7 crores.

had no competitions from big banners so got their credits too, by acceptable occupancies of 20-30%.

would have gone un-noticed amongst the biggies, if were not released during this period.

Even the coming month has nothing much to cheer for the movie buffs as they have to settle with small banner movies Paathshala, Phoonk-2 and Prince.

Apart from this even production houses have agreed to the fact that releasing big banners around 8th week of IPL is mere foolishness so all have pocketed their money till IPL ends.The reason have been the past 2 years which have seen real beatings on the box office.

2009 was a black list season for bollywood with the combined effects of the economic slowdown, elections, strike by producers and IPL.So, the industry faced a delay of around 25 films costing around 150 crores to industry.

2008, the first season was the one which gave them the hint to the storm that was about to hit the industry and hit it hard.

So, the market understanding says 'during IPL big budgetflicks take a side and allow for free playing grounds for low budget to compete and gather their collections and recognitions'

IPL makes it miserable for the TV industry

2010-03-28T21:15:00.000+05:30

I would like to start my post with Lalit Modi’s statement on 24^th March 2010

“IPL will do billion dollar business this year”

And I was not shocked as this is what I have been highlighting in my previous posts; but the transition has been huge this year as compared to last year’s revenue of $450 million. So, the new ideas have been received well by the audience.

These new ideas have surely made it miserable for our very own primetime soap oper

as. This time, statistics will speak more than me.

There has been a decline of 11 per cent in the share of general entertainment channels in the second week of the IPL telecast.So, some alarming signs for the TV industry and with around 30 days more to go for the season, the coming month is going to disturb them more.

The opening match between Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL3 recorded an average TVR of 7.0(C&S 4+ yrs) season, held in South Africa, the opening match recorded a TVR of 5.6 and 7.2 for both panels respectively. Though, it has not beaten the first season yet.

The first match this season clocked 45 minutes in ad volumes, four minutes higher than that of the opening day of IPL-1 and IPL-2.

The first 3 days of IPL3 have earned an avg. TVR of 7.0.

The share of Hindi movie channels has seen a rise of 42 per cent, owing to the telecast of IPL on SET Max, a movie channel.

So, basically with IPL Set Max has been topping the TVR charts; just have a look :

Click on the image to enlarge.

The major attractions this season so far have been:

The IPL’s ‘Back in India’ ad campaign – because cricket does not excite us Indians, until there is stadium noise dubbing the TV commentary and backing it stars with roars of Sachin!!.... Sachin!! Sehwag!!.... Sehwag!!

The hype of the Mongoose Bat, this has made the sport special. With special gears only made for IPL and you get to watch them exclusively in IPL.

The new venues for matches (namely, Ahmedabad, Cuttuck, Nagpur, Dharamshala) that have been added, have further nationalized the game and have attracted more audience which is no more restricted to only the parent venues.

Lastly, Sachin Tendulkar’s awesome form. Now , this is something that stops India when Sachin is on 99 and even world leaders have something to say on this:

I dont know about cricket but still I watch cricket to see sachin's play. Not because I love his play, its because to know the reason why my country"s production reduced to 50%, when he is in batting – B. H. OBAMA, President of United States of America

This is just the trailer, picture to abhi baaki hai mere dost. Next year with 2 new teams Team PUNE and Team COCHI there will be 10 teams with 34 more matches, which might be extending the suffering period to about 20 more days. So, the horrifying part for other channels awaits.

IPL boosts the Internet

2010-03-21T11:33:00.001+05:30

You all must be ready with your 5 most common online activities and majority of you must have thought of atleast 2-3 out of the activities listed below or may agree to the list.

THE MOST COMMON 5 ACTIVITIES ON INTERNET:

Check E – Mail
Search for Jobs
Access Social Networking sites that also includes reading & writing blogs
Surf news sites or check sports sites for score updates
Online gaming

Now, just have a look at the figure below:

Click on the image to enlarge

What I mean to say is that the internet experiences a natural increase in the number of users at the time of IPL, because of a simple reason that people are more engaged in 3 of their most common activities. This opportunity is leveraged by various websites and blogs by initiating activities based on the IPL themes. Taking each of them separately:

1. Social Networking Websites: We have already heard that Twitter is the third most popular platform for IPL discussions. So this tells that there is an increase in the

Number of social networkers(social media traffic)
The time spent by people on social networking sites
Number of pages created on Facebook, number of communities created on Orkut, number of tweets re-tweets on Twitter..etc..

2. Cricket Blogs : The IPL is the favourite topic of discussions on majority of the blogs starting right from the player auctions, pre/post match analysis, team probabilities, comments on comments and controversies (How can one forget the infamous blog of KKR’s ‘FakeIplPlayer’). These blogs get a huge hype at the time of IPL and professional cricket bloggers like Brandistics' parent blog AllPaddedUp the following

High readership
Benefits their page ranks
Gets them advertisements
Provide immense pool of content to write on and for readers to enjoy.

3. Sports Websites: They get a bit overloaded during IPL with almost 2 matches a day from just 1 tournament you got to be on your toes. Live scores, live text commentary, mobile versions of live scores and the comments of cricket experts are the major services these websites bank on. These websites have got a huge traffic from:

The corporate world that can only access these sites for live updates or are mobile most of the time.
The travelling audience who has their GPRS enabled mobile phones to access the internet and no access to television (I am targeting very specifically).
And the ones who access the SMS scoring services.

