Cricinfo Case Study What we intend to cover? The Sales

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Cricinfo Case Study
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What we intend to cover?

• The Sales Process
• The Client brief
• The Strategy
• The product
• The Creative process
• A look at the campaign creatives
• The Support
• Campaign Performance
• SWOT Analysis
• Our Learning's..

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Brand Adidas

• Product category Sports shoes gear
• Industry Sports Fashion
• Campaign Period 1st February 31st July 2005
• Target country India

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The Sales Process

• The Initial Pitch
• Various sponsorship pitches were made to the
  client regularly
• However, the client was reluctant to consider the
  same. They were not keen on branding did not
  believe in Internet as a sales medium either
• Client belief Adidas is a already a big brand
  Cricinfo couldnt much more for it

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The Sales Process

• The Impediments faced
• No media budget for promotional or brand
  activities (offline online)
• Preset Notions
• Barter deals were the order of the day.
• According to them Cricket beyond TV did not
  fetch desired eyeballs TV was too expensive.
• Online Media not considered effective and has no
  influence on decision making
• Hence no monies were assigned for digital media.
• Severe adversity against Internet as a Medium
• Client Expectations
• Innovative ad tools which is very common in the
  internet media and is currently being offered by
  the Indian portals for e.g Expandable banners,
  transitions etc (These are not applicable on
  Cricinfo due to the fact that we work on Iframes)

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The Sales Process

• What clinched the deal ?
• Break Through
• Synergized our pitch with the Launch of the new
  Sachin Master blaster shoes.
• A clear cut direction to them If the campaign
  does not work within 2 months they can pull it
  out.

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Client Brief

• Reinforcing their association with cricket.
• Synergy with the Adidas Brand Ambassador Sachin
  Ramesh Tendulkar.
• Campaign to focus on the launch of their new
  cricket shoes- Sachin Master-blaster Shoes..
• Target Audience Sports cricket
  lovers..Actively into sports 18 Male.
• Introducing a high end sport shoes to our
  audiences Intelligent Shoes

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The Strategy

• Capitalising on the key strengths of our site in
  order to build a highly valued rich content
  oriented product that would be of interest to our
  audiences and which could also be well associated
  with the brand
• A 360 degree communication plan to promote the
  brand on the site

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• Cricinfo Approach

• Cricinfo Strengths
• Live scores
• Statistics

• 360 Degree coverage of the property
• Creative Ad-tools
• E-Mailers
• Contest

• Unique Property for Adidas
• Sachin Zone
• Text Tab link

• Periodic Deal Monitoring
• Creative click rate
• Zone visitors
• Regular zone updating

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The Product

• Sachin Zone
• A complete zone on Sachin Tendulkar with a huge
  archive of statistics records
• To provider greater excitement and build more
  interactivity, we included a whole lot of
  exclusive downloads (photographs, Screensavers,
  e-cards and contests)
• Impossible is Nothing zone
• In keeping with the brand communication, an
  impossible is nothing zone featuring other
  popular sport icons was also created.
• Sachin Trivia Contest
• An exciting trivia contest on Sachin Tendulkar
  was created. This helped us in further building
  on the association of between Sachin and adidas
• Creative Ad Tools
• Brand and promo creatives to effectively promote
  all the above across our website

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Creative process

• Key focus
• Innovative design in keeping with the core brand
  values
• Cool and fresh design
• Good synchronisation between site layout and
  branding
• Impediments
• Absence of a defined creative brief from client
• Absence of any support on brand creatives
• Constant alterations and revisions in creatives
  as per the clients requirements

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Creative process

• The process
• Creating a new zone with complete branding
• Creating a look and feel that is a good fit
  between the requirements of the brand and that of
  our site design
• Creative ad tools for promoting the brand, the
  zones, and the contests
• New and exciting e-mailers from time to time
• Constant Improvements
• Constantly innovating on the site design
  introduction of a complete flash version of the
  zone to make the same even more exciting and hip
• Regularly updating content and creative designs
  to keep them fresh and exciting

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The Sachin Zone
Generated 4648 clicks
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The impossible is nothing zone
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The Sachin trivia contest
Generated 20040 clicks
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The Mailers
500 responses in 15 days
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The Mailers
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The Creative ad-tools
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The Contest promo
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(No Transcript)
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Launch of the Intelligent Shoe
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Impossible is Nothing
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The Support of the team

• Implementing the campaign after the deal was
  signed in co-ordination with Production, Sales
  team and Agency/Client
• Handling issues with creatives in co-ordination
  with Creative agency/Falk
• Efficient Management of the whole activity
• Effective inventory planning with peak bursts
  during match days
• Regular monitoring of campaign and tweaking
  things to better performance
• Keeping track of the campaigns on a day to day
  basis
• Sending reports at the end of all India series
  and Key Non-India series
• Compiling reports at the end of the campaign

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Campaign performance
Adidas Sachin Microsite (4648 clicks) Sachin
Gallery (3350 clicks) Sachin Zone Tab - Sachin
Player Microsite (31560 clicks) Adidas.com (2131
clicks) Contest (20040 clicks)
A whopping 1.16 Lacs clicks delivered in 5
months Sale of 100 adidas shoes _at_ Rs 10,000
each (absence of any other media activity during
this period)
Period Feb 1 Jul 31
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SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses

• Close to 2 million users from India were exposed
  to the adidas campaign
• Perfect fit between site traffic and brand TG.
• High visibility and frequency
• Higher brand recall due to relevant product
  associations through the customized offerings
  relating to Sachin (Sachin microsite, Sachin
  contest, Sachin e-mailer, brand IIN microsite etc
  )who is also the brand ambassador for adidas

• Lack of big incentives in the form of high value
  prizes.
• A robust offline media platform supporting the
  online activity would have helped in building a
  360 degree brand message.
• .

Opportunities
Threats

• High voltage International Cricket Calendar in
  2006.
• Opportunity to associate with Big Non-India
  series and Indian Domestic Cricket and gain a
  strong foothold in the cricket arena.
• Long term association with the sport will enable
  the brand to ride on cricket by using online as
  well as offline opportunities.
• Added exposure frequency along with traditional
  media and reinforcing brand alignment in other
  mass media
• The interactivity aspect of the media can also be
  leveraged to use it as a direct marketing
  platform and to create specific interest groups.
• Opportunity to dominate the Online Cricket
  platform in India to the exclusion of key
  competitors in this domain.
• Opportunity to dominate the Internet platform to
  reach the right audience in the most cost
  effective manner.

• Other competing / non-competing brands and
  categories waiting to grab the opportunity to
  ride on cricket season and build long term
  associations.
• Over dependence on one player in the cricket team
  could possibly lead to specific problems. For e.g
  Sachins underperformance, his subsequent
  injuries and period of inactivity could have
  possibly created some disappointment amongst his
  fans and hence a drop in interest levels

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Learnings The Positives

• Why it worked?
• Brand fit
• Timing of the whole campaign coinciding with
  their new product launch and that of a great
  cricket season
• Good creatives which helped us maintain the brand
  imagery and thereby assisted in better brand
  recall
• Offline support ( with a good offline media plan)
• What we learnt?
• Importance of creating innovative products and
  their effectiveness in building positive brand
  value and brand awareness
• Focusing on strengths of a medium helps in
  building better strategies
• Fresh and creative approach helps in building
  exciting products for brands which can be later
  reproduced for other brands in the same
  categories or with same goals
• Future deals been worked out..Adidas set as an
  example