Cricket Madness Campaign
Cricket Madness CampaignCricket is like a religion in India and in order to connect to the target audience on the online space,the World Leader In Sports Products Companies had to engage with the audience for a longer term and build a momentum so that by the time of world cup, These companies will be associated with cricket. As as a wider platform for the audience to engage with. In order to achieve just that, the They had to create a cricket campaign on Facebook, which was proved to be the best platform for engagement and spreading the information to the Target Audience. Just from zero to more than a Million Fans, They had become The name which is all about cricket. For them the target audience had helped them reach online and helped them achieve their marketing objectives for the long term.
Nature of the program/ activity/ campaign
Business to Consumer
Duration of the program/ activity/ campaign. Start date-end date
ICC World Cup 2010 till date
Background
Among the Indian youth, Its has been perceived that any Sport Product making Company which is associated with cricket globally has a very strong awareness quotient. One Such Brand in this category is Adidas. For Sometime they have not been actively associated with cricket which was like a religion as far as India is concerned. So, in order to connect with their audience, They had to position themselves as a serious cricket brand in India. Thus, the key endeavor for them was to strengthen their association with the Sport like cricket.
Objectives
The key endeavor of the campaign was to strengthen the association of Adidas with cricket leveraging social media in order to achieve
- Interaction
- Engagement
- Word of Mouth
- Buzz
Strategy and Planning
To Sustained interaction and engagement with the target audience about and their seriousness with the sport cricket they had to create a platform where the cricket fans can come, discuss, use content and spread word about the page among their peers so that it falls into a moment and by the time world cup starts, it becomes the one such platform where the cricket fans can identify with themselves the real meaning of crazy cricket fan.
Stakeholders
There was no primary target audience for them, As they wanted every single Cricket fan to come and show their Cricket Madness in the age group of school to young Professionals. This audience had a huge association towards digital media. Their digital presence covers social networking, mobile, entertainment, sports, online videos etc.
Photo Credit:- Adidas Cricket Website
Choice of channels
To achieve this Adidas had chosen one of the best platform in Digital marketing which is Facebook. It became the central point for the long term digital strategy. They Invited the users on their page to share their Stories about cricket and how crazy fan they are, Their love and passion for the game with the objective of make the platform one stop place to discuss and know any information associated with cricket by the time the ICC World Cup starts. The key purpose for the activity on the Facebook page was to make it grow bigger, because cricket had the best connection among the target audience. Thus, Facebook page was created. To extend the digital marketing strategy and to provide the best social media experience they also created Twitter and Youtube pages also.
Implementation
To maintain the engagement of the TG, They encouraged the users to share their views on cricket and what is happening in the cricket world, In addition to this they had to create activities like Games, Trivia which generated phenomenal responses. The SnapShoot and premiering of their new campaign TVC’s were released first on Facebook page before it goes to the TV audience which also helped them create lot of buzz. In less than a year, the page had grown to more than a million members and still growing at a same pace. As per Facebook.com, it had become the most Viewed and clicked Page in year 2011.
The special 60 sec Director’s cut of the TVC was exclusively unveiled on Facebook during the IND AUS series in Oct. The page received a large number of attendees to view the launch of the commercial. The daily interaction on the page has also been constantly on the rise month on month. On an average each post gets a feedback. For further engagement and to bring competitive edge to the page, they created a long term cricket game based on the real cricket series happening. There was a great response on the game right from the day it was launched.
The cricket game which the created has more than 40 thousand registered teams. It raise to double during the time of IPL and ICC World Cup. This was a great activity. They also released some Images from the past which got the tremendous response. As everyone knows Photos are the most highly consumed form of media on any given fan page. Users are constantly sharing their photos on the page to display their love for the brand. The Director cut video as the best thing any Fan required and they press the correct area, which is still seeing amazing response. There were many other activities which happened on a daily basis to make sure Love and Passion for the game never stops.
- PREDICT AND WIN (run 11 times) Simple yet engaging contest which saw participating in droves. The competition was run on the discussions board. Total responses were 1,571 over a period of time
- RAPID FIRE CONTEST (run 6 times) This was a quick quiz contest where they were giving gratification to the first few entries. Prizes was the major attraction towards Rapid fire contests where users participated in huge numbers. Close to 4,000 entries
- SPOT THE BALL CONTEST (run 9 times) Spot the ball continues to attract users. With user attention span being really low, Spot the Ball is the perfect engagement tool to drive Likes & Comments. More than 3,000 responses
- IMMORTAL WORDS CONTEST Immortal Words is the premier campaign on Adidas Cricket attracting users to etch their names on billboards across the country. Nearly 22 different images were shared on the fan page asking for the users to caption each of these. Unprecedented response with more than 6,000 entries. Overall, the whole activity was hugely successful and instrumental and achieving the overall marketing objectives.
Now this is what we call the true Cricket Madness Campaign people go crazy when they hear about any Cricket Contest in the Country.
Impact and Outcome
As a result of the Activity, the Facebook page community has grown to more than a Million fans and still going strong. On the Youtube page, total video views for the channel are more than a Lakh. According to all Facebook.com, the page has one of the most Explosive pages they have ever seen. The campaign has delivered one of the earned media on the social front. According to the report, Adidas was one of the most talked about brand on the social media even ahead of brand which were officially associated with ICC World Cup including competition like Nike.
Learning
Social media as a platform has been a great turning point for the digital Marketing campaigns. The time has changed now people are more then happy to sped there free time on Social Media to know the latest trends in the World. Than spending there time on micro-site. Social media provides the right kind of engagement which is always two way, and long term association and relations which keeps the audience hooked on to the Brand and help develop affinity with the brand.
What next
The game is only going to be more intense with more engagement hooks and exciting content on Facebook. More releases, Contests, Social Games , Augmented Reality, More cricket content and cricket for the Facebook Fan Page to make it a never before experience in order to make cricket the ultimate destination for every gentlemen game fan.
Testimonials
Cricket is an extremely popular sport in the country with a huge fan following. Social media, on the other hand, is fast becoming a platform where every individual has a presence. I believe social media platforms offer unique and exciting ways to engage with consumers. Given the immense popularity of Facebook.
Image Credits: Adidas
