 | | ESPN
Software India associate director marketing Paras Sharma |
The
marketing strategy, therefore, has been to focus at the larger sporting fan base
and look at their motivations with respect to this sporting spectacle as this
audience is looking for a lot more than just viewing pleasure. The two key drivers
for building interaction: entertainment and engagement.
Similarly, at
a strategic level, the objective is to create 'visible' interest and traction
for the event much before it kicks off, thereby extending the Football Fever to
deliver on revenue and sponsor interests. "The
challenge therefore was to position the World Cup in India not only as the 'biggest
international football event with no Indian stake' but as the `biggest sporting
spectacle' that transcends boundaries so as to catch larger audiences and build
sustainable traction for the property and the sport," points out Sharma. Strategic
Initiatives In
the month of June and July the campaign will highlight how the entire world becomes
eight inches in diameter (referring to television programmes and live telecasts).
And that is summed up in the campaign punch line, which says Duniya Goal Hai.  The
idea is in Hinglish. Translated in English it means that 'World is round' wherein
'goal' in punned in Hindi to round and the soccer goal. This central thought would
be taken forward in all marketing and communication activities.
Phase
1: This is the Magnum Opus stage and kicked off in April. Here the
aim is to create saliency for the forthcoming event two months prior by building
upon the most scalable and media interesting hooks of the property. The campaign
highlights the unique facets of the event and, in addition, seeding in similar
key points in national and regional vernacular media.
Both ESPN and
Star Sports have started airing programming related to the Fifa show, pushing
the event besides putting out special World Cup stories.
Phase
II: The
phase of the campaign revolves around creating interest around the history of
the event.
This will be done by highlighting the unique constituents
of the property itself in form of past and current players, milestones etc.
Phase III: This offers an Indian take
through on-ground activities. The aim is to engage Indian audiences to play the
WC. In
this regard, ESS has started an initiative in association with a channel sponsor
Coca-Cola called Gyraah
Hindustani, which aims to take selected Indians to watch the WC in all its
glory, spectacle and grandeur. The
Adidas+ Challenge
sees Indian school students competing against each other in football matches for
the right to go to Germany. It is being rolled out across major cities.  | | ESPN
Software India marketing director Nirmal Dayani |
Explains
ESPN marketing director Nirmal Dayani, "A one of its kind unique consumer
involvement and activation exercise has been undertaken along with two of the
leading the global sponsors of Fifa, Coca Cola and Adidas." Phase
IV: This,
Sharma describes, as the In the Middle of Action stage. The aim is to increase
new sampling and longer duration relationship with the current audience.
ESS will do consumer promotions related to matches, stars, and teams. According
to Iyengar, once the World Cup starts, there will be contests in association with
one of the channels' sponsors, Airtel. ESS
is also working on a tie-up for those who would be part of the flag bearing team
for Fifa through a programme initiative called Learning Ground, which is being
attempted to be integrated with Fifa-related initiatives to search for Indian
kids who would be flag bearers during the event. | 