4. Online streaming of match videos: This one is the latest in the block and has shown a huge potential. I have lot to talk about it, so I keep it safe for my future posts.

A true innovation is the one which benefits the innovator and the environment as a whole. IPL has definitely boosted the internet industry and (If you still not buy this) the prospects are huge in the coming future. So now, are you getting a feel of why I started with IPL as the 22^nd most innovative company, globally? There is lot more left to tell you about the other verticals of entertainment viz. Television industry, Bollywood (film industry to be more precise) and the very own News industry (print + television channels). Keep reading and would love to have your comments and suggestions on my outlook.

IPL takes over the entertainment industry

2010-03-18T22:58:00.001+05:30

My first post was just a glimpse of the things you can expect in the pipeline. To begin with I will answer the first question through this post

How has IPL taken over the entertainment industry giving a huge platform for marketing?

The entertainment industry in India is riding high on film industry, primetime television shows, and reality television shows and the news bulletins by the ever growing news channel. But when the IPL season is ‘ON’ these industries better succumb to a simple mantra:

Co-exist or die

We’ll look at the statistics that made me say this for IPL by discussing its impact on the Indian masses through various media ; be it television, newspapers, movie theatres and the latest one that has come up in the list (specially after the Google – IPL tieup, the first initiative ever to livesteam 60 matches in 43 days) is the internet.

We see everyone coordinating with IPL so far like movie theatres (that bore huge losses during first season) buying screening rights to telecast the matches, newspapers and news sites with special IPL pages, internet flooded with blogs, social network discussions and television channels starting up IPL shows for example, the IPL tie up with TV channel Colors worth Rs. 30 crores.

It would be an exciting discussion and to start with I take the last one – internet, that has brought about an exponential yoy growth in the viewership of the game this year.

Well, there were hits by the viewers on sports sites like ESPN’s Cricinfo, Yahoo! Cricket , Rediff Sports ,even our own sport blogs and social networking sites in the last 2 seasons. But with the advent of Google into the picture in the third season its true to say that there is something in the direction, the leader points towards. So, a huge potential for these live scoring sites, social networking sites, ticketing and gaming sites has been revealed. To throw some light on this potential, the statistics of online media recorded say:

The number of internet users on major sports sites has doubled after the player’s auctions starting from January 2010 as compared to those in January 2009.
IPL channel on Youtube is the #1 viewed channel in India.The channel views of IPL on Youtube have reached 80,00,000 in the first 5 days with 38 days more to go you can expect a lot.
On the first day of IPL-3 in terms of channel views IPL saw the number going up 84 per cent to 880,615 by the second half of the day from 478,057 in the first half. By Sunday, it had crossed 3.1 millions.
Twitter has been stated as the third most popular platform for IPL discussions with KKR [Kolkata Knight Riders] as the most discussed team and Ricky Ponting most discussed player.

There are lot more statistics but let’s digest them slowly. So it is assured that there is some impact created on the online audience. But let me bring you a bigger picture. Just think of five most common things you do when you go online and make a list in your mind whereas I catch you up in the next post.

Or let us make this more interesting, put those 5 things in the comment section of this post!

IPL - 22nd Most Innovative. Globally.

2010-03-16T19:41:00.000+05:30

Wonder why IPL has made its way into the list of most innovative companies at the 22nd Position? Well, if you haven't then you should have. After all, it started only in 2008, and it is already on a prestigious list.

Now, that you have wondered, or rather, now that we have forced you to wonder, here are some answers.

IPL defined a new economy of cricket through the success of its first season in 2008.The idea was to target the primetime audience who were now bored of the monotonous saas–bahu soaps and present them a shorter form of entertaining cricket buttered with glam from bollywood.

The innovation did not stop here; there is more to it – the business side of the game. IPL is a revolution in sports marketing, starting with the high bids on players, to huge sponsorships, broadcasting rights, ground tickets and most importantly a theme for marketers to promote their brands through co – branding strategies, all of it generates huge revenue.

If we are talking revenue, let us give you some figures!

IPL is expected to generate revenue of over Rs. 10,000 Crores ($2 billion) in its first decade. I said ‘over’ as the world’s richest cricketing body BCCI [Board of Cricket Control in India] is going to be richer by Rs. 750 Crores ($150 million) in IPL3, up 25% from the last season. So, with such a season on season (sos) growth in revenue it might reach the target well before expectations.

With so much money being fished out by the leading global marketers in this sport, there must be a lot to talk on this subject which is what the upcoming posts will describe you:

How has IPL taken over the entertainment industry giving a huge platform for marketing?
How do the business minds investing in the teams find it a valuable proposition?
How are the various big brands co–branding with IPL?

You want to know the answers, don't you?!

I am Brandistics - I am All Padded Up's Baby

2010-02-26T10:05:00.000+05:30

All Padded Up has been there forever. Since April 2008, to be precise. And cricket is what Ankit Poddar talks about at All Padded Up. With his experience at All Padded Up, he realized that cricket is a game of brands and cricketers are treated as brands. Of course, their statistics on the field play a major role in that. And so, I was born.

I am basically the baby of All Padded Up. I would be talking about cricket, that All Padded Up talks about, but from the perspective of brands and statistics and not just mere on field performances.

Of course, my parent in All Padded Up would be recommending you to me from time to time, and I hope the love and readership you have provided to my parent will be given to me as well.

So, I begin my journey!