Heroes, zeroes and wannabes!

The IPL auction, hits and misses may be a media event but the quality of the game is what will determine its success..

Serious advertisers and those who have an interest in the game should go by the shorter version of the game and by that I mean T20.

The quality of the game,and not the players' prices, will ultimately have an impact on the success of IPL. As for the World Cup, that's another piece of entertainment better approached (or not) with great deliberation. Seen here are Mumbai Indians team owner Nita Ambani at this month's IPL auction (right) and the glittering trophy for the upcoming Cricket World Cup.

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The Complete Man Returns

Raymond's advertising is a good example of a brand proposition kept alive and intact down the years..

Brands constantly try to remain in the public memory and advertising is an important way of making it happen. Raymond's advertising in particular has managed to engage consumers with the brand.

We goofed. Pure and simple. Before you attempt to say “so what's new” or “I told you so” let me try and explain. We have a simple ritual in our office of recognising employees on their birthdays. It is nothing elaborate, actually. We give the lucky person a cake and all sing “Happy Birthday” at the top of our voices. We have the leader of the local church choir leading our efforts though he is hard-pressed to get the willing but completely hapless group into some semblance of melody as there are two sets of voices competing for attention.

One set slightly gruffer than M.R. Radha, an actor of my time, and another set just slightly shriller than Sachin Tendulkar, an icon of your time. But we have a great time, which usually culminates in the lucky (!) person having to make a speech which is often as predictable as post-match press conferences in T20 games.

So where did we goof? We missed the birthday of one of our employees. Which is perhaps not earth-shattering given the chaotic way in which most organisations function. But what was particularly galling was the fact that the person we had forgotten to recognise was one of our nicest employees and someone whom most people went to when they had a problem.

And someone who, despite the enormous pressure she was exposed to at work, always sported a smile. I found her very subdued and not her normal cheerful self the next day which was a bit odd. We soon discovered what we had done, or more precisely, not done. Agencies are pretty good at coming out smelling like roses from the worst of disasters so the young people in the office rallied around, organised an impromptu party and found a nice way of saying ‘Sorry we are like that only'.

Of course, being the nice soul that she is, she forgave me for forgetting. After all, working closely with me, she knew that I was close to senility and was even having difficulty remembering the names of my children. But what hurt her most was that her family had forgotten as, of course, had her second family, the agency that she was spending so much time at. Oh, the malady of forgetfulness, how much better we would be without it!

Another birthday, another place

Over the weekend even as I kept thinking about it and was trying hard to forget our goof, I saw a commercial. Now that is hardly shocking given the amount of time I spend watching TV. I think it was 3 Idiots (or so I hope) that was being shown on one of the channels and there was the young Raymond model smartly turned out as always, entering a retirement community. Ever since I read a research report many years ago which spoke about Indian youth not worrying unduly about sending their parents to such places, I have been fairly interested in them. After all, one should be interested in places one is likely to end up in, right?

But back to the commercial where the Raymond man waves cheerily to a number of old people before spotting his old teacher standing alone and aloof in a corner. It's his birthday and I think the familiar emotion of not being cared for or wished on his birthday is evident on his face. The young man quietly tells the other residents that it is his birthday and they get ready to surprise him. Meanwhile, he opens his laptop and through the webcam shows his old teacher images of his grandchildren who cheerily wish him happy birthday as do his children. The scene is complete with the other residents of the old age home who have quickly mustered up a cake and the entire gang of silver citizens wishes the retired teacher and makes his day. The teacher hugs his old student who, as always, is wearing a Raymond suit that feels like heaven. An interesting commercial that highlights the loneliness of growing old and how technology can reduce the gap, linked by familiar models and a strong brand presence that has been a feature of Raymond's work over the years.

If it's a wedding it has to be Raymond

Like most Indians the first suit I bought and wore was at my wedding reception and, of course, it had to be Raymond's. Twenty-eight years later I have the same wife, a tribute to her indulgence and patience more than anything else, but the suit too fits after minor (!) alterations. I remember my father's words “have scope for expansion” when I was getting the suit made. Strange but true, for although he never put on a single inch, all of us dutifully did, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places! I came into contact with the Raymond brand again and fully realised its enormous success in my days at Mudra where the brand often featured in discussions and reviews. Vimal was Mudra's flagship brand and the agency was passionate about it. Frank Simoes was the agency that was producing sophisticated and classy advertising for the brand. For those interested in advertising trivia, Frank Simoes used to handle Vimal's advertising in the pre-Mudra days and the tagline “Only Vimal” was his. Mudra had a grudging respect for Raymond's advertising and its clear message of “understated elegance”. This sophistication has been carried on over the years first by Frank Simoes, then by Nexus and now by R K Swamy BBDO. Sometimes when brands change agencies, they change stances and end up losing brand properties in the quest for change. Often the baby is thrown out with the bath water! Thankfully not the case here!

Retired teacher wins hearts

One of the earlier commercials for Raymond, arguably the best, features the above mentioned teacher retiring from school to the complete desolation of his doting students. They have placards saying “please do not go” even as he drives off in his trusted Morris Minor after one last look at the school to which he has given so much and which loves him so much. The fabric is woven deftly into the commercial, for after all, the problem with so many of these commercials is that they can apply equally across most categories. This generally happens when scriptwriters get carried away by the power of their idea and forget that the purpose of advertising is not merely to entertain but sell! The sequel to this commercial is the teacher attending a wedding reception of one of his students who was most distraught at his leaving school. The teacher goes in diffidently into a grand wedding wondering what his own reception might be. He need not have worried; the groom quickly disengages from the crowd around him and rushes to meet his old teacher and seeks his blessings, wife in tow. The commercial ends with all the old students getting into a group picture with the teacher. The current commercial is the third in the series featuring Bomi Dotivala whose role in Munnabhai MBBS too was written about.

Brands are all about properties

Brands constantly try to remain in public memory and advertising is an important way of making it happen. Clever, consistent advertising strategically executed over the years creates a property that customers recall and associate with the brand. For years the cute girl that eyeballed the camera and said, “I love you Rasna” was a property of the brand. The models in Raymond commercials, particularly the teacher, seem to not only entertain and hold our attention, but also further the engagement with the brand. I am intrigued by the concept of sequels to commercials. As long as it does not make the agency self-obsessive, it is a great opportunity to cue earlier memories and associations and cement relationships with the brand. And yet I see a lot of advertising that leaves me really cold and make as much impact as “ships that pass us by at night”. So here are a few questions worth thinking about:

How distinctive is your advertising?

Does it have a clear and consistent tone of voice over the years?

What have you taken from the past? Remember, the past, unless it is a baggage, can be used to advantage.

Do you have a brand property that customers actually recount in brand research studies?

And finally, are you using technology to keep track of birthdays?

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf. He blogs at www.ramanujamsridhar.blogspot.com)

Blast from the past

Favourite old ads are making a comeback. Did they have to disappear, in the first place?.

