World Cup 2007: Cricket Connects Customers

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It's a challenge for the cricketers, fun for the people, but revenue for the service providers. Yes, Indian telcos and broadcasters have spruced up their marketing activities in order to grab their share of customer engagement and additional revenue streams.

Cricket and other sports are close to several companies' marketing plans when they make their marketing and sales budget. The reasons are two-fold. First, cricket in India is like a religion! It draws much more excitement, passion and fan following than any other sport. Cricket builds bonds between service providers and customers. And, it brings additional revenues and visibility for the brand. The games, the companies are playing are plenty. Mobile service providers, broadcasters, broadband companies, content providers and gaming portals are talking about their action plan for the World Cup. And, this year, the number of action-packed initiatives with substantial investments has gone up and there is an increase in excitement as compared to the previous World Cup matches-thanks to the flow of funds among the exceedingly demanding middle class and competition among top telcos. On top of this, India's tele-density has touched around 17% in 2007 from around 4% in 2001.

The Game Plan
The World Cup offers a huge revenue opportunity through a combination of relevant promotions and backing it up with good service/content quality. The huge cricket mania in India has definitely turned the sport into a large industry in the country. Whoever taps its potential reaps the benefits. Of course, there is a special price to be paid by customers for all these action-oriented services, and operators are excited about their plans.

Manoj Kohli, president (Mobility), Bharti Airtel, said "Cricket and other sports are very close to our heart and are one of our priorities. Association with the World Cup cricket helps us immensely in interacting with customers. Beyond revenue generation, engagement with customers through several interactive activities will benefit both customers and our brand that has been associating with live sports events. Besides the revenue opportunity, it also gives service and content providers an opportunity to delight customers by keeping them updated on what will be the most popular and publicized event during March-April."

Says Arun Mehra, chief marketing officer, Zapak.com, a full-service software gaming entertainment company and a part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group "We are delighted to see the overwhelming response from customers for our single-player and multi-player cricket games on our gaming portal. We have crossed one million registered users and one million pages of viewing a day. During World Cup cricket, the number of page viewing would go up substantially, thanks to our interactive games."

Cellebrum is offering services in the form of contests and subscription pack. Cricket ka Chausar is one of the contests incorporating the mythological epic Mahabharata into cricket

This year, the number of action-packed initiatives with substantial investments has gone up and there is increased excitement as compared to the previous World Cup matches-thanks to the flow of funds among the exceedingly demanding middle class

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During this World Cup, cricket is poised to harvest major revenues for the mobile VAS market. "We, at Cellebrum, believe in providing our subscribers the best of mobile experience in line with their sentiments and excitement around cricket. Keeping this in mind, we have rolled out various value added services across different platforms such as cricket games and contests," Saket Agarwal, COO, Cellebrum, said.

Several companies are providing fans with unique, economical and effective ways of enjoying the stadium experience from the comfort of their homes. "We expect phenomenal response during the World Cup which will further propel us to achieve our target of one million subscribers at the end of our first year of operations," Vikram Mehra, head, Consumer Marketing, Tata Sky, said.

Sundaraman K, head of sales, Google India said, "Google aims to constantly improve its user experience by designing products that make things easier and deliver better results than what was available before. Cricket is one of the key passions of users in India and this campaign is designed to bring people across communities together, offering them a unique cricket experience across different Google platforms."

Cricket Lovers Unite

www.cricketology.com: Cricket is uniting millions of people across the length and breadth of the country. www.cricketology.com, set up by Skilworth, a Chennai based start-up, launched as a build-up to the World Cup, gives cricket fans an in-depth peek into the art and science of cricket and encourages fans to apply this knowledge in a scientific and logical prediction game on the website. The website offers an e-book called Cricketology-The Art and Science of Cricket-edited by well-known cricket writer, R Mohan and includes contributions from writers like Rajan Bala, Suresh Menon, V Ramanarayan and others. Fans will have to purchase an article or buy the e-book, which will be available to them as downloads to collect their points to the value of the book and then play the prediction game. A single article can be bought for Rs 50, which would provide them with points to wage on their choicest teams during the 24 group matches of the first phase and super six and the final. The e-book has articles on 'Chemistry,' that deals with chemistry between the players, 'Biology' on drug related 'nandrolone and steroids' and fitness regimen, 'History and Geography' deals with Caribbean Islands where the World Cup is being held, 'Management and Psychology' specifies on how psychology plays an important role in the game, 'Physics' talks about the art of reverse swing and other such details and 'Maths and Statistics' about Duck Worth points system.

Hutch: Official partner for the cricket event, has introduced a range of different cricket services for its customers. Hutch customers will now have access to all the cricketing action on their Hutch phones. Both postpaid and prepaid customers of Hutch can now get ball-by-ball updates, score updates and special comments from a cricketing guru Arun Lal, video clips of the matches, cricket commentary and many more exciting services to keep them updated on the sport through voice and SMS service. Ball-by-ball and score updates will also be available in Hindi for Hutch customers with Hindi compatible phones. In addition, there will be news, trivia and facts to add to the cricket knowledge bank of customers.

Special cricket downloads from Planet Hutch are wallpapers, logos, games, cricket, caller tunes, animations, themes, learn from Rahul Dravid-pre-recorded video clips with cricketing tips and customers can also get regular updates on all matches by subscribing to cricket alerts.

Airtel: Apart from the conventional cricket services like packs, trivia/contests, multimedia images, statistics, information services like score, ball-by-ball updates which will be available across all platforms, Airtel's World Cup initiative is to provide customers statistics/facts in the form of "did you know" format, Wagon Wheel that depicts the areas of the ground that a batsman has scored runs from. Facts include records, while personal likes of Indian players will be added as part of a premium pack prepared keeping in view the special interest that the World Cup will generate. Krish Srikkanth's company, krishcricket.com will provide Airtel clips from famous moments of the 1983 World Cup, Games, ringtones, wallpapers on cricket and an interactive game with a unique format called "Captain of Captains". Airtel has also tied up with Mobile ESPN for clips, videos and contests.

Reliance: Is offering Sachin Nazara Pack in tie-up with Nazara. Subscribing to the Sachin Nazara Pack gives customers unlimited free access to all cricket related services such as hear score updates in Sachin's voice, listen to expert comments, get SMS score update alerts, download Sachin's wallpapers and videos, voice your opinion and listen to Sachin. Also, the customer might get a chance to bowl to Sachin by participating in a contest.

Besides this, cricket buffs can catch the cricket fever anywhere on Reliance Mobile World by buying the match pass and get continuous score updates, check the score on request, SMS alerts at every wicket, SMS alerts at every five over and watch all match animations at Rs 25 for a day.

Idea: To cash in on the World Cup, Idea Cellular has come up with three power packs with specially designed prices. Rs 199 Complete World Pack includes alerts for all matches of the World Cup and free live commentary. Rs 99 India Pack offers alerts for all the matches of the World Cup in which India plays, the semi finals, final matches and free live commentary. For customer with Rs 20, the one-day pack will include alerts for the next match of the World Cup and free live commentary.

Spice: Spice World Cup Cricket Bonanza includes live cricket update services, which can be accessed through multiple platforms like IVR, USSD and SMS and charges for cricket alert packs are Rs 99, Rs 50, and Rs 50 respectively. Spice subscribers can test their cricketing wits by participating in two new exciting cricket contests, namely 'Ball vs Bollywood' and 'Who WINS'. Winners of the 'Ball vs Bollywood' contest will get a chance to win an all-expense-paid-holiday to Singapore.