The Hindu Business Line : Cricket is back with a bang

The unexpected has happened. India has won the 20-20 World Cup against odds as the bookmakers will sadly concede, and against more fancied teams such as Australia and South Africa.

Of course, nothing is more satisfying for Indians than beating Pakistan, but that was only slightly less than my own personal satisfaction about my prediction of the bright future for the pint-sized edition of cricket in my column in this very same newspaper and section as early as January 2007 under the title ‘A Hit-and-giggle or a laugh all the way to the bank?’.

The response to the game and our victory has been nothing short of sensational. I happened to be in Mumbai on September 26 and one had to see to believe the scenes. In pouring rain, thousands stood on the streets to cheer their heroes.

Old ladies went running after the gaily decorated bus to catch a glimpse of our stars and women and children braved the rain to squeeze into the Wankhede stadium hours before the cavalcade would enter, only to see our politicians hogging the limelight!

So what’s new? What is new is the speed with which our victory and cricket-starved populace took to the spectacle of the new format. Some pessimists are already predicting the death of test cricket and questioning the need for the one day version of the game.

I am sure people in advertising are familiar with predictions made earlier of the death of newspapers, radio, magazines and even television as one new medium or the other has taken the limelight.

But today every medium has an audience, even if finely segmented and magazines and radio have found new audiences. Test cricket will stay on in mature markets like Australia and England at least. But what will certainly happen is that it will start to be played at a more frenetic pace. Already run rates of four per over are being witnessed in test cricket and it could soon become five and a draw will become as rare as a maiden over in a 20-20 game.

Anybody remember Bapu Nadkarni’s 27 maiden overs in a row or Barrington and Bolus? May we never see the likes of that in our future lifetime at least! But instead of waxing eloquent about cricket and its glorious (?) past lets talk about the future. Of advertising and its renewed obsession with cricket.

Advertising almost kills the golden goose

We saw a lot of advertising during the recent tournament in South Africa, most of it bad, a lot of it spilling over into the last ball or the first ball and quite often over both. Clearly the marketers felt that the time to make hay was now, while the lights were on!

Late entrants to the advertising band wagon had, if media reports are to be believed, paid as much as 7.5 lakhs for 10 seconds. But still the choice made sense. The TRPs, if initial reports are to be believed, have been vastly superior to the World Cup held in the West Indies definitely and hit new highs. For one it has friendlier viewing times for our audience at least.

Again our advertisers bought into the hoopla of the World Cup without bothering to think that the matches would be in the middle of the night. Nor had we bargained for India’s poor showing.

So the next time before you commit major moneys into a programme, cricket especially, look at the timing of the match. Timing is not important only to Yuvraj, it is as critical to people in advertising and marketing as well.

Is there a smarter way?

Sometimes I believe our cricketers tend to sway emotions of not only fans but advertisers quite easily. So there is a herd mentality of following whether it is fans or sponsors. Remember the mad rush to sign on Sachin? He was even giving Amitabh a run for his money!

Now one sees a similar frenzy in signing on Dhoni and Yuvraj. Why do our advertisers take the easy way out? Why not sign a budding cricketer at a fraction of the price? Maybe he will deliver disproportionate results. I remember a couple of years ago we had done a commercial with the firebrand Sreesanth for the Muthoot Pappachan Group. The company had the wisdom to sign on the local cricketer as one of his first sponsors even when his place was not certain in the team at that point of time.

Today, they would be sitting pretty as so many sponsors are falling over themselves in an attempt to sign on the bowler who castled Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist in the semi-finals. Mind you, I have no problem with the biggies but even as they enjoy the adulation of the masses they simply cost more, much more. There is also the real risk of brand dilution as consumers may get confused and not really bother about who is endorsing what. We need to remember that every endorsement decision finally has to boil down to one of cost-benefit. What is the benefit that you are getting in relation to the investment that you are making?

Innovation the name of the game

Most advertisers have one plain vanilla commercial that they use across the board whether it is 20-20 or the K series of soaps. It is probably a fair comment given the fact that the advertising message does not change. However one saw Coca-Cola this time around create quick 10-seconders that were topical, on cricket, and probably not very expensive to produce. Advertisers need to look at properties that they can own cricket or otherwise.

I remember TVS Sa Re Ga Ma. I am sure similar thought can go into properties around cricket. In the telecast of the recent 20-20 World Cup Indigo Nation had sponsored player profiles. The Future Group is associating with cricket in a big way and the India-Australia seven match one day series is branded as the ‘Future Cup’.

People want to not merely watch commercials, they need to be engaged, intrigued, and challenged even. So the question you need to answer is this – okay, I want to get into cricket, maybe the 20-20 variety, so what should I do? I am a great believer in advertising in non-India matches. True, the viewership will be lower. But the game will get a better audience than you think. The game will get viewers if it is tight, interesting and have twenty twists and turns like the India-Pakistan match. Just apply your mind. Don’t just follow the herd.

What about creativity?

Sometimes our advertisers believe that merely being present is enough. I saw some pretty pathetic advertising during this series. I do not want to upset my friends in the industry by naming them and I am sure you have your own list of not-so-good commercials. Why is so much of the advertising that we see on the TV so poor? Or am I being too critical?

Imagine the hatred that you can have for a brand which has irritating execution and that is bereft of ideas that also eats into the live telecast of the match or an Australian wicket. That is what happened quite often in my view.

So advertisers who are putting in so much money behind cricket, particularly the accelerated version of the game, need to take a long, hard look at their own creative product. Once again the cost of producing a commercial is a fraction of the media cost. Do not throw good money after bad. And yet I must mention one nice topical press ad that Pepsi had done which went something like this “Shoaib uncle, Adam uncle, Shaun uncle … zara side dena, humko Cup lena hai” said the ad. I saw this in Mumbai, the day the team returned. I wonder if it was a national campaign. It certainly deserved to be. That to me was a smart example of using the occasion and being creative as well.

Monitor, course correct

At the time of writing, there is major hysteria about cricket and euphoria about the team. By the team the column appears, things might change, such is the volatility of the Indian cricket-viewing public. We have a gruelling season against Australia that will be followed by a series against Pakistan and a long and arduous tour of Australia with test matches and a tri-series featuring Sri Lanka and the home team as well. We could lose focus, get injured and lose games.

We all know what happens when the Indian team loses. While there is nothing one can do about the average Indian cricket fan’s extreme views, there is something that marketers can do about their own efforts. Look for cheaper opportunities.

Look to do things around cricket if not during the actual telecast. Try to engage the audience with your brand using cricket if necessary. Try not to link your fortunes too much to the Indian team’s performance. 20-20 has been described as a lottery that we have just won. Try not to make your marketing a lottery as well.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds. )

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