The second season of IPL is well underway and the numbers are trickling in. The most challenging part is building on to the success of Season 1 and for the individual teams to build up fan loyalty. A month-long online research study carried out by Dentsu India in March 2009 seeks to find out how fans decide on team loyalty.
There is still time before it is revealed whether IPL 2 was bigger and better than Season 1, but the various team franchises would definitely want to find out whether they have been able to build up on their fan support.
Dentsu India’s study is a combination of data collected through primary and secondary research. Primary data was collected through 2,099 respondents in over 30 cities. While the first wave of the research was done after IPL 2008, the second wave is currently underway and a third will be done at the end of IPL 2009.
The study found a number of reasons or factors that helped people decide on team loyalty – viz., Human Factor, which shows that fans get greatly affected by the players in a team and other celebrities that are attached to a team. Perceived Energy, which means fans are influenced by advertising or press coverage of the team and its players to decide on team loyalty. Performance, that is, the show of success in the matches played; and finally, Engagement, which means a measure of how involved the fan is with his team.
The study also found that the first two platforms – Human Factor and Perceived Energy – create short term following, while Performance and Engagement create long term following.
Rajesh Aggarwal, President, Dentsu India, said, “Both the investor and the sponsor put their money into a team with a certain short-term and long term ROI expectation. While for the investor the ROI is in the form of profits, for the sponsor ROI is in the form of softer values such as awareness, premiumness, brand attributes, etc., eventually leading to increased sales. Both these cannot be achieved unless the club has a ‘loyal’ fan base. Clubs in English Premier League continue to enjoy over 95 per cent average stadium attendance even for clubs languishing at the bottom. That kind of loyalty quickly translates itself into increased TV audiences, higher gate attendance, merchandise sale, etc. Not only does this help the team itself, the sponsor also gets the opportunity to ‘engage’ the fan (customer) with his brand.”
IPL has enough loyalty
Nikhil Rangnekar, Executive Director - West, Starcom India, told exchange4media, “I believe people still want to play cricket as there are enough eyeballs for every match, and if there are teams that are focusing a lot more on merchandising, contest and other localised activity, then I believe loyalty might play a much larger role than simple vierwership. I don’t think teams are lacking any kind of team loyalty since there are enough people rooting for their own team, and I believe it has not only built up now, but it was there fairly visible even last year.”
Also, the IPL franchises have been able to rope in more sponsors for IPL 2 than in the first season. For instance, Delhi Daredevils has sponsors like Kingfishers, Royal Challenge, Coca-Cola, Adidas, Fever 104, Wrigley’s, IBN7, CNN-IBN, Cricketnext.com, designer Karan Nasir, Buzzintown.com and Hero Honda. Last year, the team had only four sponsors – Religare, Adidas, InterContinental - New Delhi and Hero Honda.
Rajasthan Royals has UltraTech Cements, Kingfisher, Royal Challenge, HDFC Standard Life, Puma, 7Up, TCS, Boost, Wrigley’s and fashion designer Kunal Rawal as its sponsors for Season 2, as compared to just four – Bajaj Allianz, Kingfisher, Royal Challenge and Reebok – last year.
Audience Matters
Speaking on Idea’s partnership with Mumbai Indians, Pradeep Shrivastava, CMO, Idea Cellular, said, “We had a larger agenda and have been spending a lot of focus and energy around cinema and music to associations such as the Idea Filmfare Awards, Idea IIFA Awards, etc. Our earlier efforts in building an emotional connect with cricket fans have been limited, mostly with the Idea Cup played between India and Sri Lanka Cup so. Our interest has been primarily to build an emotional connect among cricket lovers and that is why IPL. Within this, there were many options available and the Mumbai Indians was perhaps the most watched. For us, it was getting cricket lovers to connect with their Mumbai Indians players and leave behind messages, etc.”
On the association with Rajasthan Royals, Sanjay Tripathy, Executive Vice President & Head- Marketing, HDFC Standard Life, said, “Brands look at the audience connect before they tie up with IPL teams, and that is why we preferred Rajasthan Royals as this team during the last IPL, though branded as underdogs, performed well and eventually emerged as Champions. This spirit goes well with our brand thought – ‘Sar Utha Ke Jiyo’.”
Ranabir Majumdar, Editor, Cricketnext.com, said, “Besides Delhi Daredevils, Cricketnext.com has also tied up with teams like Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab for the second season of IPL. The objective behind the tie-ups is to get access to exclusive team updates, videos, players’ columns through blogs and chats, which is very interesting content on web, especially when IPL2 is being held outside India.”
He added, “Our tie-up with Delhi Daredevils, like most tie-ups, is based on mutual benefit to both sides, wherein cricketnext.com gets special interviews and participation from players on blogs and chats, besides exclusive team videos and interesting inside news on behind the camera and off-field exploits of the team during the tournament. In return, Delhi Daredevils gets the platform to engage with millions of cricket lovers visiting cricketnext.com. Last year, the site received 46 million page views during IPL alone, of which 3.9 million were unique users. This time, we are expecting a higher number – somewhere around 60 million – as there are many double (two in a day) matches this time.”