Other day I was watching this new campaign of DLF Indian Premier League 2009 on SET MAX. 100 crore log 1 saath 1 hi cheez karenge.Watch Campaign here:
The Ad shows all people (assume all 100 crore) doing same thing like yawning ,scratching year,playing laughing drinking tea and all.And then they show all reacting the same way to cricketing shots ,happy with a six frowning on wickets and vice versa. According to the ad all 100 crore Indians react similarly to a single wicket or a six.(Make a note of it) So the basic positioning is that IPL is something that joins people and all people follow the same player or team. The Ad is brilliant and would have been great if IPL would have been some tournament featuring India and other countries as teams such as Trination series or world cup tournaments. But when the campaign comes to IPL,it doesnt fit.
When Mumbai Indians is playing against Delhi Daredevils.What do you think?
Let us assume:
1) if these are only the two teams in IPL and all 100 crore watch cricket
2) Assuming equal fan following so 50 crore support Mumbai and rest 50 crore support Delhi.
3) Now for every 6 hit by Jayasurya(Mumbai Indian Player),50 crore Mumbai Indians fans would rejoice and 50 crore delhi fans would frown.
So where does the funda of 100 crore doing the same thing go?.
The main positioning of IPL(and ICL too) was based on the inter region rivalry. i.e. A Punjabi would love Kings 11 players and hates(in good spirit of course) other teams’ players. Now the new campaign is confused what to convey.
1) They want all 100 crore to support all teams.(We just love good cricket who ever displays it)
2) They are confused about what they mean by saying 100 crore doing the same thing.
The brand identity has been totally dissolved by this new campaign.Last years campaign displayed IPL as a war in which all are warriors (Dharti Par Karmyudh) Watch it here
That was a better campaign in conveying the brand identity.This year the brand image which has been created is that IPL is no more about Inter State Rivalry.Its india vs others in South Africa.It doesnt matter which team you support or who is you favourite player.You like others will follow what everyone else is doing.
Please do write comments if you think I make some sense.Write comments even if you think its nonsense.
Soutik said,
April 16, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
Yeah i believe, the change in the venue will cause a lot of confusion, as other than the names of the diff teams there isnt any connect with the individual viewer, as unlike last year he doesnt have any home team ( all teams are based out of SA, for now)
So i agree that the viewers will follow all the teams without the passion that was witnessed last year.
But with the advertising for IPL 2009 i believe they (SET MAX) wanted to convey something else (). Its continuing from what effect IPL had last year. IPL 2008 saw most of the matches being held after office hours, and people came home early to catch the matches, families adjsuted their dinner times according to the match times, even multiplexes ran empty.
everybody was watching cricket, the whole family, (rather whole country was watching it), this was endoresed by the killer TRPs that the each IPL match got. And the SET MAX advertising wanted to emphasis on this, when IPL happens, all of India watches it (either in jubiliation or in despair).
And thats why the ’100 crore log 1 saath 1 hi cheez karenge’ Campaign.
though with the shift in venue, dont knoe if this will be happening or not ( but with the craziness that we watch cricket, u never knoe)
P.S. SET MAX, in my opinion, anyways created this campaign way before the shift in venue had taken place
Kr. Rahul said,
May 15, 2009 @ 8:13 am
Very good observations and analysis! I agree with it. In a sense, IPL divides rather than unite people. To the extremes, it encourages regionalism and racism, with team names made on the basis of regions / cities in India… Even when I see Dhoni and Yuvraj looking into each other’s eyes with a sense of rivalry, we wonder if the competition on field won’t go out off the field and affect the team unity afterwards?
Also, imagine that these national team players will go play the national level cricket tournaments and then play badly and complain that there is “too much of cricket” and they want rest! Is not this a drain on national resources in a way?
manmeetsingh123 said,
May 15, 2009 @ 8:23 am
thanks for the comment but my point was a bit different i meant that IPL should be based on regional rivalry this is how club structure works!