Cricket | IPL | Advertisements

May 15, 2009 – 3:50 am by Bibhuti | No Comments »

I am often asked by my friends how I can follow all Cricket matches when 99% of them are not really nail biters. My answer is simple. It’s like you fail 99 times trying to solve a problem, but the joy is unmatched when you succeed on 100th attempt. The tension, the nervousness, the excitement, the drama, the pain, the smile, the feeling of triumph for someone else’s achievement, the tears disappointment for someone else’s failure can only be provided by sports.

So why am I talking about Cricket and sports in general here? Because, the heat is on with IPL Season 2 happening in South Africa. The matches so far have been low scoring compared to last year but quite close and competitive. The crowd response for a so called Indian domestic 20-20 tournament is quite decent. This is due to the aggressive marketing and awareness generated by IPL organizers in South Africa.

This is an open secret that majority of the sponsorship for Cricket come from India and the target audience of IPL second edition is still the cricket crazy Indians even though it is happening in South Africa. The organizers are leaving no stone unturned to provide the best experience while watching the matches on television. And to generate the buzz in stadium which is directly related to television watching experience, they have priced the tickets very minimal to encourage many people to come to stadium and watch. A contest is going on to choose Miss Bollywood from the crowd. The winner is going to earn 50,000 rand and also will be offered role in a Bollywood movie. There is another initiative by IPL to donate money to underprivileged schools as part of IPL HEAT Campaign (Help, Educate and Teach). More than charity, this is obviously a marketing stunt to garner some good publicity.

Cricket is no match for Soccer in terms of global footprint and being played by very few countries. So, you don’t see much advertising involving Cricket. Nevertheless, here are some Cricket related print campaigns. Also check Indian Premier League (IPL) 2009 for some television commercials done for season 2.

Boost Energy Drink

Reebok Sportswear

Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bar

Ashes Series

Pro20 Cricket Series

Nokia N93i

Save Tiger

Kafe Fontana

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)  Loading ...

Tags: Cricket, India, IPL, South Africa

 

Indian Premier League (IPL) 2009

April 16, 2009 – 9:36 am by Bibhuti | No Comments »

The wait is almost over. Just two days to go before IPL 2009 kicks off in Cape Town, South Africa on 18th April. It’s sad that the IPL schedule clashed with general election in India and has to move out of India. But, I am happy that at least it is happening. I could not have afforded to be deprived of such exciting month long Cricket Carnival. The bollywood glamor will be on display in full strength as stars like Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Preity Zinta, Shilpa Shetty are franchise owners. I bet the fusion of Cricket and Bollywood will run the Election out for sure.

The promotions by the franchises have not been too aggressive this time, probably due to recession and IPL being organized out of India. Shahrukh’s Kolkata Knight Riders, as expected, is the only team which appears not to have been affected. Here are some campaigns released this year.

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)  Loading ...

Tags: Cricket, India, Indian Premier League, IPL

 

Indian Premier League : Beyond Boundary

February 8, 2009 – 1:33 pm by Bibhuti | No Comments »

The commercial starts with a voice over stating that while the God gave us the land, we divided and created the boundaries. Otherwise ‘Pandey jee‘, a barber from India would have been doing ‘champi’ in Tokyo; ‘Dona‘, a teacher from the Caribbean would have been teaching Sanskrit in Banaras; ‘Vada Pav’ could have been the national cuisine in the England; Local trains could have run from Melbourne to Mumbai.

Sounds impossible ? It was earlier but not any more. Savitri is going to fast for Symmonds, Razia will keep ‘Mannat’ for Sehwag, sister Anne will pray for Dhoni and the whole Punjab will be praying for Sangakara. This will only happen in DLF Indian Premier League (IPL) on channel Max.

There are two things which rule India; Cricket and Bollywood. No recession, no calamity, no war and nothing whatsoever can change this. Imagine the impact of a product which is a fusion of both of these. The first season of IPL last year was huge and it was like a festival. So used to were people watching the matches that it took sometime to adjust to an evening without a 20-20 match. And I was happily surprised how easily people accepted the format of IPL. The ultimate testimony to the success of IPL was that people cheered when Sachin got out by a foreign player. That was unimaginable but it happened.

The IPL season 2 is expected to be bigger and better. In these bad times too players like Flintoff and Pietersen were bid for $1.55 million for just six weeks of play. This is a typical bollywood style masala advertisement which promotes beautifully the very concept of IPL. Come soon April, I can’t wait.

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)  Loading ...

Tags: Bollywood, Cricket, DLF, India, IPL, SetMax, Sports

 

IPL - Manoranjan Ka Baap

April 7, 2008 – 11:31 am by Sulakshan | 4 Comments »

This is one of the most funny and clever commercials currently on air. Its a simple idea, executed really well. Ads like this more often than not, go wrong in the execution phase, but this one is bang on the target. That filmi eighties kind of look and dialogs, perfectly suit this ad.

As per this article from Rediff, ‘An industry source said BCCI had allocated roughly Rs 100 crore as its (IPL) advertising budget,’. Normally with such high bugdets, creativity goes for a toss, because its easy to get all the stars with such money and have them sing and dance, shoot it on camera and call it an ad. I am happy to see that someone’s getting it right for BCCI.

It may be because most of the stars are associated to one team or other, so BCCI is left just with money and no stars, so all the big creative guys are having a good time. We hope to see more such brilliant ads as we get closer to IPL.

Check out the other brilliant IPL ad: Cricket ka Karmayudh.

One easy question: Who is Mano and Ranjan’s grand father ?
Simple: ICL. It helped BCCI to conceive IPL, their baap

One more question: Does that mean BCCI is IPL’s mom ?
Err.. Maybe !!

(5 votes, average: 4 out of 5)  Loading ...

Tags: Baap, Cricket, DLF, IPL, Manoranjan

 

IPL : Cricket Ka Karmayudh

March 11, 2008 – 10:37 am by Bibhuti | 14 Comments »

Agency : O&M, India

Now that the IPL bidding war is over and the cloud of money is exhausted on players, it’s time for promoting the event. The promos of DLF India Premier League have started to come on TV and the slogan is “Cricket Ka Karmayudh“. The USP of this campaign is the rustic and free flowing music. Does anyone know the singer and music director ?

Lyrics:

Aankhen uunchi kar dekh sikhar
Hathiyar utha tu dikha hunar

Mutthi mein hai teri hai taqat
Dushman ki ayee hai aafat

Tu laga dao, tu laga pench
Tu dekha jigar,tu dikha tez

Lakhon dhadkan ki jaan hai tu
Lakhon ke dil ki shan hai tu

Tu laga zor, tu macha sor
Ek mahaveer santan hai tu

Na deshyudh, na dharmayudh
Yeh hai dharti par karmayudh

(11 votes, average: 4.27 out of 5)  Loading ...

Tags: Cricket, DLF, IPL