Once upon a time we played Cricket !!! - Part IV

Part IV of Guest article by Vipin Nambiar - Manager (Space selling) at Indian Express, Mumbai who also happens to be one of my beloved students......

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IPL – A Property for All…

The packed DY Patil stadium with more than 50k spectators bid a fascinating farewell to IPL 3. The show is over. Chennai Super Kings became the King of IPL. Hard Luck for Mumbai Indians, being the most favourites throughout the season.. IPL 3 thus ended with all its Glitz, Glamour and Excitement intact. Thanks to Keiron Pollard, Sachin, Raina for an excellent finale, and the likes of A R Rahman, Shahid Kapoor, Bipasha Basu made the entire evening a sparkling and memorable one...

For all the bad publicity IPL is earning in the past so many days, I have one thing to say, just like the short format of the T20 version of cricket, the controversies, too, will be short and entertaining(it already is entertaining and nothing more). The sooner one gets sprung up; the faster it gets dusted. My passion towards cricket and IPL from the last 3 years, compelling me to pray that nothing bad should happen to put off curtains to this behemoth event called Indian Premier League. Because it’s indeed the biggest marketing extravaganza ever happened in India, by most (if not all) measures. A golden goose for all…

In this controversy, the ultimate winner is Media Companies by all means. They welcomed it with both hands ,easily filling in the slots. The controversies tearing many masks, opening the intricacies of the Big Mine Called IPL… Not getting much into the controversy side, because I don’t have Valid Proofs, which everyone is asking for… Will this havoc create a permanent dent on the credentials of IPL? Let’s wait and watch …

Have you happened to hear the Nerolac Jingle whenever the Score summary of IPL matches was being shown in CNN IBN? This one hour program on IPL is named Cricketainment. Or the Sidhuisms in the program called Cannon Summer Slam III with Sidhu in Times Now. Be it regional or national, every news channel in India has got half an hour to one hour exclusive programs on IPL. Had you missed a sixer, OOPS, sorry, a DLF Maximum or a Citi Moment of Success you would have tuned into these programs and got a glimpse of it.

Even you can have chats with all time greats like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Sidhu, Harsha Bogle and many more. These are brilliantly devised marketing programs. That’s the only reason why these so called 24x7 News Channels didn’t get into more fights over the telecasting issues with the IPL governing body and SET MAX. These innovative IPL properties successfully fetched in many of the big advertisers on board.

Each and everyone was eagerly selling out IPL to make that extra buck this summer. Some days back, Lalu Prasad Yadav was demanding the nationalization of IPL, where it’s already a Universal Brand. The Top 5 News Channels registered and Average Ratings of 1.5 to 1.75 for their Exclusive IPL Programs.

IPL was not spared by the newspaper dailies. Times of India has come out with a 3-4 pager exclusive feature on IPL called IPL THREELLER. From Scorecards, to Today’s Matches, to Players Columns to whatnot, every single column of the broadsheet has been attached to a brand. Not just TOI, but all the leading dailies tried to fetch in many advertisers on board by their 20-100 sqcm box ads....( click on the first two pics attached with this article) IPL, thus creating opportunities for all, despite which and what field they are in.

Websites featured IPL also registered a healthy growth in the last 45 days. The websites’ HITS were on a high. Be it to check the scorecard, or to go through the players or teams profile, for all reasons Indian Cricket Websites pulled in more eyeballs this time.

Its not just IPLT20.COM, which is the official website of IPL, which registered steepness in their growth curve, but sites like Cricinfo, Rediff.com etc also took a greater share in the pie. Better and fast mobile browsing helped many to have a quick check while they are on the go. The easy and free browsing applications are doing a world of good for those mobile savvy cricket fans. Thanks to the live Youtube featuring also, which really enhanced the spectrum of fan base across the world.

IPL Mobile Connection

IPL thereby making fans in all strata of society right from a 3 year old to 60 year old to housewives to Chaiwalas to whonot. It’s indeed the biggest and most successful realty show India had ever produced. Let’s all wish and pray all the conspiracies, problems and probes on IPL will end up soon and expect a clean and transparent IPL 4.