Is this revival of old commercials a trend? Or just the action of some smart marketers who are realising that they have good stuff in their own cupboards that can be brought out and screened again to an old audience that recognises them and a new audience that is bound to like them? And more significantly, are there consumers who prefer these old ads to the current crop and would much rather see them?

In the early days of brand-comm, the communications consultancy firm that I founded and that I (occasionally) work for, we did an interesting consulting assignment for Parry's Coffy Bite. For the benefit of those who may not have a sweet tooth or may not have tasted that wonderful bite of confectionery priced at the magical figure of 50 paise, it has a distinctive taste that is a unique blend of coffee and toffee. Children loved the forbidden coffee taste and adults enjoyed the toffee taste.

The first commercial done for the brand was arguably the best, featuring the father and his eight-year-old son both chewing the candy enthusiastically with the son saying “Coffee!” while the father said “Toffee!” and the argument started and continued over the years. Simple thought, clear position, effectively executed. Consumers liked the toffee, not to mention the ad, the brand did well and everyone was happy.

Came the time to change the commercial and complicating the issue was the fact that adults too were tasting the product and enjoying it, and slowly but surely, the focus moved from the taste of the candy to the argument and boy, was it continued! Commercials were made on a number of people having arguments. The commercials became cleverer, the subjects more convoluted and the taste platform was deserted in favour of this more exciting platform, for advertising, at least. The advertising won awards even as the brand, hit as it was by the entry of brands such as Alpenliebe, started to feel the heat in the marketplace.

We came in to look at the situation objectively and all the research seemed to point to a few obvious things. While adults consumed the product, if it happened to be at home, they were not going out to actively buy it. The primary consumer and the heavy user was the kid aged between 8 and 14 years and the product's key attribute was its unique blend of coffee and toffee. The client and agency had moved to the more intellectual terrain of arguments from the taste and it was an obvious solution to come back to the original position that the taste is so good that it is difficult to say whether the taste is coffee or toffee and even run the same ten-year-old commercial for a short time before another execution could be done.

The Tamil poet Kannadasan might have written that the “legs that stray from the right road will not reach their destination” but brands can be more fortunate. They can come back to either running their old commercial or at least reviving the earlier position that served them so valiantly in the past.

Nootruku Nooru Vajram

Another brand which taught us interesting lessons was Vajram, a brand of cement from Dalmia that brand-comm had branded, created the packaging and advertising for and launched in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The communication and branding were research-based and the television commercial ‘Nootruku Nooru' Vajram resonated in homes in Tamil Nadu that avidly watched Sun TV. The brand was one of the most successful cement brands launched in Tamil Nadu and soon became the company's mainstay. The commercial ran for several years and the client, and sometimes even the agency, got tired of it.

Every year at dealer meets we would ask the dealers the same question — “Should we change the commercial?' — and the dealers would look at us as if they had been told ‘India is the best T20 team in the world' and echo a resounding “No!” I am sure they must have been often wondering if the brand was in safe hands. ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it' might well have been their impression. Several years later, just recently, in fact, the commercial has been changed. I do not wish to comment on that as we no longer handle the communication, but I just wonder! I am sure the results will soon be out for the customer tells us in no uncertain terms what she thinks about the communication and the brand.

People of my age may be forgiven for living in the past and going back to ‘those good old days' when batsmen walked and bowlers politely questioned umpires and where captains did not blame IPL parties for their lacklustre performance. Similarly too, ads were few and far between just like cricket matches and people remembered ads and spoke about them, as they did about deeds on the cricket field. All of this leads me to the key point that I wish to make:

Why can't agencies run some of their old commercials for the brand rather than creating new, expensive advertising which often enough is not a patch on the old one?

To prove my point: ITC Sundrop had a very successful launch commercial of a boy doing somersaults in the midst of some fluffy puris. I was pleasantly surprised to see the same commercial after several years, a commercial that I had liked even if it did nothing to make me more careful about my spreading waist even if the waist was not accompanied by the usual material prosperity that people associate with it. I also saw a commercial featuring Hrithik Roshan where a little boy is having difficulty watching a match in a dealer outlet because taller, stronger, more insensitive people were blocking his view. He sits dejected on the pavement only to be joined by Hrithik Roshan who sees his predicament and switches on the match in his mobile on R World and Yuvraj hits a six and the world erupts.

Yes, my friend, those were the days Yuvraj was fit, was hitting sixes and India was winning matches and commercials were working. Again I am getting sidetracked. Another commercial that I saw recently and that was made earlier was for Mak lubricants featuring a young, sexily dressed girl with the song ‘ Jawaani something something' playing in the background (You must forgive me, I can remember the tune and the music but cannot remember the Hindi words).

Is this revival of old commercials a trend? Or just the action of some smart marketers who are realising that they have good stuff in their cupboards that can be brought out and screened again to an old audience that recognises them and a new audience that is bound to like them? And more significantly, are there consumers like me who prefer these old ads to the current crop and would much rather see them?

The paint of India

Asian Paints is one of India's most savvy marketers and I have always loved its advertising. Whenever I have had the opportunity I have written, spoken about and brought it out as case studies in my classes and training sessions. Take the case of the Asian paints Apex which too has had some outstanding advertising over the years. It started with ‘Sunil Babu' whose tone of voice and style of delivery became a way of speech in India and when it got translated into Tamil the ‘ Kalkarrey Chandru' became a part of the local idiom of Tamil Nadu. What more can a copywriter hope for?

The next ad was for Apex Ultima and featured another popular TV commercial (in my book, at least) of a Chote Nawab standing in front of racing horses who kick up a cloud of dust. The villagers are astonished and the shaken Nawab preens himself ready to receive the accolades of the villagers rushing towards him. He finds to his consternation, however, that the villagers are running towards the house and the line says “ Haan toh bhai, bahari diwaron par dhool ko tikne na de” which I am told is ‘Dust can never remain on a wall painted with Apex Ultima'. Even if I did not understand the words, it made sense to me and an impact on me.

I wish I could say the same about the new Apex Ultima commercial featuring a performing magician who is able to make the house disappear but not the paint. I can't explain why the ad leaves me cold. Is it because I prefer the older, simpler ones? Is it because the brand suddenly tries to be upmarket and suave in startling contrast to the earlier ones? Of course, the standard responses of agency types to statements such as these are usually “You are not the target audience?” Excuse me, but I am, I am just building a house in a golfing resort in preparation for my retirement and in the hope that my golf handicap becomes less of an embarrassment!

At stumps

So here are a few thoughts for your consideration:

Are you getting tired of your commercial before your customer is? Have you checked with the consumer or the trade?

Does it still have legs? Have you measured wear-out?

Who is pushing for change, you or your agency? (One client shared the funny problem of the new creative director in the agency trashing the client's commercial made by his predecessor in the same agency and pushing for change).

Are you changing your position?

Are you losing out in the process of change?

In short, are you throwing the baby out with the bath water?

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf)

Is IPL losing its sheen?

The league tournament should aim to provide entertainment from the cricket pitch, not from I-T raids at its offices or television studios.


