Was IPL well marketed?

This report discusses the various aspects of consumer behaviour exploited by IPL Marketing strategies and analyses how effective the marketing of IPL is.

IPL was well marketed

Assignment -1

FT13365 Rohit Kalla

IPL was well marketed

Introduction:
Cricket is one such religion that unites this country like no other. It is seen as more than just a game- the players in India have a cult status and are literally worshipped. Cricket, before IPL era started, was a little serious and long, and had lost its bling. But after IPL was born, the Twenty20 format of cricket created history. There is an entirely new class of supporters who have embraced the game. The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional league for Twenty20 cricket championship in India, initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It is currently contested by nine teams, consisting of players from around the cricketing world. It was started after an altercation between the BCCI and the Indian Cricket League. In 2010, IPL became the first sporting event ever to be broadcast live on YouTube. Its brand value is estimated to be around US$2.99 billion in fifth season. The Premier League is generally considered to be the world's showcase for Twenty20 cricket, a shorter format of cricket consisting only 20 overs. Top Indian and international players take part in IPL, contributing to what is the world's "richest cricket tournament". But what is so different and unique about IPL that it literally created a new era in the cricket history of India? The IPL is an extension of the consumerist theme running through cricket and India today. It came into being through a public auction well-heeled owners bid for and bought individual players. The most visible brands we associate with the IPL are celebrities who either own the teams or represent them as brand ambassadors. The owners often strut around in feudal finery, draping benevolent arms around the shoulders of their acquisitions. Along with the compressed version of the game, come scantily-clad cheerleaders, fireworks and film stars doing stunts. High-profile team owners ranging from liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the country's top industrialist, Mukesh Ambani; some of the world's top cricketers to play in the league, and multi-crore rupee bidding had all made for some heady brew. In short, everything that marketers believe makes for sticky eyeballs and crowded stadiums.

IPL Gauged the customer need: Cricket + Entertainment = Cricketainment

No product or service can have a sustaining appeal in the market if it fails to addresses some specific needs of the consumer. IPL was able to gauge that the large number of cricket fans no longer wanted to spend a day in front of the television for an ODI match or five days for a test match. IPL shortened the game to a few hours while adding elements to it that made the whole package of IPL such an entertaining experience that viewer could just not resist.

Cricket was no more just a game to watch but a four hour experience to its viewers. This was one of the reasons why IPL attracted viewers of every age and demography.

IPL Built Customer-Based Brand Equity

As Kevin Keller explains the conceptual model of Brand equity from the perspective of individual customer, customer based brand equity occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favourable associations in memory.- IPL built and strengthened its customer based brand equity successfully season after season. While it enhanced the thrill of cricket by increasing its pace, the adrenalin rush inherent in the shortened version was exploited by roping in celebrities, cheer leaders, glamorous hosts. It established a positive association with the viewers by encouraging small town cricket players to dream big and providing them a chance to interact with acclaimed super stars. All this made IPL matches something that families came together to watch and cheer for their favourite teams. The favourable associations that customers had in their minds about the celebrities and the brands they depict helped IPL develop its brand very effectively and at a fast pace.

IPL An Experience
Pine and Gilmore argue that businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers, and that memory itself becomes the product - the "experience". More advanced experience businesses can begin charging for the value of the "transformation" that an experience offers, e.g., as education offerings might do if they were able to participate in the value that is created by the educated individual. This, they argue, is a natural progression in the value added by the business over and above its inputs. Experiences are different from products and services. They are deeply personal and reside in the minds of the individual who has been engaged. IPL leveraged this to its benefit by creating a varied mix of experiences such that every individual viewer can relate to. IPL was exciting to the core and promised unlimited fun and entertainment which provided enough stimulation to consumers across the OSL spectrum. IPL fans are of different stripes. Some want their team to win no matter how lopsided the game is, while some may wish to see keen contests notwithstanding the outcome for the home team; some may want a match with heavy hitting, while some others may want to see celebrity players. Similarly, the paying capacity of fans differs. Thus IPL challenged its competitors at a completely different plane by successfully staging memorable experiences. The more senses an experience engages the more effective and memorable it can be. Blaring crowds undulating to the sounds of drum music by a Sivamani, huge bands of people decked in team jerseys and the almost palpable smell of thrill- victory or defeat combine together to produce the right balance of sensations.