I retire with a heartfelt thanks to all who read this article that got spread in four episodes… God bless !

(Pic courtesy- Financial express- Brand wagon)

The technology flooded customer.. (the best of adformula series)

How information savvy are you?,,,,

How saturated are we with flow of information?....

Or is saturation a light description of the "how' things are as of now...?



A study ,which I read in some news a month back ( may be it has become outdated by now...), says an average Indian who lives in a metro and who has access to all the communication tools of the day..the "infosexual" ...( eureka,,, eureka.... I have got the term...) gets around 7ooo + information criscrossing his brain on any given day ( Dr Paul MacLean as quoted by Micheal Heppel- says "the brain is a triune brain ie :- with three parts... The Reptilian brain, the limbic system and the neo cortex....")OOOf was it too complicated.?.

Any way it doesnt matter....So the point is... all those information making the receiver go MAD--- Message A Day Index as the communications industry has "aptly" named the phenomenon......Information deluged human beings,attend selectively, distort lavishly and retain sparingly....Voila.... poor Marketing comunicator ( read advertiser....)..how do you make sure that your communication stands above the deluge..like the great arch by Noah...Be creative...In
creative content as well as choice of media....

See one example here..it is brilliant..eh? ..the friskies outdoor actually carries food for the birds...now can any one simply ignore that...MAD or bad ..such creative stuff hits the TGBe bold and different.... saw the &*%$ sucker ad..? the idea is simple..Dowry is the dirtiest word..any other word,,,even the dirtiest of swearing, would become a day to day lingo in comparison...

bold and beautiful ..aint it?

Now whats the lesson....for an academic couchpotato it is easy to advise..right you ad guys out there..?

It is easy to play from the gallery ...but right in the field the heat will burn your ass right...?


But I belong to the TG... and I will see u only if u want me to see u.. talk to me in my language...Got it... or are you caught in the deluge... deluge of vanity...?

(This article is published again under the best of adformula series and was originally published on June 19, 2006)

Adspeak- Roadblocking ..!!!

Signboard outside a prostitute's house:-

"Married MEN not allowed. We serve the needy,not the greedy".

The term "roadblock" is obviously taken from the traffic vocabulary, but in Advertising it means something quite different…... ' it is an aggressive form of media buying where tactically media space is bought in bulk so that on a given day or on a giver duration of time, the TG sees the ad/ communication of the spender in all the similiar media vehicles...'.

In print media it means that space is bought in every news paper for the same day and in television advertising, an ad is shown on multiple stations simultaneously or as near simultaneously as possible.

Media buyers have been greedy like their clients who demand more return and more reach as well as frequency ,defying logic, and hence resort to practices like road blocking,,,,, so a user is confronted with the same ad on numerous channels…a remote wouldn’t be of much help in such a case since it is the same every where… .Online roadblocks ( the one done in web sites) are able to mimic the effects of a TV roadblock in this manner by exposing their ad to massive home page audiences and expanding their reach beyond a single site buy. The ultimate objective, of course, is to obtain 100 percent share of voice.

This is very useful for advertisers who need to promote something significant and timely, like the arrival of a new film in theaters; the series premiere of a popular TV series; a major political, entertainment, or sporting event; or the launch of a new product. For this reason -- along with the ability to show video and employ rich media with a large page footprint, and their sizeable price tag -- roadblock campaigns have been particularly popular among entertainment companies and big-name brands.

The Hutch to Vodafone transmission roadblock in the Star channels was much discussed at that point of time( 2007) and now it is the HUL road block that is happening today across the star network channels…(Star Plus, Star One, Star Gold, Star Utsav, Star Movies, Star World, Channel [v], Star Jalsha, Star Pravah and Star Vijay etc etc )
… Lifebuoy will the lead it seems.. so if you want to see Lifebuoy and Lifebuoy only, keep watching star today….

Impression levels of course goes up as people are forced to see..

Reach (as media planners say) is attained by roadblocking but does the MESSAGE actually REACH( as the ad means it.. reaching the heart,,,,,) the TG?

Clutter is broken and there is no competition so its all yours, even though for just one day… but does the message stay where it REACHed?

