There would be no Indian in the whole world who would not be knowing that the Cricket World Cup is on these days. We are a cricket-crazy nation in the first place and on top of it, we are the reigning World Champs. So, not knowing about the World Cup is blasphemy for an Indian.
But there is another game within the game. You may all be very well aware of the statistics of the game like who’s the highest run-getter, who has taken the highest no. of wickets, who has scored the back-to-back four centuries, and all that cricket stuff. But there is something more to the world cup than that meets the eye. The following are some more statistics though not of the cricketing kind but would surely get you clean bowled and to someone in branding and marketing business would sound sweet like the ball hitting the middle of the bat:-
India Vs Pakistan — the most keenly awaited contest in all the cricketing world — was watched by a billion people, according to the International Cricket Council.
9 million people had 25 million Facebook interactions related to the Ind V Pak match
Over 30 brands would be shelling out Rs. 600-700 crores in total for their advertisement campaign on the Sports Channel only. And this is only about the Indian Market, the figures will grow exponentially if they take into account the international scenario.
Many brands Raymond, Volini, Policy Bazar, and FedEx are making their debut in this World Cup. They will be vying for air time with some usual sporting brands like Vodafone, Aitel, Hero, Maruti Suzuki, Amul, and Karbon.
The spot at STAR Sports has doubled since the last world cup and is at Rs. 4.5 – 6.5 Lakhs per 10 seconds. This is despite most of the matches being played in early morning hours and dismal performance by the Indian team on the recently concluded Tour Down-Under
@cricketworldcup, the official account of the ICC world cup has achieved 293 K followers to date
ComScore.com, the US-based Internet Analytics company has marked an 85 percent increase in visits to ESPNCricinfo.com from the US !!! (Uncle Sam is watching too )
Facebook stats show that the U.S. has the second-highest number of people interested in the sport after India. (Uncle Sam is surely watching !!!)
Twitter’s survey found that 74 percent of cricket fans on the platform are under 35. More encouragingly, the survey users have said that they are more likely to engage with a brand that is tweeting about the event than not.
Cricket has always been a statistics-rich sport with all kinds of data crunching going on before every match. But with the advent of digital marketing, these new kinds of stats have captured the imagination of all the big players. New brands have shown interest, new regions have come under the influence and new strategies are being employed to target the audience. ESPN sold the unbundled, streaming World cup package for the first time, brands are doing video advertising on all the cricket-content rich websites, both on Web and mobile and Facebook, that has billed itself as the “biggest cricket stadium in the world,” is providing advertisers targeted segments using real-time conversations as well as people who have become fans of specific cricket pages.
Thus, the Cricket World cup has really scored well with the advertisers and the new rules of the game of branding are being written. Make sure that you too hold on well to the catch !!!