The World Cup extravaganza is on in full swing. The Cricket World Cup is an ideal opportunity for various brands, TV manufacturers and direct-to-home (DTH) operators to engage with their consumers directly and indirectly.

Such events create a brand war, where everyone tries to eat from the same pie (limited air time) and to attract customer’s attention, some through innovative campaigns and some by rolling out attractive offers.

We reached out to various prospective customers to understand what clicks. They came back with a mix of things that we expected, as well as some insights which surprised us.

The survey revealed that the millennial generation has a strong inclination towards sports, and high definition (HD) is the preferred choice to watch sports compared with other genres.

However, the research also revealed another interesting pattern of consumer preference. It showed that different members of a family have different preferences in terms of their viewing pattern. If one person is interested in sports, the rest might be interested in general entertainment channels (GEC), movies, music, or other subjects.

Now, we all know that the success of any brand largely depends on the differentiation it offers. Therefore, during the cricket season, while everyone talks about cricket, we decided to stand away from the crowd with a Cricket + message.

However, sometimes, even when one’s message is well-differentiated it has the risk of getting lost in the clutter of TV advertising. Moreover, the noise gets amplified during such events. This led us to a thought on how to be a part of the noise without going to TV at all, knowing that most of the match timings were mostly morning or clashed with work hours.

Also, given the fact that more and more people are spending a disproportionate amount of time on their second screens, be it laptop/computers or mobile phones, digital campaigns gave us the opportunity to connect with our audience in a more economical and effective way.

Fresh perspective Keeping these insights in mind, we have tried to bring a fresh perspective in our channel offerings and have made significant changes in our packages.

We call this the Cricket + approach, which showcases different programmes in HD to suit the varied tastes of individuals in a family. We have now expanded our bandwidth to 40 HD channels, which is the highest number shown by any DTH player in the industry. Even our sports package has been revamped, offering the most sports channels.

The high point of this digital campaign is that it’s endorsed by our ambassador Shah Rukh Khan, who is as synonymous with cricket as with Bollywood. We have also roped in upcoming star Varun Sharma, who will be able to relate to the youth.

This campaign is on for three weeks. We are a country where cricket is followed as a second religion. This digital campaign is rolling out in a phased manner across paid, owned and earned media.

We are confident that it will strike a chord with our consumers as they have already noticed the enhanced services and responses are pouring in.

We are positive that this Cricket World Cup will expand our consumer base significantly.

(Salil Kapoor is COO, DishTV)

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