IPL 2015 – The Real Winners EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Disclaimer: Figures may vary by tracking methodology and tool. Numbers reported are indicative and not actual. Powered by 1 Preface Welcome to the hottest sports league in the world! – Forbes The Indian Premier League (IPL) has been the biggest sporting extravaganza with the highest ever viewership for cricket or any other sport experienced in India . It was founded in 2008 by BCCI to solve for the disconnect between cricket’s worldwide popularity and the lack of commercial success of any domestic league. Since then, the league has grown at breakneck speed. Today, the IPL is 1 cup, 8 teams, 120 players, 45 days of excitement, 59 matches, and millions of fans. Objective of this report is to analyze the social buzz created around IPL and identify the most-engaged/talked-about people, players, and brands under various categories. This report also showcases social strategies adopted by various brands to connect with fans across social media during the IPL. Powered by 2 Executive Summary . As expected from a nation full of cricket fans, opening of the event received a huge respnse on social media . IPL has been popular among women and we observed a good share of engagement online. SRK and AbRam being the key conversation triggers for Kolkata Knight Riders . Social Battle Winner - Mumbai Indians . Social Star - Kolkata Knight Riders . Bollywood – Show ka Glow was seen at IPL, SRK and Bachchan Sr. being most influential actors on social platforms . David Warner and Dwayne Bravo held their crease, Sir Ravindra Jadeja saw his social index increase . Cricketing experts like Harsha Bhogle and influencers like Ramesh Srivats were actively engaged throughout the event . Yuvraj Singh was the most talked about player of IPL this season . Pepsi, with their CrashThePepsiIPL idea and aggressive social engagement strategy, ensured they had the largest brand presence on social. Aircel and YES Bank were not far behind . Vodafone had the maximum airtime on television, Amazon being next on the list Powered by 3 Key Learnings . Primetime of IPL conversations extend beyond the live ‘telecast’ on TV and go on for couple of hours after midnight into next day. This shows that brands can join the after-match conversations happening online for better engagement . Popularity of celebrities/cricketers/influencers, who are highly active on social platforms, could be leveraged by brands for improved reach . An integrated multimedia campaign during the event can create tremendous buzz for the brands. CrashThePepsiIPL campaign was a blockbuster . Conversations can be created smartly using the cross media content generated for brands as in YES bank case . Team sponsorships can be leveraged to enhance business proposition for brands as for Aircel . RED FM demonstrates that it is possible to create a wide reach among real and virtual world’s viewers . IPL is truly reflective of the fact that “Cricket is one the biggest religions in India” Powered by 4 IPL Overview Posts Impressions# Reach# 17.2Million 152Billion 63.7Billion Effective use of hashtags by IPL teams such as #apunkasuperstar by MI, #idhunammaseason by CSK etc. received huge acceptance from netizens The conversations around IPL started a week before the scheduled start of event. All thanks to “India Ka Tyohar” tagline which was a huge hit. Conversations were at peak on opening day and continued in the first week, followed by a steady trend during the league matches. The volume grew during playoffs and reached event maximum during the final match. # Reach is the number of unique people who may see the post. Impression is the total number of potential views Powered by 5 Gender Split 57% 43% Female connected best with Kolkata Knight Riders and least with Chennai Super Kings. We can thank King Khan and Family (AbRam) for this :P KKR RR MI KXI DD SRH RCB CSK Male 52% 54% 54% 55% 58% 60% 62% 66% Female 48% 46% 46% 45% 42% 40% 38% 34% Powered by 6 Conversation Trace Opening League Playoffs Finale 00-01 Hrs 01-15 Hrs 15-19 Hrs 19-24 Hrs On any match day, conversations start happening an hour before the match and peak conversations are observed after end of the match. India is a nation 00- 15-19 full of cricket experts! 