In its third year of association with the Rajasthan Royals IPL team, Principal Associate Sponsor HDFC Life is tweaking its leverage strategy in tune with the changes in the team composition. The life insurance brand will start airing two new television commercials shot with 10 members of the current Rajasthan Royals, starting Tuesday.
The commercials drive home the brand’s positioning of ‘Sar Utha Ke Jiyo’ through the members of the Rajasthan Royals team. The current team includes established internationals like Rahul Dravid, Shane Warne, Shaun Tait, Ross Taylor, Johan Botha and Jacob Oram, alongside fresh local talent like Pankaj Singh and Ashok Menaria.
“In the new team, we have a lot of experienced players like Rahul Dravid, who is playing the role of an anchor that the younger team members can talk to. We have adopted a slightly different strategy this year keeping in mind the balance of young and experienced players, while driving our brand message,” noted Mr Sanjay Tripathy, EVP and Head Marketing, HDFC Life.
The new commercials will target audiences at cinema halls, besides news channels which are a focus media vehicle for the category.
In year one of the association, the brand had created a music video with the team. Year two saw Television commercials featuring individual players. This year, the brand is also associating with NGOs to bring the underprivileged to watch the team’s home matches, starting with 40 children during the last game. Customers, distributors and employees are being motivated with tickets as well.
On social media, the brand is linking its campaign to the Rajasthan Royals fans club, which has a base of over 2,00,000 members.
Admitting that HDFC Life’s communication around Rajasthan Royals is brand-led rather than response-seeking, Mr Tripathy underlined that it helps build favourable connect with the brand. Brand associations with IPL are coming of age in the fourth edition, according to him.
He surmised, “The first IPL was about cricket and entertainment, and all IPLs have been also about the stars. Edition three of IPL saw fan bases being created for the teams, going beyond individual players. With IPL4 and the number of changes in the team compositions, we are seeing team brands taking over and standing out on their own.”