Riding piggyback on the cricket mania

It is difficult to put an exact figure to the number of contests and schemes going around, for apart from all those on the national platform, there are many more capitalising on the local market for their products.

Similarly, it is virtually impossible to say how much money will be up for grabs. Industry estimates suggest anything between Rs 500 to 600 crore — and that could be off by as much 25 per cent on either side.

It is common knowledge that companies which become official suppliers, partners orsponsors spend as much as three times that amount in their campaigns to make their initial investment worthwhile. So, it would be safe to assume Pepsi — apart from the Rs 14 crore it paid to be a Global Partner — would sign cheques worth at least two to two-and-a-half times that amount in advertising campaigns on television and print media. This time around many of the sponsors are looking at cyberspace as another medium to advertise in.

Besides the above official sponsors, a number of other companies ranging from biscuit and candy makers, car manufacturers, airlines, and hundreds of others will be queuing up outside ESPN and DD offices to buy time. Then there is the service industry like the hotels, restaurants, which are in the process of planning out World Cup menus, giant screens, and now there is even news of a film distributor negotiating for rights to telecast the match at cinema halls.

This World Cup could also for the first time see the rise of package tours for a sporting event. Though touroperators regularly come up with packages for various holiday spots, Thomas Cook has special World Cup packages, which include tickets for specific matches, flight tickets and accommodation. For example, if you wanted to see India’s first two leagues matches against South Africa and Zimbabwe, which will be on May 15 and 19, the whole package will include tickets for the match and accommodation plus some meals for the period. That would set you back by £790 (about Rs 55,000) plus a return ticket for Rs 30,000. A similar package for the semis and finals costs £1,525 (about Rs 1,08,000) plus air ticket. Not a bad deal for a all troubles taken care of. Surely, as the ESPN promo declares: “It does not get any bigger than this”.

Amidst all this euphoric spending on the World Cup, there is this story: a few months, all the bigwigs of a major company were coming out of the boardroom looking pleased at having decided on being involved in a major way in the World Cup. Suddenly, one of them remarked: “But whathappens if India fails to make the Super Six (that is the second stage of the competition in which only six teams are left).” There was stunned silence.

A second meeting was a called a week later for a contingency plan.Media planners, chairmans, managing directors see World Cup campaigns in three stages. The first is the run-up to the World Cup, during which different companies have adopted different strategies. For instance, Hero Honda was the first to start out on a Good Luck India’ campaign, by making a film with the Heroes of 1983 World Cup winning team. The film was aired as a social message, which was also supposed to boost the Indian team.

Similarly, Pepsi, capitalising on its position as a Global Partner, has been taking the actual Cup, that will be presented to the winning team at Lords’ on June 20, around the country, and the shows have been drawing huge crowds. To add glitter, the unveiling has had appearances by the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Mohammed Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar.Companies, like Bacardi and Wills Sport are also planning Feel Good’ campaigns.

The second stage of the various campaigns will be the event itself. If the companies go overboard on India, and the team fails to go beyond first stage the campaigns would be a failure.

If India does get through into the Super Six and then the semis, there will be additional spurt in ad spend. Besides, all companies have prepared alternative campaigns which will keep rolling regardless of the India’s performance.

Lurking on the sidelines are the direct rivals to the companies which have the won the right to be officially associated with the event. For instance, Pepsi will expectedly tom-tom the fact that they are the Official Drink’ and Partners. But there is no way Coke will be sitting behind closed doors and moping. Insiders in the industry say that Coke’s ad managers are working overtime on the strategy to counter Pepsi. Similarly, Samsung, direct rivals to LG, are believed to have tied up with a magazine, signed upKapil Dev and are all set to launch an ad blitz. Then there is Bajaj, whose think-tank is working out plans to reduce the damage Hero Honda’s blitz during the World Cup might inflict on them.

WAYS YOU CAN GET TO THE WORLD CUP

PS: This does not purport to be an exhaustive list, for there are many other campaigns which may have been missed out.

WHO SPENDS THE MONEY…

Though Hero Honda Motors is the only major Indian company to put money directly on the event, a few MNCs are using India operations as the base for their promotional exercise. Hero Honda has forked out Rs 3.5 crore to become one of the handful of official suppliers, who will have the right to use the World Cup logo in their campaigns.

n Multinationals Pepsi and LG Electronics are primarily using the popularity of the sport in India for their huge expenditure. Pepsi is a Global Partner, a privilege for which it has paid two million pounds (Rs 14 crore), whileLG like Hero Honda is an official supplier, for which it has paid half a million pounds (Rs 3.5 crore).

…AND WHO GETS IT

Some of these may not be directly linked to the World Cup, but there is no mistaking the reason why the ad spends have increased dramatically. Some of the campaigns fetch these players, mainly Sachin, as much Rs 1.5 to 2 crore a campaign.