The third edition of the IPL tournament is in its last leg and the teams are fighting it out in the trying heat and dust. Batsmen are finding it easier to sweat bucketloads than to make runs. Teams seem to have some strange affinity for the number “12” as five teams seem to be stuck on this magical points figure. The stadia seem full, at least at Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. TRPs are soaring, IPL post-match party tickets are being sold at Rs 50,000 if rumours are to be believed. But things are not as hunky dory as they ought to be. The attention shifted slowly but surely from the cricket to franchisee ownerships, bribes, mudslinging and more, taking its toll on Shashi Tharoor. Reports have it that Lalit Modi will also be forced to quit. In short, whatever is happening with the induction of new teams is, to borrow a phrase as old as the game, “just not cricket”.

IPL a revolutionary brand

I have no doubt in my mind that IPL revolutionised the face of cricket in India definitely, and the world. It is an idea whose time had come, and whether the inspiration was Kerry Packer, the NBA, American baseball or the fact that twenty-twenty cricket was, like David Warner, just waiting to explode, the concept took off. It was brilliantly packaged, wonderfully promoted and successfully executed even if it was a bit ‘in your face' for my liking. But let's give Lalit Modi his due for creating a global brand in a very, very short period of time.

The western world tried to ignore this for some time, and then grudgingly had to accept even as its own players came running to be a part of it. Even if many of the global players sat on the bench like our software engineers of yesteryears, they did not seem to mind. The unique mix of Bollywood, team owners who cried in the stands, cheerleaders who had not the foggiest notion of who was playing, ageing cricketers who showed their younger counterparts a thing or two, whether it was the zooter or the mongoose bat, some outstanding emerging Indian talent, some close finishes, some breathtaking innings, some shocking bloomers, all contributed to the enormous success of the format.

Too much, too soon?

While JM Keynes said that in the long run we are all dead, Jack Welch said that while any fool can make money in the short run (and here I am paraphrasing) and any fool can make money in the long run, it needs true ability to make money in both, the long run and the short run. There is no denying the phenomenal success of IPL in the short life it has had so far. It has not only created a following (if not for the local teams) but managed to make people buy enormously expensive tickets and advertisers buy dubious advertising properties at fancy prices. Already the climate is being created for the advertising rates to touch an all-time high. For the next IPL, the Max mobiles and the Karbonn mobiles of the world are already licking their lips in anticipation, even if I am dreading what I am going to be in for soon.

Lalit Modi must easily be the most photographed and televised person in the country (Shah Rukh Khan, kindly excuse) as every newspaper, television channel and Web site seems to either love or hate him. No half measures with our man, are there? In fact, if we were to do a “share of voice” analysis, compare and contrast the coverage that Lalit Modi has with, say, a gentleman by the name of Manmohan Singh, who has the job of Prime Minister of the country, the latter would be a distant second. This, of course, is a commentary on the sad state of news coverage in this country that I shall come to later, but let's stay with the brand IPL and the current imbroglio it seems to have gotten itself into.

Trouble in God's own country

Kerala is an absolutely delightful place to visit and holiday in. But despite Shashi Tharoor's overt and often misplaced enthusiasm for the place as a business destination investors have been wary of going there, and I think it is irrelevant (at least for this author) to figure out the rightness or wrongness of perceptions about investing here. But there is no doubt in my mind that the latest investment by an IPL franchisee has put the cat amongst the pigeons.

It has all the ingredients of a media potboiler. A suave, sophisticated minister who tweets into trouble with the ease which the Indian team used to get into corners; a lady whom the media say is close to the (now former) minister and who has sweat equity in the company; owners who are not well known as some of the other franchisee owners; rumours that a current cricketer is part of the team; an allegation by the CEO that Lalit Modi offered him a bribe (which indiscreet utterance has already cost him his job); tweets from Lalit Modi about the uncertainty of the owners, allegations and counter allegations flying around, questions raised about the original franchisees … Thank God newspapers have only 16 pages!

One of my learned clients made a very interesting observation. He said that earlier in news capsules you had clearly demarcated time slots for different aspects - local news, international news, sports, entertainment and so on. But if you analyse today's telecast it is all about entertainment and sports, and if news does not entertain, it will not make it. Well, the IPL is certainly entertaining, and the franchisee confusion is certainly entertaining but what about the brand which had the possibility of being a future icon?

Controversy is king

A few years ago I was teaching some international students from the UK who were visiting IIM, Bangalore. I showed them the Fair and Lovely air hostess commercial, telling them it had been controversial and had to be pulled off air. They were very excited as controversies, they said, kept the brand in the news and were valued in the UK. It was interesting too to read the views of a few advertisers today, who said that controversy is good for the IPL brand. Sadly, I disagree. It is true that brands reflect the personality of their owners. Kingfisher represents the “king of good times” and what better exponent of the good times than Vijay Mallya. But that example is different as it is a pretty good beer, has the right image and as long as the weather in India remains as salubrious as it is (!) the brand will fare brilliantly.

IPL is a different kettle of fish. Lalit Modi is someone whom you either love or hate. Without the benefit of formal market research, I can only say that he seems to have rubbed an enormous number of people the wrong way, and he is the IPL brand, for many of us at least. And while being in the news is great, I am not sure whether making the headlines with a tax raid on your offices is great publicity for your brand.

Circumspection is the key

Lalit Modi runs the risk of being caught on an uncovered wicket on the day after overnight rain. His brand is under scrutiny. He should try to bat like Jack Hobbs or Geoffrey Boycott with his eye on the ball. Sadly, he is batting like Robin Uthappa. I am sure he has the confidence to handle anything, after all, Indian businessmen think they can handle anything, including the law. But he should spare a thought for the brand that he has built so quickly, and a brand that is the envy of the world. Brands are difficult to build and easy to dent. They are like fine pieces of crystal that need careful handling, love and affection even.

It is the time for objectivity, for Lalit Modi. Time to tweet less and time to think more. A time not to fight someone else's political battles, but a time to remember the things that made IPL a phenomenal success and go back to the basics. It is about entertainment in the sports field, not in media rooms and television studios. It is again a time to look at the consumer. Lalit Modi would do well to remember that there are a lot of people who would wish him to fail and he must prove them wrong, not only for his own sake but for the sake of the brand that he has singlehandedly built.

Will he? Won't he? Only time will tell.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly - Branding on Indian Turf.)

Image Source : Starbozz

Beware the aura of IPL

Some of the glitz and glamour is bound to pall, given that there's much cricket from around the world being beamed into living rooms in India..

Stars all:The owners of the teams, Ness Wadia and Preity Zinta (Kings XI Punjab - left, extreme right), Shilpa Shetty (Rajasthan Royals – second from left) and IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi (second from right).

