King fisher.....Ooh la la la !

Last day, as if the surprises that IPL throws up isn’t enough, I was amazed to see the who is who from all the teams (not literally) but in as many coloured uniforms (Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Gautam Gambhir, Andrew Symonds along with 15 others) perform the“Ooh la la la ” act… These stalwarts from the top four teams of IPL( Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers & Rajasthan Royals) fight with each other to perish the other on the field where sparks fly, but off the pitch they are all together and cannot get away from trying and playing with their vocal chords to get the Kingfisher jingle right and finally with the tag line 'Divided by teams: United by Kingfisher’!

Twenty one seasoned cricketers from four teams of IPL coming together on one platform to sing for a new advertising campaign launched during IPL 2010 is for me fun for sure but more than the entertainment part I felt enamoured by the seemingly endless possibilities that IPL gives to the business of Marketing…



This 30 second TVC is on air of course during the IPL matches on Set Max but also in other channels across the news, movie and music genres……Thanks to some good media planning by Mindshare( and credits to Balu Chaitanya the planner behind and a beloved student of mine,,,) Conceptualized by JWT Bangalore, this karaoke music (popular in bars, pubs and disco’s) based story line commercial is a delight and joy to watch, as an invigorating break in between anxious moments of the match. Bearing in mind the arduous and frenzied schedule of the cricketers in the IPL, the ad has been shot in four different locations (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi) and cheers for the efforts as well as the results.. For the brand that is fun and serious business at the same time, the ad will do good for sure…Nothing so out of the world if you take the idea but different, entertaining and definitely worth the efforts…

Kingfisher as a brand is very closely associated with IPL 2010.They are the Good Times partner to Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, Rajasthan Royals, Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians. Kingfisher is also the official Umpire’s partners with the brand sitting and smiling from the uniforms and on the score boards in the stadiums.

Liquor, as some critiques say may not need marketing and sales and the growth in the category is just organic. The category grows in spite of the tough rules and legal hurdles that governments impose, ostensibly to dissuade consumption. The fact but is with or without marketing the growth is happening. According to agency faq’s today “Kingfisher claims a growth rate of 12-13 per cent, as against an industry average of 10-15 per cent. The UB Group also claims a sale of 100 million cases of beer in 2009-10 as compared to 83 million cases sold in 2008-09, while the total market size of beer in the country stands at 200 million cases. The credit is to the Marketing acumen of the brand”

So Marketing rules and the rule continues !!!

As of now three cheers for the team, for the entertainer... !


The team :-

Senthil Kumar, executive creative director, JWT Bengaluru,

Kishore Mohandas, senior copywriter

Senthil Kumar, executive creative director

Dennis Koshy, Rohit Kumar and Rajesh Gangwani- account managers

Directed by Bosco and Roshan

Produced by Bang Bang Films.

Media planning by Balu Chaitanya-Mindshare