| Everything worked out just perfectly in IPL8: Vaishali Sharma
 Vaishali Shama, Head of Marketing at Sony Max, has reason to be elated with the success of IPL 8. But along with the cricketing action, a lot of credit would go to the preparatory marketing aggression before the tournament and even as it was on. Excerpts from an interview
The 2015 edition was fantastic for you in terms of popularity and ratings, in specific. This is despite the fact that it was on the back of a World Cup where India did well until a late stage What would you attribute this success to?
From a couple of perspectives really. One is that in last one or two years, it’s all become very exciting and unpredictable. The quality of the games has been fantastic, new players have emerged, and the whole dynamics of the game have become very interesting from a product perspective. So that definitely is a really strong point. Secondly. I think there are a lot of new audiences also who have walked into the existing base of audiences and therefore added fresh energy in terms of people watching and talking about it. So we’ve seen a growth in the last few years. From a marketing perspective, in the last two to three years. we’ve tried to go down to newer, smaller markets to create an excitement around the property, and I think the returns of the consumer engagement activities are now beginning to show.
Smaller markets like?
Last year, we did a really big LC1 activation. In five states we went to over 400 districts. And then of course the one to one million-million-plus centres. So from a marketing perspective you’re going out, it meant creating that excitement, and finally I would say that one of the biggest things is that this year we also hit the right note in terms of a campaign. We very consciously said we have to strengthen emotional affinity while not losing the ethos and losing the strength of what the IPL has always been known for, which is entertaining cricket. And how do we simultaneously keep things at the same platform, really reach out and touch people’s hearts. I think we’ve been really successful in coming up with a campaign idea of ‘India ka Tyohaar, which our agency has crafted very beautifully for us, which really says that this is the biggest festival, and this is the biggest event that any sport in this country would have and also give you the length and breadth of the largeness of the event from an idea perspective. The fact is families come together to watch the IPL, the fact is it’s a conversation starter, the fact is that you can bridge distances through it you know. And then adding another layer in the final campaign of ‘Isme Hai Dilon ka Pyaar’, so bringing people together really. Everything worked out just perfectly, and given that we had one of the largest cricket events which was the World Cup. However I think that we’ve really held our ground, because the IPL from a product perspective has something very different to offer, which is two to two-and-a-half-hour’s excitement… nailbiting excitement
And this is despite the fact that unlike football in Europe where people are nuts about their teams…
See I wouldn’t compare it to EPL etc, because those are very well-established for many years, but in the last few years we do hear conversations about alignment to teams. So, for example, the home team matches always score more than other team matches. And also while people do watch the IPL for the excitement of the game per se no matter who is playing, at another level, from a consumer or an audience-viewing pattern, you do tend to take some team’s side. There’s always that sentiment that I want this team to win, or I support this team. I’m sure it’s only going to grow further as people get more and more into it and the way that teams build themselves in the future.
We’ve not seen weekend shows like Comedy Nights with Kapil go down in viewership thanks to IPL. Ditto with many fiction shows, as we noticed some years back. Given the rising popularity of the IPL, would you say we’ve seen the emergence of a new viewership base?
Possibly, a hundred percent.  While new viewership you examine through reach, we have a very strong time spent also this year, so I would say that it also shows that the current base is spending a lot of time on it. I’m sure there is enough space for everyone to ensure that they watch what they want to, but I would also see it from two parameters of measurement. One is to see if new audiences are coming in or not, and the second is to see if the time spent is significant, so you know that your consumers are also watching it significantly.
Given that you also the transmission on high definition feed on Sony Six, did you see divided viewership in urban and premium home segments?
That’s led to expansion. Absolutely expansion. Plus more and more audiences coming in from our language regions. That’s been actually a very critical aspect of expanding our audience base as well.
And how have the languages done for you?
We’ve done fairly well. We’ve seen a significant growth even for Six and Kix too has performed very well. Overall I would say that it’s been a great strategy. We also promoted these channels in local markets very aggressively.  With Max, obviously the Hindi base in really huge, and in places where you expect a viewer to see regional languages, you have a strong significant base that watches English as well, and in the case of Kolkat, it’s English, Hindi and Bengali; all three languages, and of course in the South you have a lot of people who watch English, plus language versions.
What are the learnings from this year?
It’s too early actually. Unfortunately this year we do not have a comparative base, since it’s a fresh new BARC base. So the learnings will be highly qualitative if at all. We’re just waiting for the complete data to come in now, to really look on a week-on-week and then to take learnings on-board.
From the Max point of view, how is it post IPL, after the 60 days of hyperactivity? You do always have announcements of film festivals, et al?
No we continue hyperactivity every month. We never rest. We always have something to do in terms of consumer engagement, movies, so from a marketing perspective, there’s a lot of work that we do to even engage with our audiences in the realm of movies as well. There’s a lot of brand connect work we do. There’s a lot of engagement we do, there’s a lot of pushing our premieres. In these months our hands are full with movie promotions and Max Deewana Bana De and we also have a second channel which is Max2, which has worked brilliantly in the last one year.
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