IPL 5 is just about to conclude and one must confess that despite the commitment towards Cool Hunt (our probe into the attitudes and dispositions of 14-24 year olds), it was difficult meeting the timelines.

It was not just our back-end team that was glued to the TV watching match after match; even the respondents would not take our calls or mail back on time. “It's cricket, Boss!” said our young research assistant, putting up her hands in despair. At that point, everyone else in the office pounced on her to correct her. “It's the IPL!”

As all of them are within the relevant cool folk age group (14-34 year olds), it triggered this fortnight's research. Does the target audience register the subtle messaging of brands that is often oblique or not-in-your-face type? For if it is so wonderfully received that IPL is not just cricket but so much more, then clearly the positioning, messaging and the complete management of the Brand IPL has worked. And yes, the brand promise has been delivered to the hilt too.

Globally, folks do not visit a Starbucks for just coffee. Even the home-grown version of Starbucks, Café Coffee Day (CCD), attracts people not just for its coffee. And nor do the brands claim so. Howard Shultz, the CEO of Starbucks, has always claimed that he sells ‘a third place between work and home' and CCD is marketed as a place where lots can happen over coffee. Exactly like people buy an Apple product for its creative values, a Marlboro cigarette for it is a macho thing just as owning a Harley Davidson is reflective of that American free spirit. So the cool folks splurge on a designer label because it is chic to wear a Tarun Tahiliani or a Rohit Bal and the designing and styling appeals to them.

The cool folks understand the subtle messages with aplomb. As many as 48 per cent of our respondents assigned non-functional attributes as their reason for having got hooked on to the brands of their choice. Nothing else came even half as close. We notice the same trait of operating at either end of the spectrum here again. These are a set of people, who, sometime ago, pushed us into believing that a big factor that makes a brand relevant to them is transparency.

That respondents preferred non-functional attributes (my kind of brand; I simply like the brand; it relates to me on a different level; it is so cool, and such) over characteristics such as functionality, product quality, referrals and testimonials, promoter of the brand, brand ambassadors or endorsers and so on is a reflection of the fact that the consumers in this age bracket have matured a lot.

Our in-house psychologist asserts that experience and emotions surpass functionality as the prime motivator in attracting folks to a brand and, therefore, they are open to believing in the non-functional propositions. We discovered this in our cool hunt on shopping experiences too – where folks wanted an experience, akin almost to a spectacle. In marketing parlance we would term this as the complete acceptance of the brand's value system where the core values and the expressive values of the brand seem to cut a lot more ice with the audience and the product performance is just a given.

So it is the tamasha and the hoopla of IPL that is the hook and let the purists be damned. Time now to load layers on to the messaging and hooking people on the stories thus told. Happy cool-hunting!

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW