FIFA WorldCup 2010 - The Marketing Game Begins !!

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

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!

Brand Ronaldo - CR9

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

Brand of the Week - Season II

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.

Positioning IPL

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....

Kolkata Knight Riders - The Brand for The Week

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 boosts the Internet

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:

1. Check E – Mail 
2. Search for Jobs 
3. Access Social Networking sites that also includes reading & writing blogs
4. Surf news sites or check sports sites for score updates 
5. 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 - 22nd Most Innovative. Globally.

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?!