iWorld
FIFA World Cup Final sets Twitter, Facebook abuzz
Mumbai: Football is fodder for social buzz. And when a European team and a Latin American team are battling to take home the FIFA World CUP, it can scale new heights. As it did in the case of the final last night when Germany emerged triumphant by sneaking a goal in in the second half of extra time. According to both Twitter and Facebook, the World Cup Final has set new records for them as far as social engagement is concerned.
Twitter announced the game peaked at 618,725 tweets a minute, smashing the previous record of 580,166 tweets per minute set during Germany’s wipeout of Brazil in the semifinal. The total number of tweets: 32.1 million during the game. But the German-Brazil match holds the record at 35.6 million tweets for the most socially active sports event ever.
Facebook said that its timeline was buzzing like never before with 88 million users making a record 280 million interactions (posts, likes, comments) when the Germans and Argentinians chased the ball on the field during the final. The previous highest was 245 million interactions, which was registered during the SuperBowl in 2013.
iWorld
Print perfect OTTplay bowls a culture driven campaign
From penguins to passion the brand turns India Pakistan into print powered moment marketing.
MUMBAI: When cricket fever meets front-page ink, sparks are bound to fly. And as the latest India–Pakistan clash gripped the nation, OTTplay decided not just to ride the wave but to print it in bold.
In a move that blends real-time agility with old-school authority, OTTplay rolled out a specially curated print campaign amplified by the century-old legacy of the Hindustan Times network. The strategy is simple but sharp: take the speed of pop culture, anchor it in the credibility of print, and make a sporting spectacle feel even larger than life.
The campaign kicked off during the T20 build-up with a creative inspired by the viral “Penguin” moment that flooded social media timelines. Instead of letting the meme melt away, OTTplay spun it into a witty cricket hook, tying internet chatter directly to the anticipation around the high-voltage fixture. It was playful, timely and unmistakably plugged into the cultural pulse.
Then came the dramatic “U-turn” in the narrative around the India–Pakistan match. OTTplay responded in near real time, crafting a clever print execution that mirrored the emotional swing fans experienced. In doing so, the brand demonstrated that even a medium often seen as static can move at the speed of culture when the thinking is sharp enough.
With Valentine’s Day in sight, the narrative pivoted once again. This time, OTTplay reframed the rivalry through the lens of love and passion, turning cricket’s most intense contest into a metaphor for romance, intensity and emotional investment. The result is a campaign that speaks not only to die-hard cricket followers but to anyone who understands that some rivalries are just another form of love.
OTTplay co-founder and CEO Avinash Mudaliar summed it up succinctly, saying that the India–Pakistan match “isn’t just a game, it’s an emotion,” and that the campaign is about tapping into that emotion in real time. By leveraging the reach and trust of Hindustan Times, he noted, OTTplay has brought moment marketing into a space often perceived as static, turning print into a high-impact storytelling vehicle that marries credibility with cultural immediacy.
The medium choice is as telling as the message. In an era dominated by scrolls and swipes, OTTplay’s use of a 100-year-old print platform signals a deliberate blend of tradition and trend. The creatives are not just ads; they are front-page conversations, designed to stop readers mid-sip and mid-scroll.
As anticipation builds around the marquee showdown, OTTplay’s message is clear: don’t just watch the moment unfold, stream it. As India’s leading OTT aggregator, the platform offers access to more than 30 OTT services, including JioHotstar, Zee5, SonyLiv, Lionsgate Play and Aha, positioning itself as the gateway to the big game and the bigger story around it.
In a season where every ball counts and every headline matters, OTTplay has managed to do both bowl fast in culture and land squarely on the front page.