Australian cricket dominated pretty much all opposition it came up against from the mid-'90s till the end of 2006 at least, thanks to two outstanding champions, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. It would be difficult to find two more dissimilar individuals in one team, but they had one thing in common — both were champions. Batsmen came to grief against these two, who often bowled their team to victory in tandem, more often than not because opposing teams ended up playing more than mere bowlers but battled the strength of their collective auras which combined to make the Australian team almost impossible to beat. Batsmen, thanks to the benefit of TV technology, had nightmares of the Gatting ball (or the ball of the century as it was branded) whenever the blond leg spinner came to bowl. They unearthed demons that were non-existent and played for drift that seemed larger than life and lost their wickets with surprising ease. As for McGrath, his annoying ability to deliver ball after ball on the same spot added as much to the pressure as his in-your-face displeasure if the batsman had the temerity to hit him for four.

Whilst there is no denying the phenomenal ability of these two bowlers, their success, in no small measure, was due to people sitting in the commentator's box and the media enclosures who aided and abetted the batsman's downfall with their analysis till paralysis of the bowlers' collective and individual abilities. Batsmen predictably ended up making horrendous errors of judgment and finished up looking silly, like Atherton often did, to the obvious delight of Aussie fans. When I looked at the recent IPL auction, with Kieron Pollard being bought for a staggering $750,000, I just wondered if there was a similarity between what happened on the cricket field earlier and what is happening now under the hammer and also analyse what has generally been happening with IPL since its inception.

Giving IPL its due

Make no mistake about it, India runs the cricketing world, much to the chagrin of some of our less fortunate cricket boards. India has the eyeballs, the sponsors, the money, the ability to brand and sell anything, including the weather forecast that precedes cricket matches, and just about everything that makes the world go around and everything that can make its detractors go around the bend. Often enough, India has made no bones about its clout and has blatantly flaunted it. But even diehard critics and the prophets of doom have had to concede that the IPL has been a marketing coup that showed the entire world a thing or two about sports marketing. It is a real concern though that IPL may hasten the demise of test cricket, but let us resist the temptation to set the cat amongst the pigeons just yet and stay with the marketing of IPL. IPL demonstrated the ability of its creators to build a brand in a very short period of time, create and deliver value even as it commanded a phenomenal premium for its offerings — whether it was television rights, franchisee bids for the teams or its ability to make players from all over the world drop everything and come running to India. Interestingly, some of them, such as Collingwood and Owais Shah who were constantly complaining about player workload, did not even get a game despite travelling halfway across the world!

It's a brand new world

Kieron Pollard, who was sold for $750,000, to Mumbai Indians
IPL has been all about brands, sponsorships and celebrities of varied hues. It has seen the emergence of unlikely businesspersons in people such as Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty from the world of entertainment, a charismatic business leader in Vijay Mallya entering cricket, Nita Ambani and a range of companies from media, infrastructure and cement, all of whom have forked out enormous amounts of money. It has also seen some of the office-bearers of the BCCI as owners of teams which might upset the purists but in Indian cricket, as we all know, anything goes, including the obnoxious behaviour of people such as Sreesanth and Ajit Agarkar. The bidding for the players has been a high-profile event where ordinary mortals such as you and I can witness how the rich and famous bid huge sums of money for the superstars of the T20 stage just the way they might bid for thoroughbreds! The IPL, quite simply put, is a heady mix of entertainment, glitz and glamour, with some cricket thrown in somewhere in the middle! But it is working or has been working for the people involved, including teams from Australia and the West Indies who have come to India, won and made an enormous amount of money in the bargain? Of course, if media reports are to be believed, the winning team from New South Wales has not been paid, but should we waste our time with needless details such as these?

Get ready for the next edition of IPL

The next edition of IPL will hit not only Indian grounds, Indian crowds, and global television audiences but also an online audience through YouTube. One of the characteristics of the IPL brand has been innovation even if one were to ignore the strategy break which was a poorly disguised attempt to sell more commercial time! Who knows, there may soon be pink balls! But in all fairness the brand has tried to innovate constantly and really showcased the enormous marketing acumen of the people who have been the brains behind this amazingly successful venture. They have been able to smell money anywhere!

A word of caution

Having spoken of IPL's tremendous strengths and offerings it is perhaps worthwhile to sound a word of caution to people who are placing enormous bets on the event and continue to do so. Clearly they are being carried away by the moment as they seem to be awestruck by the aura of IPL and are not placing as much emphasis on the possible return on investment that they seem to be making without so much as batting an eyelid! Starting from the franchisee bids for the teams, IPL has been all about premium pricing. Franchisees too ended up paying phenomenal sums of money, not only for the players, but for Indian stars with iconic status, many of whom will certainly not play for their country in the T20 format of the game.

The pricing for the television spots has been extremely high and some of the initial sheen, in my view, at least, is bound to wear off thanks to the phenomenal amount of cricket that is being played across the world, all of which is being shown in India, including the KFC big bash. But my biggest bone of contention has been the often reckless manner in which team owners have been buying cricketers. Many of the big-ticket items have been poor buys. Names such as Andrew Symonds, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Kieron Pollard and even Shane Bond come to mind. Shane Bond is an amazing cricketer, with an astoundingly straight action amidst a generation of varying degrees of crookedness, but to pay what he is being paid for delivering four overs defies logic. Whilst I am happy for the benign policeman whose pension must be adequately provided for, I have nothing but scepticism about the outcome which might turn out to be a worse buy than the highly priced Ishant Sharma. I wonder if teams and their owners are succumbing to the aura and the excitement of the moment, the glare, the media attention, all of which does not make for sensible decision-making.

A prediction about the IPL ahead

Soon it will be IPL time and old foes will lock horns again, some of them with reconstituted teams. Younger legs will replace more tired ones and a new lot of retired and ICL players will make their debut, such as Damien Martyn and Shane Bond. The Pakistanis will be missing and have left no one wondering about their displeasure. Only the retired Australians will be here. But it is just preceding the T20 World Cup and just after a crowded season where everyone was playing everyone else. The Under 19 World Cup is happening in New Zealand and many young Indians will soon be tempted with money, big money. Yes, it is all waiting to happen. But my suggestion to people who are going to put their money where their mouth is, is to keep their hands carefully inside their pockets. Evaluate every opportunity with the care that it deserves. IPL is McGrath and Warne several times over in the magnitude of its aura. Bring back old fashioned Yorkshire wisdom to your decision-making lest you play a shot that Geoffrey Boycott would brand as “rubbish”.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly. Branding On Indian Turf".)

