Coca-Cola India is leaving no room for the appearance of a fake IPL player this year by filling up the space itself. The beverage company will place hand-picked cricket fans right inside the cricketer's dressing rooms to report the behind-the-scenes action.
Five teams
The five teams partnering Coca-Cola this season are Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers and Punjab Kings XI.
All five have signed no objection certificates to allow the fan brigade to trail them. Three fans would shadow each team and upload in real time on the official Web site FANstation.com
“From April 8 to 15 would be ‘masala' collection time and after that live tweeting and uploading will happen,” said Mr Wasim Basir, Director, IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications). The one-week window before going live is to make players as well as fans comfortable with each other and avoid glitches.
Expect no controversial scoops of the kind the Fake IPL player came up with. Coca-Cola has recruited an editorial team that will whet the pictures, team gossip and other information that the fans choose to put out.
The fans would have access to the after-match parties, net sessions and all other places that the administration staff are allowed, except the team bus.
The beverage maker has kept aside 20-25 per cent of its total marketing spend of this season for the brand on IPL campaigns alone, said Mr Basir.
Apart from digital marketing, where it has invested significantly higher than last year, the company plans to leverage its new Brrrr experience theme through out-of-home media and television commercials.
Free sampling exercise
The company will do a massive free sampling exercise at traffic signals, and it plans to have six to eight mobile igloos that will travel across the country to allow customers to sample the drink for free.
“Through our Brrrr under-the-cap campaign, we are giving away free bottles. We hope this will spur in-home sales of our bottles,” said Mr Abhijit Datta, Senior Brand Manager, Coca-cola Trademark.
Mr Datta said that it will be the largest ever free sampling exercise of Coca-Cola in India, till date.