Social Media and New Markets

When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country.. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will.
– Quote about Sachin in TIME, Thanks Parvin Jain.

This double centurion now has 93 Centuries in Tests and One Day International formats, scoring the first double hundred in the game. Sachin has been individually earning more than INR 400 million annually, a huge amount by Indian standards. These are the endorsements he is paid. for diverse campaigns like Pepsi, Visa and MRF(wound down last year). He earns an equal amount from Mumbai Indians in the IPL. Cricket’s biggest brand recently sublicensed the brand “Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar” to Reliance Communications during the last Cricket World Cup.

The current Indian Captain Dhoni also earns an equal amount in endorsements and plays for the Chennai Superkings.

However the LITTLE  MASTER has till yesterday’s game been outbid by a ew in the IPL including Kevin Petersen and now team-mate Keiron Pollard. He is still in the prime of the game. Friendly competition between sports celebrities is likely to have a positive impact on the social web.

For more on the phenomenon head to Ten’s own

India’s Investment rate is a piggish 36% . People seem to have an innate strength from having put their money in a FD. While HSBC Canara’s new dimpled cheeks shone in the baby showers on OOH Media, ( new ad speak /for bored upwardl y mobile salaried Twenty-somethings and senior bystanders watching Flat panel screens across Cafes, theaters and Super Malls ) Religare also launched a $25 million ad budget , covering its own brands at Religare Enterprises, Religare Life, Religare AMC and lately its Macquaries run Wealth Management venture

With only the AEGON Life Ad making impact this year, it is a wonder why more such marketing budgets are not under close scrutiny. MAcquarie is running a Print and Outdoor campaign, as usual educating the upwardly mobile urban and his more distinct but rich rural brethren to add and invest in the right kit.

The education whim is likely to continue to be the winning motif in all such publicity campaigns, leavin room to defend marketing expenses for insurance fund administration or advisor fees on your portfolio and looping all possible positioning and targeting ambitions into an endless market development broadcast rather like a new age Aldous Huxley or George Orwell government tellng its citizens about good governance.

Religare already has 452 towns in its umbrella, even the $1 million budget Macquarie getting nine offices in cities like Coimbatore and Guwahati. Will we have enough cash currency to fill the airtime for such dollops of marketing thru educative print and cost of retirement ads?

Sports Marketing can so easily be confused with selling the game on TV. In fact in its early days for the NFL and all that is American it used to be so true. Well, out here in Asia or for soccer, Europe, it is still very much true.

Think of a game, and automatically you think of the TV stars that made the game. The Tendulkars and the Sehwags in Cricket, the Bhaichung Bhutias in Indian soccer have an umbilical cord link with the game, and for us marketing people that  cord is the TV Remote. India’s fortunes in Cricket are directly linked with its revenues from TV advertising. Other BRand promotions, events and the game itself were almost pushed to a secondary level everytime its revenues were at a peak.

The situation on the ground is the exact opposite. Players have struggled for real remuneration and spend retirement in various stages of ‘disuse’ and ‘disenchantment’. There are rare coaching opportunities, there are rare royalties and no one but yourself to remember your own records. The broadcasters and the marketers are conspicuous by their absence just 5-10 years ago. It was in this scenario that NEO Sports made a start in India as a game broadcaster, asking ESPN Star Sports and DD to face up to competition. The story of the NEO Sports franchise is thus as old as India’s new found hegemony in Sport.

Apart from its Cricket centric beginnings, it has also promoted the German Bundesliga with a recent 3 year contract. The Hockey World Cup is next. All NEO channels are paid additions to Cable and DTH households within the subcontinent and in the middle east and maybe UK. As recently as April 2009, NEO has received $64 million in funding from 3i and Oman Investment Fund.