In the internet world it happens more often and more smartly….Recently, pizza chain Papa John's ran a roadblock ad on Facebook promoting a free pizza for every user who became a fan of the brand on its Facebook Page. Thanks to the home page ad and an associated e-mail campaign, Papa John's garnered 131,000 new fans in a single day. As of March, it was the second fastest-growing brand on Facebook after Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. But it is not easy in the still old TV and print world…

The big question is…..

Isn’t the strategy leaving a somewhat objectionable impression of "blocking" consumers choice to see what they want?…

Isn’t it forceful showing ? Isn’t it that they may get bored and stop buying…?

“I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death” said the legend Leo Burnett… the advertising world of Media planners, buyers and strategizing isn’t bothered about the reach as the creative means it..

And there lies the problem…
Amen !

Invading the content (Part 4)

Continued from part 3 ..........

Measuring product placements

Measuring product placements in TV is like chasing a mirage. In cinema the effect is more outstanding as reported by the western media that when Tom Cruise wore a Ray ban aviator the sales went up by 40 % and when he wore an Oakleys in MI 2 the sales shot up by 80% ,as per Time magazine.... This is because, cinema gets audiences who are there having made a voluntary choice of exposure, and having spent money for entertainment, unlike television audiences whose involvement and degree of attention is questionable. Moreover, research has revealed that moviegoers, regardless of age or movie going frequency, actively participated in viewing experience and actively interpreted brands that they encounter there . But a time tested, believable mechanism to measure the effects in quantitative terms is yet to evolve. Buyers of such slots will have to succumb to the prices fixed by the seller, many times with no measurable justification. Many such buyers depend on the reputation and past success of the programme producer, the extent to which he allows placements and their own bargaining skills.

The basic premise that the ratings of a programme in TV need not be applicable for commercial breaks in that programme is the reason why product placements have come into prominence. It has been suggested by researchers, that even in programmes with high
Television Rating Points (TRP), the recall of commercials happening during the commercial breaks aren’t very promising, and some times even dismal You and I have experienced that very often .Havent we? When that is the case, will the fame of a popular programme be carried over in full glory, to the products placed in such programmes? It is a question yet to be answered.

Most of the researchers who have worked with Cinema product placements in focus, seem to have emphasized on the power of recall value as effectiveness of product placements and not much emphasis on the power of interpretation and the resultant attitude except a few works . Does recall contribute to attitude change? Those who have gone inside the topic have left it open for future research with the emphasis that, both recall and attitude effects after product placements should be studied . Industry practitioners like Zergio Zyman, also have often commended that “eyeballs don’t equal sales".Considering the fact that TV viewing is more casual and grazing takes place, more research in this area is necessary before any reliable measuring format can be accepted.
Some attempts like comparing the amount of time a product is exposed in the programme with the cost of an equivalent ad slot in the same programme and charging the same money from the client were done. But the authenticity and believability of such measures are disputable. Very often advertisers wonder why they have to spend so much of money for a not very apparent appearance of the product during a programme. Some attempts are made by television audience agencies like TAM(Television Audience Measurement) in this direction. ‘TAM received International Recognition & Appreciation when its Paper on “Evaluating Soft Brand Advertising on Television" (from an advertiser’s point of view) was announced as the Best Paper amongst 22 other strategy papers from various parts of the globe in European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) 2004. This paper was a path-breaking analysis on Product Placements within TV Programs which already is a multi-million dollar industry in the West and worth a few hundred crores in India already. During Mid-2004, the concept of In-programme Product Placement was researched upon from a consumer point of view and presented at the World Audience Measurement (WAM) Conference in Geneva’.

A tool now in discussion is the Q-Ratio or the Quality Ratio from iTVX which delves into the quality of the placement, the visuals, how well it has been integrated into the story, based on which they arrive on the value it deserves .The quality of exposure of the brand is assessed frame by frame and how such exposure helps the brand, and around 50 characteristics of the placement is taken to arrive at the right value. This is an attempt to understand how these placements score in terms of quality and what valuations one can do in monetary terms for these placements....

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