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Brand Mapping

So, which brands are winning the audience attraction game at the cricket World Cup? Here's a quick round-up of the advertising action.

By Shailesh Dobhal

Cup mania: It isn't all cricket

Who's betting big? That's easy. Switch on the live telecast of any World Cup cricket match on SET Max (or India-specific ones on Doordarshan), and you'll know who the Big Spenders of the season are. The most prominent ones, of course, are the three sponsors from India--Pepsi, LG and Hero Honda. They've bought up lots of airtime, field-space, boundary board space, etcetera etcetera.

But, more importantly, who's winning big?

Now that's a different question altogether. It depends on who's making all the waves. Share-of-voice, you see, does not always translate into share-of-mind, unless the creative message is a cracker. Before the Cup started, market watchers were held in suspense by Pepsi. Could it match the popularity of Coca-Cola's five-rupee campaign featuring cine star Aamir Khan as Bihari Babua? Could it possibly match an ad that had finally got even habitual Coke-bashers to smile in acknowledgement of its new-found charm?

Well, Pepsi doesn't run away from challenges. It has hit the airwaves with a wide swathe of appeals. First off was Pepsi's mood-setting 'Aye-O-Ah' music video, with film stars jiggling around the place with cricketers to make a point that has little direct relevance to the actual brand. Had it not been for ambush videos by the likes of Sona Chandi chyawanprash, the tune could possibly have caught on...0 but in purely musical terms, it hasn't exactly set the charts ablaze.

Anyhow, the ad for Pepsi Blue--with all its blue imagery and symbolism--did what the video didn't: make the 'blue' connection. Indian Team, Pepsi colour. The brand's next pitch, for the main brand, took Pepsi right into the centre of the South African action--a safari with mountains in the background, a lion in the foreground and the Men in Blue gulping, their throats parched. Gulping for cola, and for leadership: 'Yeh dil Maange... roar!' Now, this commercial has certainly broken through the clutter, and got the kids gaping in awe (and chuckling too). But are grown-ups enthused? Some, overly so. But everybody's not so impressed--and especially not those miffed enough by the team's performance against Australia to call for a punitive boycott of sponsor brands.

Could Pepsi's Tendulkar-only 'memory loss' commercial make up for that? Hmmm... that's the latest in the series, and shows rival cricketers delighted to find Tendulkar struck with amnesia. Will the boy wonder come round? It's a suspense-builder.

Oh yes, there's also Lay's 'lay a bet' commercial, with potato chips getting the entire stadium to switch jerseys--to sky blue. Meanwhile, for alternate thrill-seekers, Pepsi's making a high-adrenalin pitch with its new energy drink, Mountain Dew. Just another fizzy-drink commercial? Naaaah--this one has its own mountain buzz. Should win mega-litres of trials for the brand, perhaps getting some of the younger Sprite loyalists to switch over.

Quite a package, that, from Pepsi then... and there's more to come, apparently. That the company has already piqued audience curiosity and made its way into consumer mindspace, is a victory. As with the actual game, it's something of a winner-takes-all market. The best advertising will gain disproportionate benefits.

What about the other brands? LG seems content with its print campaign, and has not ventured far with any attempt to translate the 'Cricket First' idea to a high-impact TV commercial. LG is busy pushing its CDMA mobile phone, though the ad doesn't quite spring forth into mindspace.

Hero Honda, uhm, needs to think harder, lest it waste the opportunity. It's an indication of nervousness that the brand had to run its 2000 'dhadkan' commercial on a trial basis. Its newer ads lack that one's charm, and the brand must get its act together fast.

And the other attention-getters? The mobile phone players have marked their presence on TV, but not on mass-market channel Doordarshan, barring BSNL and Reliance IndiaMobile (with its endless-use campaign). This could mean that mobile phones remain, by and large, a big-city SEC A/B phenomenon (the SET Max audience).

The media split is interesting, since it marks a clear socio-economic divide. The brands seen only on SET Max, according to a recent report from TAM, include LG CDMA Mobile phone, Castrol Activ, Red & White bravery awards, Mountain Dew, Fair & Lovely Ayurvedic, Cadbury 5 star, Axe shaving cream, Asian Paints Apex/Ace, Allen's Polo mint, Neel Kamal Furniture, ICICI Bank, BPCL's Mak lubricants. Brands seen only on Doordarshan include Maruti, Fair & Lovely, LG A-one refrigerator, Oriental Insurance, LG Plasma Gold, Lifebuoy, MDH Degi Mirch and Vim Bar.

Which of those brands is getting through? Depends on the specific target audience, for sure. After all, a housewife would notice MDH more than her kids or husband would. Among FMCGs, we have the usual suspects, with their usual ads. Is this the right platform for these brands? "Well, we are just trying to catch our audiences, which is moving to cricket from general entertainment channels during the World Cup," explains a senior manager at HLL. Pepsodent, Fair & Lovely and Vim are simply looking out for a concentration of eyeballs. Also, non-cricket ads (such as Mountain Dew's) sometimes tend to stand out amidst the forced-relevance clutter. Mak, for example, makes an absurd spectacle of itself, trying hard to connect lubes with cricket.

Cadbury's Dairy Milk has made a debut with a new ad. Noticeable, but just about. Unfortunately, the brand's new adline, 'Maza Aa Gaya' doesn't always jell with audience sentiment (under the Australian onslaught, it mostly certainly didn't).

But then, that's better than some of the commercials that fall flat, such as Samsung's 'India First Aaega Kya'. And also Philips' commercial featuring Yuvraj Singh's mother (reminiscent of the coup Pepsi pulled off with Kapil Dev's mother, once), which won't catch the popular pulse until this Chandigarh lad actually plays a hero's knock.

At the end, what adfolk need to think harder about is what the audience actually thinks and feels during the course of the actual match. Most brands, especially those with go-go bluster and hero-glorifying antics, seem to be woefully out of touch. The alternative, of course, is to say your own thing, regardless of cricket. Pepsi, have you noticed, has worked these risks into its strategy?

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