The setting and its selling

With the IPL matches shifting to South Africa, marketers are finding ways to retain viewer interest and stay relevant.
Brands have floated promotions giving customers a chance to view matches in South Africa

The IPL is alive and kicking, but in South Africa. As I write, Rajasthan Royals, the winners of the first edition of IPL, have just won a tight game at Centurion. There are conflicting reports on the TRPs, one version says it is dropping while another says it is strong. Speaking for myself, I have watched the matches however much they have been interrupted by rain, and however many times Lalit Modi has been shown and however one sided some of them have been. (But I am an advertiser’s dream viewer and perhaps a dying breed!) Staying with Lalit Modi, I must mention however that if I had been responsible for his personal profiling I would have asked for a substantial bonus as the television crews seem to be infatuated with him! The grounds seem to be filled with people who seem to be having a good time if the amber coloured liquid in their hands is any indication. Consumers however are chafing at the bit just like Glen McGrath, who still has to get a game for the Delhi Daredevils. What is the consumer’s problem? She knows that the strategy break is a con, just to get in more commercials. She has to stay awake longer as the matches end later, defeating the very nature of T20 cricket. And batsmen are hard pressed to retain their momentum during an unnecessarily long break and usually end up holing out in the eleventh over. So quite a few people are being challenged by the matches being held in South Africa, whether it is Set max, which is wondering how to handle the extra talk time thanks to the frequent and persistent rain, or the Royal Challengers, who are wondering where their next win will come from or the Kolkatta Knight Riders, who must be dreading what new scandal will hit the media. But none of these, to my mind at least, is equal to the challenge that marketers and sponsors in India have faced with the shifting of the matches from the known to the unknown (for us at least] rainbow nation suddenly.

The theory of constraints

Marketing and management is all about optimization of resources that invariably are never enough for what we want to do. Another scenario is the presence of constraints that prevent organizations and brands from moving forward and the smarter companies handle these by taking them in their stride and working around them. I have nothing but the highest praise for the companies which had bet on the IPL second edition happening in the Chinnaswamy stadium at Bengaluru (good God!) and the Brabourne stadium at Mumbai (not much better), who found to their chagrin that the venues were the Wanderers and St. George’s Park in Centurion and several others that one had merely heard of or seen on TV. One of the most annoying aspects of the IPL commentary for me personally this season has been the way commentators have gone overboard on Lalit Modi and his team, who organized the transfer of venue in a mere three weeks. Commendable, but spare a thought for the marketers who had planned a whole range of promotional activities and ground activations in India, who were told that the matches would not be in Indian cities. Yet they have got their act together and have tried to make the most of the changed scenario within the same short time window and by and large are up and running, something that neither the Royal Challengers nor the Kolkata Knight Riders have been able to do, at least at the time of writing. So let’s take a look at some of the promotions that have been built around IPL and see what brands and companies have been doing here in India.

Ring in an idea

Idea Cellular launched the Special IPL-666 recharge where the consumer will get talk time of Rs. 666 and can earn up to 6 minutes of free talk time with every six that the Mumbai Indians score. May Jayasuria hit more sixes and may the residents of Mumbai talk more! Another visible scheme “Talk to Mumbai Indians” gives callers an opportunity to talk to Sachin, Zaheer and Harbhajan. There is a cute commercial where the phone rings and Harbhajan picks it up perhaps hoping that Symonds or Sreesanth would be on the line, but unfortunately it is a young female voice that wishes to speak to Zaheer Khan! I guess no one has told the feisty sardar that he should not pick up someone else’s mobile! For all you know it might have been someone from the Government of India asking him why he did not come to pick up his Padmasree in person! Idea has another scheme by which those who use roaming nationally or internationally have the opportunity to win a tour to South Africa. Aircel the sponsor of the Chennai Super Kings team has launched “Kaun dega man of the match award” contest for its mobile subscriber who can guess which is Dhoni’s favourite love song. The winner gets the rare opportunity to go to South Africa and hand over the man of the match award thereby getting instant recognition across continents and with millions of viewers across the world. Of course both Aircel and Chennai Superkings must be hoping that the highly paid MS Dhoni, around whom so many promotions have been built, scores a few more runs and even picks up a man of the match award as the current Indian T20 team is by and large sitting back and waiting for the foreigners to deliver whilst they poor, conscientious souls are doing it match after match - whether it is Hayden, Gilchrist, De Villiers, Sangakkara or Dilshan. Of course the veteran Indians (imagine calling the baby faced Sachin that) who are not part of the T20 team are showing our much touted youngsters a thing or two about commitment and passion. Back to the marketers, Virgin Mobile not to be outdone launches “Indian Hatke League” which gives Indian youth and not only Virgin Mobile users the opportunity to play this online mobile game where the user has the option to play for any of the eight teams participating in the second edition of IPL.

McDowell’s No.1 whose brand idea and theme has been built around friendship continues the theme with its T20 Fan Friendzy league (FFL) for the ongoing T20 season. Fans have the opportunity to form their own dream teams and virtually play ahead of every game and the group of friends scoring the highest points at the end of the season will be sent to England to watch the ICC T20 finals.

McDowell No.1 has an interesting concept “Loyal fans, die-hard friends” built around the theme that fans can support different teams and yet celebrate together while watching the games. Indigo Nation, the brand that designs trendy and fashionable formal wear for the young, edgy and maverick man is the official formal wear partner of the Royal Challengers Bangalore team. Let’s hope that the fashionable team will carry the edge on to the field. For every purchase of Rs. 1000 from indigo Nation, the customer gets a chance to win a trip to South Africa to watch the IPL semi-final and final. For every purchase of Rs. 1500, the customer gets a red satin tie, as is worn by the RCB team.

Continue to engage, continue to sell

In India, cricket sells, whether brands sell or not! While the big ticket brands like Pepsi have the capability and resources to put their money where their mouth is and spend crores of rupees behind concepts like “first ball ka captain” other brands may not have the same luxury and yet would like to capitalize on the mania that the game inspires in this diverse country. While it is relatively easier to do it in the stadia and around them when the matches are being held in India, the current scenario posts an entirely different challenge as the excitement has to happen in pubs, lounges and in sports bars. Thankfully the timing of the matches are just right for the Indian viewer (or should one add, the guzzler) as the day matches in South Africa are during the “happy hours” in India which enables one to forget how badly the team that one is supporting is playing! But back to the customer connect. While brands and marketers have been quick to cash in on the challenge they would be well advised to revisit the basics before they embark on an ambitious programme of promotions.

What is the essence of the brand?
What is the selling proposition?
How strong is the association with a particular interest like cricket?
Is it a “One off” idea or can it be long term?
Does it add to the brand’s equity or is it diluting it?
The trouble is that, at times, marketers get emotional about their brands and sometimes about cricket. An emotional attachment may or not be right for the brand. So think carefully and objectively and come up with your own strategy and here is hoping that it does not end up like John Buchanan’s multiple captains theory!

Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO of brand-comm and the author of “One land, one billion minds”.

What's stopping you from a career in advertising?

http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Oct222008/avenues2008102196403.asp

Imagine you are sitting at home with your family and friends watching a T20 match and just at that time a commercial comes on air. The people around you love it and spontaneously say 'This ad is just great'. Imagine how delighted you would be feeling if you were to be actually involved in the making of the ad.

Such a scenario is not only plausible but possible if you enter the arena of advertising, which leads one to ask what the possible career options in advertising are.

But before I get into that let me quickly tell you that advertising, while it may not currently be “top of the pops” in the career sweepstakes, is certainly not an option to be sneezed at. Before I go into the specifics of career opportunities in advertising I need to talk about some basic skill sets that equip people not only for entry into the profession but also for success in it. The first is the ability to get along with people and that skill is perhaps much more important here than in other industries. The second most important skill is the ability to communicate well particularly for those who get into client management or client servicing as it is often referred to and that is the first area we will be talking about.

