MUMBAI: Star India’s sports venture Star Sports sustained its reach on social media platform to gain the pole position on the Twitter brand index for Cricket World Cup 2015. Star Sports was followed by HDFC Life and Alto K10 in the second and third position respectively.
Twitter brand index for ICC Cricket World Cup 2015
Star Sports
Star Sports has consistently been featured amongst the top conversations on CWC15 with its popular video series that started with the India vs Pakistan group game. Every India victory in the competition meant a new video for the upcoming game. Using the viral hashtag #MaukaMauka that spawned its own memes and tribute versions, the campaign managed to capture the imagination of Indian cricket fans. Over and above this thematic campaign, Star Sports continued to connect with fans over its hashtag #WontGiveItBack – People could tweet to the handle with the hashtag and get the schedule of the matches in the cup.
HDFC Life
HDFC Life brought the Indian cricket fan together with the hashtag #MyTeamMyPride. Under the aegis of the hashtag the brand engaged with fans on predictions, contests and general comments around the game. Users loved the hashtag and used it as one of the top rallying cries this CWC15.
Alto K10
Alto K10 is one of the few car brands that used CWC15 to talk to its target group. With a creative spin on their brand tagline Chase Life, Alto has engaged the Indian cricket fan under its chase campaigns across the hashtags #ChaseCricket and #ChaseMaster. They ran a popular Sorry Sir contest where they invited people to tweet back to them with funny ideas for ways to skip college or office and watch India games. Using topical caricatures, contests and celebrating the team’s victory with fans Alto K10 got people to send them their selfies in blue to show support to the team - Chaselife. They were able to successfully take things that fans enjoy and blend their brand into that conversation.
Nike Cricket
A part of the #BleedBlue campaign - Nike created a chant (BleedBlue), which has been reverberating amongst supporters of the Indian cricket team since 2011. This has become the war cry of the Indian fan and this World Cup, Nike shared BleedBlue stories of fan and celebrities alike. As a part of the BleedBlue campaign, the official apparel manufacturer of the Indian cricket team also sent out personalised jerseys to sports stars, celebrities and other members of the sports fraternity. This helped the personalities show their loyalty using the hashtag BleedBlue. The most retweeted advertiser tweet of the CWC was the tweet that they sent out on the day of the semi-finals - asking people to show their support to the team by RT-ing the tweet.
Lays India
Lays climbed the chart by rallying the cricket fan on Twitter with the hashtags #LaysKePlays and #TicketKaGame contest. Winners of the contest were given the opportunity to watch the finals of the CWC15 live in Australia. They asked people to tweet with the hasthtag #TicketKaGame to reveal what the contest was going to be. The more the tweets, the faster was the reveal. #LaysKePlays asked users to tweet back to the handle with creative uses of cricket lingo and make it relevant to Lays.
Lava Mobile
Lava ran a prediction contest with goodies to be won. Technology brands and contests seemed to be a potent mix on Twitter and users loved it. They tied this in with a brand campaign around their X8 handset. The hashtag they used was #X8HighPerformer. It was a smart way to build the X8’s positioning on performance basis strong performances in the matches.
Castrol Cricket
Castrol followed, what in hindsight, seems like the winning model of a good hashtag, a contest and good content. They entered with the hashtag - #ClingOnToTheCup. Their biggest execution this CWC was when they asked people to tweet to them with their pictures and they would put those pictures up on the digital fence at the stadium during the game. Fans loved the idea of being able to become a part of the game in this manner.
Axis Bank
Axis Bank built engagement around cricketing rituals. Given the level of fanatical support for the game and the national team, people tweeted about how they do not take bath before games, drink water during games or leave their seats when a particular player is on a roll. Axis Bank used this insight to great effect by inviting people to share their rituals. They sustained engagement by continuing activity on Twitter beyond just match days to an Always On Strategy.
Score With Data
The Indian cricket fan loves data and statistics. IBM latched on to this insight and created this handle to share powerful data led insights through the CWC. People followed this account for live insights on players as the game progressed.
Dairy Milk
Dairy Milk was another brand that used contests very well. People joined in on the contest FansOfJoy where they were asked to WhatsApp their #FansOfJoy pics to grab their moment of fame in leading dailies. Apart from this there was a quiz where people stood to win Cadbury Dairy Milk hampers.
Club Mahindra
Club Mahindra was able to find creative ways to integrate stories from their resorts into the game. They put the Mandala from their logo to great use with tweets around the toss, when Virat Kohli was hitting 4s and 6s and when he reached his 100. When there was a great catch on the pitch they were ready with a tweet that showed someone catching a fish at one of their resorts and drew parallels of what a great catch looked like at Club Mahindra.
