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Vinay Kamath

Chennai, June 10 Putting behind the disappointment of its team Chennai Super Kings not making it to the IPL finals this year, in spite of it being one of the favoured teams, India Cements Ltd (ICL) intends leveraging the CSK brand in the new markets in western India where it has entered.

While its cement brands, such as Coromandel King and Sankar Sakthi, are well known in the South they do not have high visibility upcountry, says Mr Rakesh Singh, Joint President, Marketing, ICL. But with ‘India Cements’ on the back of CSK players’ jerseys during the IPL, it has made the company brand a household name in areas where it was not present earlier such as Parli in Maharashtra, where its one million tonne grinding unit went on stream this year.

“We used it to our advantage in new markets of Maharashtra. All point of purchase material, outdoors and also our AV communications with dealers and influencers use the imagery of players to ride on CSK’s popularity,” says Mr Singh.

Also many of the company dealers travelled to South Africa to watch the IPL matches.

As the team owner, India Cements can use a combination of two to three players in endorsements and not just M.S. Dhoni as it would clash with his other contractual obligations. “As we go along, we will create interaction opportunities between our trade partners and the CSK team. Though we hardly use TV media, the CSK connection will be used for print media advertising,” says Mr Singh.

Now that the IPL brouhaha is over, the challenge now is to keep up the fans’ interest in CSK as a team till the next season. For that ICL has a multi-pronged strategy: a slew of merchandising efforts as well as talent hunts among young cricketers, and perhaps, even a cricket academy or a state-wide cricket tournament in Tamil Nadu.

It will soon tie up with paper maker Ballarpur Industries to have the CSK brand on notebooks and pads targeted at school students.

“This will add good value to the brand,” adds Mr Singh.

Team member Mathew Hayden too, he says, has expressed interest in doing more for the team locally, and CSK will see how to use the cricketer for events. And, if plans fructify, its tie-up with Pantaloons may see CSK stuffed toys and other merchandise, such as friendship brands, glasses and low-end watches.

For apparel, its tie up with Reebok and Peter England saw the CSK brand on t-shirts and other garments.

While CSK ended in the black last year, this year Mr Singh expects would be even better, despite the higher costs of going to South Africa. While it received approximately Rs 30 crore last year from the IPL central pool, this year it could go up by Rs 15 crore as the IPL had signed a bigger deal for broadcasting rights with Sony and WSG.

The league will also protect whatever gate receipts that ICL made last year from hosting matches in Chennai which is approximately Rs 12 crore.

While the franchise fees to BCCI remains the same at Rs 36 crore (Rs 360 crore for a 10-year period), player costs went up because of roping in Andrew Flintoff.

However, since he played only three matches, the pro rata payments ensured lower outgo.

Other things helped too, says Mr Singh. For instance, the three-year contract with Aircel and more sponsors (13 in all). Only three teams had a long-term sponsor, KKR with Nokia, Delhi Daredevils with Hero Honda and CSK.

The two top teams, Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers, had their own franchise branding and no main sponsor. “The spend on publicity too was less this year by at least Rs 4 crore, so our expenses were less overall,” adds Mr Singh.

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