Manage clients

This is an important department of the agency. It has men and women who manage relationships with clients. Very simply put they meet the clients of the agency, understand their requirements, come back to the agency, brief the creative team and are responsible for releasing the ads, maintaining the relationship, getting new business in, collecting money. The job involves coordination, management and ability to handle stress. In fact client service is the key to an agency’s success and growth and many successful client service people have grown from management trainees to the level of heading large agency operations.

To enter the client service area, you need a degree definitely and it is preferable to have an MBA from one of the second line management schools at least, though in the eighties we had people from the IIMs joining the agency business. Today two year post-graduate courses in communication are also on offer and these too offer an opportunity to enter the profession to youngsters who pass out of these institutions.

Creative, the core competence

What sets apart one agency from the other is its creative ability. Advertising, it would help us to remember is the business of producing ads and TV commercials. To produce ads and TV commercials the agency needs copy writers and visualisers. Agencies have teams of copywriters and visualisers who come together to create advertising. Just like fast bowlers in cricket good creative people hunt in pairs.The copywriter is the one who writes the print ads and thinks up the script for those television commercials that we see on air. Many young copywriters have basic degrees in English or communication. Some of them have prior experience in writing and may have written for their school or college magazine.Of course it is important to remember that writing to sell products is very different from the literary writing that some of us have done in our youth. Copywriters are not writing to impress readers but actually persuading them to buy products, which they may not even need. This calls for a different set of skills and the usage of words and phrases that people can remember , like the Nike’s ‘Just do it’ campaign that was one of the most memorable advertising campaigns of all time.

Designing the ads

‘A picture paints a thousand words’ is perhaps a statement depicting the importance of the visual in communication. People remember strong, eye catching visuals and even more so today as people are getting busier and spending lesser time reading.

People want to get to the point faster and do not want to spend too much time thinking about what you are trying to say. Visualisers usually do courses in art for 5 years from reputed institutions like Sophias in Mumbai or Chitra Kala Parishad in Bangalore.

The difference over the years to today is that today’s aspiring young visualisers need to be more than merely computer literate but actually experts at creating on the computer. Both visualisers and copy writers must have a strong desire to think differently and stand out from the crowd so that their work is noticed.

It is also pertinent to remember that creative people are paid extremely well and at times are the highest paid within the agency's structure. So, if you think you are creative, maybe the agency business is the place for you to get into.

Media, the other unit

There was a time when the media department of the agency was known as the ‘back room boys’ as it was the creative and the servicing types that were hogging the limelight. Not any longer. Because of the emergence of stand alone media buying houses and their increasing importance, agencies are realising the value of media personnel.

Within media the less glamourous role is that of the buyer who is in charge of negotiating with media houses and television channels on rates. They work out special deals, preferred positions and bulk discounts for their clients. The more exalted role is that of the media planner who very simply decides how much to put in where, which newspapers to advertise in, which serials to buy.All of this is through analysis of various data that is available with the agency, monitoring of television rating points of popular programs, using sophisticated computer programming models to help optimize the client’s budget so that he/she gets the maximum “bang for the media buck”. Media planning too is becoming increasingly important as a career option and most media planners have management degrees with a strong liking for numbers and have the capability to understand and interpret research.

The greatest perk

One of the greatest perks of working in the advertising business is not money or incentives but the challenge of working on so many diverse products and services so that one never gets bored. If you are a salesman you are selling only one product or groups of products. If you are in marketing you are a specialist in only one category soaps or detergents. But in advertising you have to know about soaps, shampoos, clothes, shoes, computers… you name it. So there’s never a dull moment if you are in advertising. In fact it has been described as the industry where you have the maximum fun with your clothes on! Get ready to have fun!

Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of “One land, one billion minds”.

Never give up on the idea!

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2008/09/25/stories/2008092550100200.htm

Celebrity value: Disgraced cricketer Shane Warne’s story lent credibility to Nike’s campaign.

Shane Warne was the ultimate celebrity of my time. He exhilarated fans and exasperated authorities and sponsors with the same ease with which he bowled the flipper. Like the great tennis player John McEnroe who was arguably Nike’s greatest flag bearer, Warne, another endorser of the brand, challenged the establishment and yet was a champion, which was the individuality that the brand portrayed and valued in its endorsers. After Warne’s phenomenal performance in the unforgettable 1999 World Cup in England, Nike produced an ad titled “Never give up”.

It was my favourite, as it showed Warne facing a number of challenges that might have seemed insurmountable to ordinary mortals, some of whom competed with him — his shoulder injury, the betting scandal, separation from his family and the ultimate insult — being dropped from the team that he was such an integral and important part of; and then the commercial ends with him making a brilliant comeback in the finals at Lords against a hapless Pakistan, which Australia won in a canter.

Like to all great work the response was extreme and not middle-of-the-road. As per Michael Simon, creative director of the Advertising agency Foot Cone Belding: “Blokes punched the air and went “Come on”. Women said I don’t care how good he is, he’s a nob.” As for me, the commercial made a profound impression on me, not only because Shane Warne was one of my favourite cricketers, but also because the idea was powerful. Warne was in the news for all the wrong reasons and had come out of the depths to the pinnacle as only he can do, and this commercial had captured that. Once again a clever scriptwriter had an idea that the celebrity had taken to the next level with his real-life story and rather than use the celebrity to prop up a weak idea as we see so often.

Reel life or real life

All of us are voyeurs in some sense of the term and love to peek into the lives of celebrities. The importance index of socialites seems to be directly proportionate to the gossip that they have access to about the celebrities that we all admire and yet we must concede that these same celebrities constantly provide grist to the gossip mill with their errors of omission and commission. Thank God for that, otherwise we would all be so bored! Of course, some of these are facts and not gossip as celebrity lives are open books.

It is common knowledge that M. S. Dhoni, India’s one-day and T20 captain (and at this point of time the hottest celebrity when it comes to sponsorships), was an indifferent student at best and has just now enrolled for a graduate course years after leaving school. Of course, one can be defensive about one’s lack of education or flaunt it. Or better still, let that be the idea of a television commercial for one of the myriad brands that one is endorsing.

Dhoni and Pepsi have done just that in the new “Youngistan” commercial. Although it is likely that you would have seen the commercial too, as it has got wide exposure, the script is still worth recounting. The commercial begins with Dhoni in an unlikely setting, the classroom, where he is clearly ill at ease. The teacher seems to revel in his role of increasing the young sportsman’s discomfiture and asks him his marks in Mathematics.

I am sure there will soon be another maxim that says that like you do not ask a man his salary and a woman her age, people must remember not to ask youngsters their marks in Maths! Dhoni sheepishly says 41, reminding me of my rank in class X, but back to the script!
The film gets into monologue mode where he says he realises he did not spend much time studying in school though he did spend time studying pitches and opposition bowlers’ minds as he examines someone who at close quarters looks surprisingly like Brett Lee. But he is mortal enough to concede that he has been unable to read the mind of Sreesanth who is gyrating in the background. He ends the commercial by saying that thanks to all his studies he has already won a world cup and the secret is to have a thirst for success.

