A different ball game

Was it a different ball game? Yes, it definitely was. And in the context of Reebok, I believe it is primarily due to a ‘fitness revolution’ of sorts that India is witnessing today.

In the last World Cup Season, people were definitely aware of fitness, and knew it was important, yet, not all of them actively participated in a fitness activity. Over these past four years, we have seen the fitness industry growing exponentially in the country, and it is still growing at a steady pace.

During this period, we repositioned from a sports and fitness brand to a brand focused on fitness. We took it on ourselves to inspire Indians to be ‘fit for life’. Towards this end, we changed our merchandise from sporty and casual to fashionable and functional fitness wear.

We also rolled out our global Fit Hub concept stores starting 2013 in India, and have now set up over 129 such stores across the country, with an overall count of 300 stores. During this period we improved our merchandise mix and dedicated half of our store to women.

The results have been nothing short of phenomenal. Apart from an increase in the consumption of fitness-related merchandise, a rapid increase of participation in community fitness activities is also something that we have observed.

With the intent of inspiring Indians to be fit we launched two properties: ‘Reebok Fitness Avenue’ and the ‘Reebok Running Squad’. Through these programmes we give free training (running, dance fitness, cardio fitness, and such) to people at large, and this has seen a tremendous response from enthusiastic citizens across the country.

As far as the ICC World Cup 2015 is concerned, the public sentiment is definitely on a high. With team India’s six consecutive wins, we are all definitely positive and hopeful about winning the tournament again, and cricket fans across the country are absolutely ecstatic about how the team is performing. Moreover, it’s great to see our players in form, looking fitter.

Fitness sentiments amongst cricketers and Indians at large are on the rise. In a country such as ours, cricket is one of the best mediums to reach out to the masses, and really drive your message home. It’s a marketer’s dream in a way — provided you play it right.

Keeping in line with our renewed and strong fitness focus, we thought about doing something different for this season of the ICC World Cup. For a sport as active and energetic as cricket, fitness is essential to the players; they have to be always alert, active, and on the move, be it bowling, batting or fielding. While most World Cup campaigns revolve around the sport itself, we thought about targeting the people who watch the sport. Rather than just sitting around and watching, we wanted to do something that would inspire them to get up and get moving. Hence, we rolled out our ‘MSD4India’ campaign, with long-time Reebok brand ambassador and ace cricketer MS Dhoni.

The MSD4India initiative is more than just a campaign. I would call this a movement to ‘change lives’. We wanted to do something that would connect with millions of people across the country, and inspire Indians to be ‘Fit for Life’. Ours is a unique nation that reacts equally well to candlelight vigils or Ice Bucket challenges. We come out in support of each other which is a great thing but what about when it comes to our own selves? And that is how this idea was born.

We started off by giving the people of India a taste of the campaign through a teaser video released on our official Facebook page in February. The video depicted Dhoni working out, and asking his fans for one thing. This helped us generate a lot of buzz and curiosity in the social media space, with everyone guessing what Dhoni was asking them for. We even ran a ‘Guess what MSD wants’ contest, which reached out to millions of excited fans across the country.

The mystery was revealed through the launch of the main campaign film on our Facebook page on February 14. This video took off from where the teaser ended, and lifted the veil on what MSD wants from his fans — One hour for fitness, one hour for life, one hour for MS Dhoni. The TVC also went live on television screens starting February 14, the day the ICC World Cup commenced.

We believe that fitness can be a part of your daily lifestyle, and this campaign aims to drive home that message through one of the biggest and eagerly awaited sports events of the world.

MS Dhoni was the perfect choice for such an idea, because of the immense respect and love he has garnered from India over the years, and his embodiment of Reebok’s ‘Fit for Life’ philosophy. Being a sportsperson, fitness is an essential part of his life, and something that he is very dedicated to. Owing to his discipline, dedication and success as the captain of the Indian cricket team, we were confident that he would be the perfect person to help motivate Indians and really spread the fitness message of the campaign.

As far as competition is concerned, Reebok is no longer a sports brand competing with the rest in this category. We aim to be the most desirable premium fitness brand, and are focusing completely on a range of products for fitness activities such as running, training, walking, yoga, zumba, aerobics, swimming and cycling as opposed to sports categories such as football, cricket and golf.

We truly hope that we are successful in gaining support for this ‘fitness movement’, and make our vision of a ‘Fit India’ a reality.