01 01-15 Hrs 19-24 Hrs Hrs Hrs Powered by 7 Team Popularity MI won the IPL 8 and CSK KKR also the social battle followed by CSK and 19 14 KKR. @MIpaltan all 27 % share of mentions the way! 30 MI caught up with CSK in the middle of MI the tournament but CSK has always 25 been talk of the town since the CSK 20 beginning of IPL KKR 15 RCB RR DD observed a steady decline in share 10 of conversations through the course of KXIP SRH 5 DD the tournament and Royals never 0 picked up. MI CSK KKR RCB RR KXIP SRH DD CSK DD KKR KXIP MI RCB RR SRH Week of 8 April Week of 15 April Week of 22 April Week of 29 April Week of 6 May Week of 13 May Week of 20 May % share of mentions based on conversations tracked during IPL Powered by 8 Most Engaged On Social KKR has been the most active team of the IPL season across all social channels Social Star #1 #2 #3 #4 KKR’s Shahrukh Khan has been seen as the most influential owner throughout the IPL 2015 season, followed by Siddharth Mallya of RCB. * Ranking is done based on # of posts made across social handles related to IPL and fan/follower base Powered by 9 Most Engaged On Social #1 Sir Ravindra Jadeja has been seen as the most influential Indian cricketer #2 #3 #4 #1 #2 #3 #4 AB De Villiers has been seen as the most influential foreign cricketer * Ranking is done based on # of posts made across social handles related to IPL and fan/follower base Powered by 10 Most Engaged On Social #1 #2 Kamal R. Khan Amitabh Bachchan has been the most #3 Rajdeep Sardesai influential celebrity of IPL 2015 #4 Dia Mirza #1 #2 Aakash Chopra Harsha Bhogle has been the most #3 Sourav Ganguly influential cricket specialist of IPL #4 Mohandas Menon 2015 #1 #2 Miss Malini Ramesh Srivats has been the most #3 Sreedhar Pillai active influencer of IPL 2015 #4 Rajesh Khilare * Ranking is done based on # of posts made across social handles related to IPL and fan/follower base Powered by 11 * Ranking done based on the total # of mentions by users across platforms within the conversations tracked conversationsplatforms the within across by usersmentions of # total the on based done Ranking By Team Most TalkedAboutIPLPlayers Yuvraj Singh | DD M. S. Dhoni | CSK G. Gambhir | KKR Rohit Sharma | MI 12 David Miller | KXIP Virat Kohli | RCB Powered byPowered Ajinkya Rahane | RR David warner | SRH * Ranking done based on the total # of mentions by users across platforms within the conversations tracked conversationsplatforms the within across by usersmentions of # total the on based done Ranking Rising Stars of IPL2015 Rising Starsof Shreyas Iyer | DD Deepak Hooda | RR 13 Mandeep Singh | RCB Powered byPowered Axar Patel | KXIP Brands on Social Powered by 14 Approach Following slides showcase brands who have effectively utilized their owned assets and the IPL wave to connect with audience on social media. Ranking of brands is done based on the follower/fan base, and engagement driven by official handles of brands using relevant content during IPL. We analyzed numerous posts/tweets and activity across social platforms to understand how these brands improved their social scores through new and improved techniques to engage with audience. Powered by 15 #1 Pepsi Pepsi launched a contest called #CrashThePepsiIPL and #ThisIsAdmocracy engaging millions of user by asking questions, conducting polls and showcasing their creativity, which also allowed space for sister brand “Mirinda” to engage during IPL Powered by 16 #1 Pepsi (Contd..) Effective use of social platform like Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to YouTube resulted in higher number of video views (Top 3 Ads created by users shown below) Rajma – Upma: Definitely the winner with over twice the number of views recorded by #2 video 25,16,631 views 11,57,762 views 5,02,743 views Powered by 17 #2 Aircel Aircel used Twitter, where it has more than half a million followers, to connect and engage during IPL Launched a massive campaign called #Aircel1Plus3 which offered customers get full talk-time, A2A minutes and full data usage for a given recharge value. This campaign was a huge success and clicked very well with consumers/twitterati. Along with tagging majority of the posts with popular hashtags related to CSK like #Whistlepodu , #IdhuNammaSeason, they also re- tweeted many of the CSK tweets Aircel engaged users by asking them to post their pictures cheering for CSK to win prizes Powered by 18 #3 Red FM Red FM India ran contests during IPL across all key social platforms such as #KKRGupShups on Facebook and #TheKKRSlogan on Twitter Red FM created an exclusive platform—“KKR ka Control Room” which brought the KKR players and their fans together They planned the extensive campaign with a special focus on on-air, off-air and digital initiatives to create a connect with the listeners across multiple regions (Red FM Kolkata and Red FM Hyderabad) Powered by 19 #4 Yes Bank #YESBANKmaximum contest on Twitter garnered huge engagement during IPL. Again, the posts were in the form of questions. “Who is @RakheeTandon?” went viral after the final match presentation ceremony which helped YES BANK reach more and more people Powered by 20 #4 Yes Bank (Contd..) Sharing columns and articles written by cricket experts mainly Ravi Shastri and Rohit Sharma received good response on Twitter In addition to the engagement, the display ad on TOI also gained extra impressions.