Perfetti and Hero Honda are the anchor sponsors for NEO Sports and one can easily assume a less than $25 million billing for them at this stage when the entire cricket universe is $250 million, out of which a good $150 million goes to IPL. NEO Sports has made $95 million across the India Australia series in 2009 and the recent India Sri Lanka series. Even for the current SA visit, sponsorship bands are available for less than $2 million and advertising at $8k per 10s. Idea and Tata Docomo are both part of it since Airtel and Vodafone Zoozoos pretty much monpopolise everything IPL next month ( Our Telecom market is growing at 10 million connections a month and needs constant sustenance for the brand in the face of sometimes more than 5 players in each circle)

NEO also brings the Domestic Cricket league telecast to the 20 million DTH and over 80 million Cable Homes. The recent Lanka series infact crossed TRPs of 8 for the series where the Colors Big Boss and IPL opening matches and finals do not cross 12, A 5 or 6 average for TRP is good and that means 5 million TV Sets were on for the game

NEO is floated by Nimbus sports and in an earlier round of funding it had raised $125 million from Deutsche Bank and Americorp with 3i. It has Indian cricket rights only till the end of this year.

Among competitors Times Global and Network 18 Viacom would be looking for public funding this year. In rights bidding, ESPN Star may be still competing with MAX for future Cricket, Hockey and Soccer rights. Doordarshan as the only Terrestrial partner gets to carry any and all TV telecasts of games free. .For the Commonwealth games, TEN in Australia, SIS (UK) and SKY TV ( NZ ) are among those who have landed broadcast rights. DD/Prasar Bharti are host broadcasters for the game, including the first ever HD broadcast.

NEO campaigns are noted for their bent as pioneers of the game. Its tagline in 2007 was ‘The home of Indian Cricket’, its campaigns used as fillers when air time could not be sold in the early struggles. ‘Dhak Dhak Go’ from Hero Honda supplements the taglines for the FIH Hockey World Cup promotions.

NEO won 11 awards in the 2008 Promax BDA Broadcast Awards for its campaign shorts after the rules of Cricket were changed to bkeep spectators engaged.  This years promos to watch are Power play, Rusty Nail and ‘Tension’

Dhoni and Sachin are batting for India as we write, and India are still holding on to the #1 position in Cricket.

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The two new C’s beating the P and the G in Gillette or now called the ex-Folgers sanitary brand coy has failed to deploy the safety parachute as campaigns from Coke are likely soon flooding the market for this year’s numero uno position in Asia. Esp. with the Asian challenge fading for Coke as it is firmly established in China as well, In India it has further cemented the gold rush for the heat with a new mega celebrity , budgeted in Indian rupees campaign with cinekhiladi Akshay. Last seen in the Colors resurgence on the Indian terra firma, Akshay may still be out first export from Bollywood for non Indian audiences or diaspora with 2010 establishing a second decade for innoarket aware vative Coke marketing and most of it corresponding to the Indian desi heady rush without the Ramesh Chauhan fights early on.

Also, the second C that got the gall of the razor was Canon which beat doomsday prediction for the recession friendly retail industry with a 35% uptick in budgeted targets for cross RS 1000 crores or $230 million this year riding a new market aware Xerox and Photograhy products campaign. Here’s to the new Cs..there are enough jobless students out there to absorb a lot of additional Cs in the marketing software.

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Whenever I’m asked “what type of click-thru-rate do ads on Marketing Pilgrim receive?” my reply often suggests that the inquirer take a look at Google AdWords, if they’re only interested in CTRs. Why? Because, I know that display ads are the perfect platform for increasing brand awareness and trust, but are pretty lousy when it comes to CTR. (Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule)

In case you don’t trust my years of online marketing experience, new research from comScore supports the notion that display ads shouldn’t be measured by their CTR. As avc.com reports, comScore compared 139 display ad campaigns with a control group of ads. The findings?

It’s clear that display advertising, despite a lack of clicks, can have a significant positive impact on:
- Visitation to the advertiser’s Web site (lift of at least 46% over a four week period)
- The likelihood of consumers conducting a search query using the advertiser’s branded terms (a lift of at least 38% over a four week period)
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying the advertised brand online (an average 27% lift in online sales)
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying at the advertiser’s retail store (an average lift of 17%)

In fact, as the chart below demonstrates, display ads provide a 65% lift in site clicks the first week they are seen, and still provide a 45% uplift 4 weeks later! They’re just not that great at immediate clicks.

The moral of this story? Buy advertising on Marketing Pilgrim today! When you purchase a display ad, you have two choices:

Figure out how to measure the increase in overall site traffic, not just those that can be directly linked to your banner ads.
Forget about any kind of measurement and just trust that, with the right targeting, display ads will increase your brand awareness.