Along the dimensions of experiences: Pine and Gilmore define four types of engagement in which a person can be mentally absorbed or physically immersed (vertical axis-Customer connection), with either active or passive participation (horizontal axis-Customer participation). These two axes intersect to create 4 quadrants of experience: Educational, Escapist, Esthetic, and Entertainment [2] IPL would fit into the quadrant where both active participation and immersion are high. As viewers, people hold the belief that their loud cheering and appreciation for their teams can sway results. They are also completely immersed in the proceedings right from the beginning till end. As Pine and Gilmore explain in their article-Welcome to the experience economy that each cue must support the theme, and none should be inconsistent with it for an experience to be most desirable, IPL has managed to ensure that even the smallest cues are paid attention to basing the whole experience on the theme of enjoying cricket by providing ample positive cues to reinforce it permanently, in the the form of blaring music between overs and media focus and sound bites from foreign players etc. IPLs popularity is evident by the number of people who regularly wear t-Shirts and jerseys that espouse their support to favourite teams even during non-season time. City based loyalty infused into the viewers was so unshakable that it gave the consumer the experience, the joy of feeling belonged in a group. Peer approval and social norms as dictated by a persons neighbour, for example, influence him/her to spend on these memorabilia and sport them proudly as a badge of his/her support to a particular team. Hypothesizing->Exposure->Encoding->Integration- Customer Learning from experience In Managing what consumers learn from experience by Stephen J Hoch and John Deighton, the authors propose a framework of four stages hypothesizing->Exposure->encoding>Integration with three moderating factors familiarity to learn, motivation to learn and the ambiguity of the information environment to capture what consumers learn from experiences. Since consumers tend to grant special status to conclusions drawn from experience and experience also promotes better memory because information is more vivid and concrete, any consumer who watches a IPL match either on television or on the playing field by paying for the tickets experiences entertainment that reinforces the outcome he intended in the first place. IPL managed to do this with an intelligent and balanced packaging of the different elements on offer as part of the experience. Consumers in post purchase situations tend to avoid dissonance inducing information. the human behaviour is to rationalise the money or time spent by justifying it as worthwhile.be it the money spent on the cricket field or worse still, hours spent in front of the television

set. Hence consumers consciously avoid situations in which they might potentially receive negative feedback about IPL and instead surround themselves with people who confirm a good buy by lavishing praise on the concept.

Brand IPL- the $2 bn Brand- Exciting, Innovative, Competitive

Many of the elements in IPLs Brand building strategy were phenomenally innovative and revolutionized the field of marketing experiences such as Extensive use of Social media, movie hall screening and huge no. of tie ups such as with Yatra.com, Ebay. Also, it exploited to a large extent, the word of mouth publicity and successfully adapted a tried and tested model of auctions from international clubs. Several new and innovative ad campaigns such as oongli cricket etc and the sheer number of brands associated with IPL was phenomenal. All in all, IPL was well marketed in terms of the brand building exercise which rendered it a position of 22nd most innovative company by Business Standard.

Conclusion:
IPL represents a new democracy of access where the individual can vicariously get the best players in the world to represent him. It is a sign of Indias global ambitions and its comfortable embrace of the forces of consumption. The market has come out of hiding and is moving ahead. This is a development that different people see differently. For some, this is a real sign of change while for others something priceless is being lost. The increasing crowds in the stadium, the cross border popularity of the T20 format, the numerous foreign players who are willing to sign up, the increasing auction amounts, the rise in the number of franchises catering to more cities and the craze for IPL memorabilia are all indications to the ever increasing popularity and success of the smart marketing strategies. Numerous secondary associations that were successfully leveraged, IPL as an annual event is extremely well marketed.

References:
1. IPLs Economics Demystified Franchisees will have to understand what viewers want by RAM TAMARA AND MICHAEL MALONEY 2. Experience Economy Strategies by http://www.joe.org/joe/2007april/iw4.php 3. Using the brand experience scale to profile consumers and predict consumer behaviour- Lia Zarantonello; Bernd H. Schmitt http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=028a3109-49c3-4d8fbdcc-c213e2394502%40sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=112 4. Bureau, E. (2012). IPLs first week online viewership increases 56%. ET. 5. Engineer, T. (2012). IPL 5 will be a super success Rajiv Shukla. Espncricinfo.