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Celebrating 10 years, IPL thanks its fans in marketing campaign

Conceptualised by DDB Mudra, the '10 saal aapke naam' campaign conveys its gratitude to the fans who have made the IPL a brand synonymous with happiness, togetherness and celebration. The network also launched an anthem for the league as a teaser

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Celebrating 10 years, IPL thanks its fans in marketing campaign

Celebrating 10 years, IPL thanks its fans in marketing campaign

Conceptualised by DDB Mudra, the '10 saal aapke naam' campaign conveys its gratitude to the fans who have made the IPL a brand synonymous with happiness, togetherness and celebration. The network also launched an anthem for the league as a teaser

Raushni Bhagia | Mumbai | March 10, 2017

IPL-Celebrating-10-years Click on the Image to watch the TVC.

After having walked the funny by-lanes of storytelling for eight years and then bringing a feel good happiness campaign in its ninth season, Indian Premier League (IPL) has now gone ahead to celebrate its 10-year journey and thanking the fans.

Sony Max, Sony Six and Sony ESPN are the official television broadcasters of the IPL for the last 10 years. Launching IPL's marketing campaign '10 saal aapke naam', Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India recently released three out of six of its television commercials. Currently in its 10th year, the league is out for a bidding process for its television broadcast rights.

Conceptualised by DDB Mudra, the campaign brief was to focus on the 'fans'. The promos for season 10 are running in six languages (dubbed in the regional languages) -- English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. The six brand films (for brand IPL) will be highlighting six different types of fans; the first lot has three films talking about a 'vehemi', 'antaryami' and 'under pressure'.

So, the film celebrating the 'antaryami fan' depicts a person who year after year makes predictions with confidence and even though all do not come true, he does not deter from making them again and again. The 'vehemi fan' film has a person who fears that if he watches the match his team will lose, so every time his team plays he is seen standing outside the door, be it a restaurant, a store or even his own house. The 'under pressure fan' has the protagonist who postpones even nature's call, be uncomfortable, but will not budge from the television screen till the last ball is delivered.

Through these films the network wants to convey its gratitude to the fans who have made the IPL a brand synonymous with happiness, togetherness and celebration. The campaign has been directed and filmed by noted ad film director Hemant Bhandari of Chrome Pictures Media. The network had launched the anthem for the league on March 1, through Twitter BlueRoom. That was launched as a teaser for the upcoming campaign. For the anthem, the broadcaster had roped in music composer duo Salim-Sulaiman and singer Benny Dayal.

Neeraj Vyas Neeraj Vyas

Neeraj Vyas, Senior EVP and Business Head, Sony Max cluster, SPN, said, “The insight for this idea came from those many people who watch cricket with their own faiths -- fears, superstitions, anxieties, some feel they are lucky/ unlucky for a certain team and so on. The only reason why IPL has worked all these years is because people have accepted it and placed it higher in their priorities. It's these fans who have made IPL what it is.”

The creative agency, media agency and the channel's marketing team go through the process of finalising the campaign, which takes about three to five months. Despite Chennai SuperKings not being there in this year's IPL, the channel has continued with the Tamil feed. That's because, as Vyas mentioned, 20 per cent of the total viewership from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry regions came from the Tamil feed.

For promotions of the IPL, the network will go beyond its own 30 network channels. The network had 17 channels last year, and this year there are 30. “So, technically we don't need to go beyond our network but we will still be going on the regional and news channels for promotion, said Vyas. Vaishali Sharma, Head, Marketing, Set Max said, “South and East regions of the country will have big focus for us.”

Vaishali Sharma Vaishali Sharma

Speaking further about the digital extension of the marketing campaign, Sharma said, “We started off with Twitter BlueRoom through our anthem. Everyone is celebrating 10 years of IPL. The anthem has got five million views in the first 2.5 days, which is a huge success. Gradually, we will start engaging with the audience as to what kind of fan are you, quizzes, contests and build the excitement till the game.”

IPL has had more light, entertaining and quirky campaigns since season one, right from its 'Manoranjan Ka Baap' campaign. It was in season nine when they came up with a serious and emotional positioning. Speaking about coming back to the fun and quirkiness, Vyas said, “Last year was a more serious and emotional campaign because those were difficult times for the nation. Had we spoken about cricket or entertainment, it might have backfired. Hence, it was Ek India Happywala. It was a little risky and we are happy that we could push it through. This year's campaign thought was the easiest to come about. It was quite clear in our minds to thank the fans and viewers of the league. This one is fun, chirpy and happy.”

Sonal Dabral Sonal Dabral

Sonal Dabral, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra West, said, “IPL is in its 10th year. So for this year we chose to celebrate it by using it as an occasion to pay tribute to the fans of IPL, fans without whom IPL wouldn't be what it is today. But unlike any other fan campaign, our campaign celebrates the diversity that is the IPL fan, a marked difference from a typical cricket fan. IPL fans come from all walks of life -- men, women, young, old, rich, poor, novice, expert, north, south, east, west -- and have diverse set of motivations -- supportive fan, glamour fan, fandom fan, victory fan and so many more. I'm sure this campaign will speak to the hearts of our audience and make them like IPL just a wee bit more.”

The channel has also created a mashup song for this season which combines the tracks and anthems of last six years. As per Vyas, the IPL tracks have been so nice that they might have become big hits if they were in films. “We wanted to build huge recall. This is a celebration of all those years and hence the mashup will run on the music channels.”

Speaking about the hard work behind the marketing campaigns, Vyas said, “It is a marquee campaign. The cricketing fraternity, television industry, advertisers and everyone is looking at it, along with a lot of internal pressure. Every year the pressure of 'you can't go wrong' is too much at times, but that's where we invest about three to five months of my time.”

The TVCs:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/bmi/media/post_attachments/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IPL-Celebrating-10-years.jpg

The anthem: 

Credit List:

Agency Name: DDB Mudra West

Creative Team: Sonal Dabral, Chairman and CCO, DDB Mudra Group, Rajiv Sabnis, President, DDB Mudra West, Rahul Mathew, Creative Head, West, Ashish Phatak, Siddhesh Khatavkar,  Vilsen Gonsalves,  Gunjan Gaba, Bhumika Singh, Gagan Bindra, Ravi Ananthan,Rinku Jariwala, Raj Joshi, Toral Bheda, Anand Vyas, Prasad Gudhate, K  C. Sruthin, Savya Narang

Account Management: Sanjay Panday, Makarand Gholba, Mousumi Haldar, Srikusum Rai, Smruti Vyas, Zenia Patel

Account Planning: Amit Kerke, Mehak Jaini,Jigisha Nyyar, Ketan Rambia,

Films Team: Vishal Sane, Siddhi Bhopale

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