Why do I like this commercial? Is it because it is true to Pepsi’s character of being for the young and young at heart? Is it because it appeals to the popular sentiment that my children seem to reflect that you do not have to study to be successful? Is it because the brand promise of quenching thirst is so deftly woven into the script? Is it because it is the story of the lad from Ranchi who is so far from us geographically and yet so close to our hearts? Is it because of the power of the idea that builds real life into a commercial that is endearing? Yes. Once again my submission to writers is: “Never give up on the power of the idea”. That and not the celebrity will make your commercial striking.

Clever writers too know the value of the presence and charisma that someone such as Dhoni brings to the script and table. He seems to have the same poise behind and in front of the wicket as he has in front of the camera. I wish I could say the same for some of our other cricketers who seem to be as nervous in front of the camera as they have been in their nineties.

Rejection is not the name of the game

There was a time when actors used to reject film scripts that were not challenging or interesting. Or so out-of-work actors claimed.

Looks like actors do not exercise the same level of restraint or judgment when it comes to choosing scripts for products that they endorse. It seems like they are guided by considerations of a quick buck. I recently had the misfortune of seeing another celebrity commercial featuring Preity Zinta of BSNL fame and you must forgive me if I do not get the script right, as the commercial made for agonising watching, much less for remembering. The action happens on a film set and we have a distraught actor saying that she is unable to concentrate on the lines of the film as her washing machine is not working. I am sure out-of-work actors do their own laundry and those that own cricket teams must do the team’s laundry as well, which explains her confusion. Preity Zinta seems to pick real losers when it comes to endorsement scripts. Given the increasing importance of actors in this entire celebrity environment one hopes that actors, who may have a limited understanding of branding, will at least have a better feel for the audience and exercise one level of quality control in the script. Well, there is no harm in hoping, is there?

Cricketers, actors, who else?

Our marketers and advertising agencies, despite all the hype about thinking differently and out of the box, end up being surprisingly predictable in their thinking and execution. Cricket and (hold your breath) films or entertainment seem to be the only two genres in their horizon. Dhoni endorses 12 brands at last count. Giving him a run for his money is Saif Ali Khan. Ads which were featuring Saif appeared for about 45 lakh seconds last year leaving behind Shah Rukh Khan with 42 lakh seconds and Big B with a mere 32 lakh seconds.

Younger actors are replacing the older actors. TVS, Sonata, Titan, Brylcreem, Lays, Taj Mahal Tea, Royal Stag, Pepsi, Toshiba, Videocon are all using celebrities. Surely our agencies, marketers and communication experts are taking the easy way out. Yet, there is no denying the fact that celebrities bring instant awareness to the brands they endorse, but yet the question must be asked: How many of these celebrities are part of the long-term strategy of the brand, like the Nike brand that this piece started with?

Never give up

Let me end with my familiar refrain. More and more companies are joining the celebrity bandwagon as they seem to be following the herd or getting satisfied with the awareness which is just one part of the whole buying equation. At the risk of sounding nostalgic one can only remember some long-term strategies like a continuing character that Surf Excel created in Lalitaji, Onida’s creation of the devil or Amul’s little moppet that still continues to be the longest running campaign. Maybe there is learning from the life and times of Shane Warne. In cricket and branding there can be no pain without gain.
Are you ready for the pain of the long term?

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

India expects!

In the mid-nineties we used to have a cute, precocious boy of seven who used to be a frequent visitor at our house. The reason? He was not allowed to watch television in his house and whenever there was an India match he would slink in surreptitiously. But once he was inside and away from the prying eyes of his parents he would park himself securely on my sofa at a prime spot in front of the television set. We were watching an India match and Tendulkar played an audacious, amazing shot as he used to do often those days and my young friend jumped up and pronounced “I have not seen a shot like that in my entire life!” A lot of India watched something that they had not seen in their entire lives - India winning a cricket world cup! It was amazing! What an eloquent way I have with words! And what was making it even more pleasurable was that it was not expected. Our one day form which hit its nadir in the World Cup in the Caribbean has not been anything to write home about despite the odd win here and there. Three of our all time greats Sachin, Rahul and Saurav opted out of the tour or so we were told. We had a young captain and a younger team and we were taking on the likes of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and our friendly cricketing neighbour Pakistan. Teams like England(!) spoke about their experience with this format and South Africa, as always before any tournament pronounced itself as the favourites as the matches were being played at home and they already had a domestic twenty twenty competition in place. Let me not go on and on about how well we played or how we humbled the Aussies or beat Pakistan twice or beat the much vaunted South Africans. However I must digress and mention that South Africa as a team never ceases to amaze me. Ever since the tied game at Edgbaston when they lost the world cup (and I can say with real pride that “I was there”) they have discovered new ways of losing. Perhaps this one must rank close to their Duckworth Lewis fiasco. Confronted with a choice of three different scenarios, they chose the unlikeliest and made their way out to sulk and hopefully learn some maths. But the team that the bookies had not bargained for made it and that is our own. As a result of this win our expectations are sky high. We believe now that the world is our oyster.

The power of expectations

“England expects every man to do his duty” said Winston Churchill. Clearly the present English team was after his time. But to get back to expectations. Now with all the euphoria about the twenty -twenty triumph it is easy to believe that a golden era of Indian cricket has arrived. While I hope it does, it is possible to be just a little circumspect as one who has watched Indian cricket ebb and flow for over forty years. One has also watched the weight of public and media expectations and its impact on team (non) performance. It has humbled quite a few. I suspect Yuvraj in the finals was probably weighed down by the collective expectations of a billion people. We are a funny lot, we Indians. We alternate between complete diffidence and absolute arrogance. Now I can see us getting into arrogance mode. “Bring on the Aussies” is the chant now. Look at our schedule. Our team comes back on 26th to a ticker tape welcome and an open bus ride in Mumbai but will have to play the Aussies on 29th in Bangalore as part of a seven match series. Then we host Pakistan and go to Australia for a four match test series followed by a tri-series in which we could play ten one day matches at least. The other teams? Australia and Sri Lanka. All this after a close test series in England followed by seven one dayers. While the BCCI and the TV channels are raking in the money, there will be injured bodies, tired legs and stale minds in the team soon. Look at the rush of injuries in world cricket. The Australian team already has four doubtful starters for the India series in Ponting, Watson, Hussey and possibly Bracken. Sehwag had to miss the finals. Yuvraj has not played all the games while Dhoni seems to be showing more of his back to the camera than he ought to in the field as he gets treated for some ailment or the other

What has worked

How did we win this 20-20 world cup? We won it simply because new, untried, youngsters who were not bothered by reputations played calmly. In fact we won the final because we held our nerve and if one may add catches. Let us use this great opportunity to get in more youngsters. Let us use the “rotation policy” that is easier to talk about than practice. Suddenly our chairman of Selectors is talking about our bench strength, something that he said that we did not possess a few months ago! The same Indian malady of alternating between diffidence and arrogance starts with the chairman! We are playing at home against an Australian team that is struggling to get into a season after a long break and is already haunted by injuries and a defeat in the twenty twenty world cup. If one knows them they will come out flailing. Thankfully we are playing at home in front of a fantastic, biased audience and a team that is on top of the world. Yet all is not hunky dory with our team. Our bowling weaknesses remain, more so in the sub continent and our fielding will take a toss for the worse with the entry of three seniors. This leads me to the next concern. Now that India has tasted blood, I see our thankless people baying for the blood of the seniors if they do not perform at the rate we wish them to.

