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4Ps
Why Coke Prefers Knight Riders Over Hrithik Roshan?
No individual can be bigger than the game. Interestingly, this statement is especially relevant to marketers who are looking to strike the right shots with their shrinking budgets in a slowdown. Pawan Chabra & Pallavi Srivastava of 4Ps B&M examine why, in humbling times, IPL promises marketers what the best celebrities cannot.
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 Is thrift the only mantra of the season? Well, market logic dictates that it’s not just about cutting back on your resources (read: marketing budgets) but also carefully analysing where the cost benefit analysis of a marketing investment can work overwhelmingly in your favour. Thus while companies are cutting corners in their marketing budgets, it would all be in vain if they cut the wrong corners!
So faced with the question: In whom to invest? In Hrithik Roshan or Shahrukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders? marketers should pause before answering. For the latter promises an intoxicating, blockbuster combination of Bollywood and cricket. Last year, the combo had sent an adrenalin rush through the veins of marketers and advertisers. Most probably, you’re one of those who doesn’t even need to ask how the combo could generate a high sense of excitement among marketers. The answer is obvious. Lalit Modi! The man gave India an excellent platform to combine the protagonists we’ve mentioned above, by his biggest adaptation of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Just brush up your memories
a bit and you’ll be able to easily recall the scenario of the last season when everybody was crazily fighting to grab a share of the lucrative IPL cake in any possible form.
Well, if last year, in the peak of the boom, IPL made some sense, this year, in bust times it makes for indisputable business logic! A lucrative deal under IPL may force marketers to channelise their advertising budget from somewhere else, which may also include dropping expensive brand ambassadors or regular advertising spends. That’s the reason why Coca Cola India prefers Shahrukh’s Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Delhi Daredevils over superstar Hrithik Roshan. One look at Coke’s advertising patterns on TV will reveal that Coke has not come up with an ad featuring Hrithik for a long time (after the last ‘Jashn mana le’ ad commercial). Moreover, the frequency of Coke ads has also relatively gone down. Similarly Sprite (for which Coca Cola India has tied up with KKR) also doesn’t have any brand ambassador as of now (Sania was the endorser of Sprite earlier). Undoubtedly, Coke is spending its marketing budget wisely. Probably that’s the reason why they have tied up with Delhi Daredevils for brand Coke and with KKR for Sprite.
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 And it’s not just Coke! Arch rival Pepsi, which has recently dropped Shahrukh Khan as its brand ambassador, has signed a deal with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to launch co-branded cans to cash in on the IPL frenzy. GlaxoSmithKline India’s (GSK) Boost was just a brand partner of Rajasthan Royals’ (RR – the winner of IPL’s inaugural season) in the last season of IPL, but now it has entered a licensing deal with CSK to develop a special co-branded drink with the formula developed by John Gloster, the physiotherapist of RR. Again, if you glance back at Boost’s advertising over the last few months, it is easy to notice how Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag (who were endorsing the brand earlier) have been missing from action. Though, Sehwag is still associated with the brand, the company is now focusing more on RR to gain popularity among the Indian masses.
And why not? From a health drink brand’s perspective it makes more sense to associate the brand with the winner of IPL’s inaugural season, rather than just spending money on big ticket celebs, pitching for sales. Through such a licensing agreement Boost’s branding becomes associated with a pack of fit men on a winning streak. And being the winner of the last season, RR surely has a competitive edge over other teams when it comes to attracting more companies to associate with it. RR is cashing in on this opportunity in a smart way. In fact, the team plans to come up with a music video featuring Shilpa Shetty and the brands in RR’s pavilion will be embedded as a part of the video. The company’s officials, however, chose not to comment at this point.
This trend is equally popular with marketers, irrespective of the segment in which their brand is present. Sony Ericsson has tied up with DD as its official mobile partner. The handset manufacturer will be launching special co-branded handsets for this reason. Even garment major Peter England is not far behind as it will be launching a new collection of formal and semi-formal clothes under the CSKP range (CSK-Peter England range). Wrigley, the chewing gum brand, has tied up with CSK and DD to develop co-branded chewing gums. Well, apart from performance, it is important to note here that the players in the team also matter for the brands associating with them. A classic example is Indian captain M. S. Dhoni, who’s helping CSK in getting lots of associations.
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