Sony Pictures Sports Networks (SPSN) is running a campaign to promote the ongoing Australia tour of England. The campaign "Asli Fans ke Liye" (for real fans) sparks the age-old funny debate of real fans versus fake fans.

As the cricket frenzy nation missed the action for the last four to five months, SPSN is embracing the excitement of the live sports not only through the campaign but with a contest. The ‘ Asli cricket fan’ contest is a fun banter between “Asli cricket fan” and “Naklicricket fan”. Sony Pictures Networks India sports channels marketing and on-air promotions head Neville Bastawalla elaborates more on the campaign.

Talking about the ideation of the campaign, he reminds us of the cliched truth that observation is the key to any creative process. According to him, SPSN’s marketing team relies heavily on a combination of observations and deep-rooted consumer insights.

He spoke about a commonplace incident which also helped to form this campaign. While there are discussions on sport in almost every office each morning, many of the group members do not actually watch the matches. Rather, they check online updates in the fear of missing out. This sharp insight has been married with SPSN’s old conviction “love for cricket knows no boundaries.”

“If you scan an office environment, you will see there are die-hard fans of every sport especially cricket fans in India who watch ball-by-ball play of every match. We wanted to create a provocative communication which would hit the heart of cricket fans, especially the fake fans who don’t watch but only follow updates on non-India cricket,” Bastawalla says.

The campaign’s core bull’s eye is 25-40 age group which is consuming content across Sony Picture Network India’s channels and digital platforms. While one of the films has been shot during this crisis period, he adds that they had taken additional steps along with implementing the SOPs.

He also notes that it is very rare for any broadcaster to go for Hindi commentary on international non-India cricket, SPSN is doing so for this series. He also adds that twelve brands have already come on board including Dream 11, My 11 circles, HDFC Life, Maruti Suzuki, Skoda, Dafa News.

“To be honest, I am not seeing any change. We are just being true to the consumers. As a marketeer, my job is to get consumers to watch my content. Everybody is trying to win the heart of consumers,” he comments on post-Covid communication.