Patience a wonderful virtue

Parents, at least the smarter ones, have discovered an important route to happiness. The secret is to have no expectations from children. The moment you expect certain things from them you get into trouble. You are disappointed, sometimes because your expectations were not justified in the first place. If India thinks that we are going to become the number 1, one day and test team in the world just because we won the truncated version of the game, then we could be in trouble. Yes we have done something unique. We are the first winners of this new format which is going to be the future. We have come from the cold without any of the stars. Let us savour the moment without worrying about the future. Then when that happens we can have the same unexpected pleasure we had on the 24th of September. Expect at your own peril. As for me I am still celebrating!

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

A hit-and-giggle or a laugh all the way to the bank?

2 p.m. on Tuesday 9th January 2007 is not prime time viewing in India. It was certainly prime time viewing in Sydney (where England and Australia were playing a twenty-twenty international match) and in the rest of Australia as well. It was not prime time viewing in England, 8.30 a.m. on a working day and England was getting thrashed to boot. But not withstanding the time, I sensed that I was seeing something extraordinary. The hit-and-giggle or the blow and guffaw as twenty-twenty cricket has been described seemed an amazingly entertaining thing to me at least. Without knowing too much about forecasting (other than knowing that it is not easy) I am still dumb enough to predict that this form of cricket is going to be an amazing marketing opportunity for the future for those brands that are aligned to cricket and even some of those that are not. While realising the total absurdity of a few forecasts made in the past by people far more illustrious than me, “a world market of about 5 computers,” “rock groups are on the way out” (while rejecting the Beatles) or “that atom bomb will never go off” - I am still going to stick my neck out and say that lots of people want entertainment, they want to have a good time and not spend the whole day at a cricket match. And the answer has to be twenty-twenty cricket.

Roll out the entertainment carpet
Too often cricket is not very entertaining. Certainly not the longer version of the game, at least to younger viewers, who are not die-hard cricket fans. Those fans like me who watch 5 day cricket matches realise that we are a dwindling if not dying breed. Empty grounds are common in the sub continent for test matches, as in countries like South Africa. England and Australia are better placed. But in India test cricket is losing steam and consequently viewership. While one can argue till the cows come home about the value and worth of test cricket, I think it is time for us to keep aside our personal predilections and biases and focus on consumers. They will love the shorter version of the game or should I say the shortest version of the game. And at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Ian Healy the wicket keeper turned commentator was walking around the stadium microphone in hand. He asked a young 8 year old girl who was at the SCG whether she had come for the Ashes test which happened the previous week and she said “Naw, daddy was there”. Is there a lesson? And she was having the time of her life – dancing girls, fireworks, 2 sets of DJs, players having microphones and sharing their views and most importantly a barrage of sixes – 14 in the Australian innings. And while the English fielders dropped 2 catches on the field, the crowd dropped 14 in the stands! An alarming drop in the fielding standards of Aussie crowds are an indication of the fact that twenty-twenty is getting a completely new genre of viewers and spectators. I think India is eminently ready for this new breed of entertainment. We love sixes. We love hoicks. And something tells me we will do well in this format.


Pajama cricket
The legendary Kerry Packer was responsible for revolutionizing cricket – night cricket, coloured clothing, world teams and huge crowds doing Mexican waves. But he got fairly bad press and conservative, traditional cricket fans and critics lambasted him. I can see a similar wave of criticism following twenty-twenty cricket. “It is for those with attention deficiency disorder” says one sarcastically. And this is really where marketers need to be careful. Critics are dime a dozen. They have a point of view. They too have a reader following which is in actual fact far less than they think it is. And they really are clueless about trends and are better at spotting trains! They could easily mistake a trend for a fad. Why is this shortest version a trend? It very simply typifies the times we live in. We live in a time compressed era. The only thing that we can wait for 9 months today is a baby. In contrast to some of us who waited 15 years for a Bajaj scooter!. A whole 20-20 game will take all of 3 hours. Batsmen will have to run out to the crease within 90 seconds. If India did what they did in the last test match when Saurav Ganguly came in place of Tendulkar after 7 minutes we may have been penalized 5 wickets! Players have ear pieces. Batsmen talk to the viewers even as they get ready to face the bowler. You are there with the batsman or the captain in the heat of it. We had an amazing situation in this match that I spoke about earlier where Gilchrist had just clobbered James Anderson for 2 consecutive sixes and the commentators urged him to go for a third one and he did precisely that! If it had been a few years earlier we might have thought that something was fishy. In this case someone merely had to fish the ball from the Bill O’Reilly stand. Yes innovation is the name of the game even if the game in question is a 200 year old game like cricket.

New customers
Everyone wants newer, younger customers. Set Max too in India is trying to do this using Mandira Bedi and other entertainers from Bollywood reminiscing about their childhood tennis ball cricketing days. But is that entertainment? I wonder. India’s win in the 1983 world cup and the world series of cricket in Australia opened up the floodgates of TV viewing in this country as your mother-in-law and mine started watching one day cricket. Some people have been loyal to the game, some have not. Viewership has waxed and waned with our own team’s fortunes. Contrast this with the high Ashes viewership in the recent Ashes series and England’s poorer viewership at home. People want their team to win. Twenty-twenty may give cricket viewership in this country a big shot in the arm as it will get new viewers in. People in India will take to it as enthusiastically as we did with one day cricket. The BCCI’s reluctance to accept this initially demonstrates its inability to spot a trend even if the trend gives it a kick in the butt.

So where’s the action?
2007 is a big year for cricket. India has just returned from a mixed tour of South Africa. Every other team is playing cricket in some part of the world or the other. Eight one dayers with the West Indies and Sri Lanka precede the magnum opus - the World Cup. Companies must be spending a lot of time, effort and money planning to be in this event, which is fair, but I still have a reservation about the timing of the telecast for Indian fans if not about our current form. My suggestion to marketers is this. Ask for a copy of the tape of the 20-20 match played at Sydney. Watch it with your family. You will like me, feel the excitement. You might even think about putting your money in the 20-20 world cup in South Africa in September. After all India may not have lasted 50 overs in a one day match but they will certainly last 20! But seriously think 20-20 if you want a different, younger audience. Think 20-20 if you want family viewing. I somehow think it won’t be a game of chance for marketers!

The author is Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of Brand-comm.