A Quantitative Digital Marketing Analysis of AdvertisersIPL 2016

by

Brands Tracked

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INTRODUCTION

IPL indeed brings out Ek India Happy wala. In a diverse social and economic setting, cricket brings a population of 135 crore

people together. IPL, the gala of cricket, has even more and deeper reach evoking emotional bonds with teams and players. For

a marketer, an audience this size and wide is a goldmine.

The introduction of 2 new teams along with the online live streaming on HotStar has created a new set of opportunities for

companies to place their marketing bids. Even startups like Zeven, Shuttl App and Tyka are not shying away from competing

with brands with deep pockets like Freecharge, Myntra and Yes Bank.

Companies who spent millions for a prime spot either saw their investment rewarded or a golden opportunity slip through the

gap. This report is an effort to see how companies supported their campaigns via social media, display marketing, and content

strategy.

With a half of the tournament gone, this is a perfect time to take a mandatory "strategic timeout" and see how companies

have performed in the IPL 2016.

Key Takeaways

Ÿ Most companies use Twitter as their major engagement platform while Facebook is reserved for long write-ups like contest

rules.

Ÿ Brands with clear hashtag strategy, well-planned content strategy and a better social media execution emerged as winners

irrespective of on-air ad purchase.

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x1

Here’s our Scoring methodolgy

Social media Display marketing Content strategy

x2 x1x1

Green Cap

Brand who excelled in all 3 fields will be wearing the most enticing prize for an advertiser

Scoring & Methodology

We tracked three aspects of digital marketing:

Ÿ Social Media

Ÿ Content Strategy

Ÿ Display Marketing

We used in-house tools to track the social media profiles—Facebook and Twitter—of brands who are either official IPL sponsor

or sponsor of IPL franchisees. We have tracked the companies from April 8, 2016 to April 28, 2016.

On the content and display marketing side, we deployed our team to track the social media content during the games and

display ads on relevant websites and apps.

These three aspects of scoring have been further elaborated in each of its respective section

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x1

Brands with on-air TV ad spots left no stone unturned to capture the attention of the audience on social media. But on this

front, they also competed with brands who didn't purchase high-priced on-air TV ads. Many unsung brands captured the show

on Social Media.

Social Media

Evaluation criteriaBrand engagement Brand activity Replies to customers

x2 x1x1

Orange Cap

Brand who batted well in the social media crease

Winner

Pg 5

#1

#2#3

#4 #5

Ÿ People found the content of FreeCharge and Yes Bank the most engaging.

Ÿ On brand activity side, all the brands fared well and almost equal.

Ÿ FreeCharge and Britannia5050 had an upper edge because, unlike Yes Bank and Ginoee, they were able to establish

conversations (replies to customers) with their audience.

Orange Cap: Top 5 Contenders

Social MediaPg 6

x1Brand engagementKey Brand activity Replies to customers

Myntra and FreeCharge ruled the engagement chart (likes, shares, comments, and retweets). They integrated their IPL

campaign with game as well as their brand. Myntra came up with #IFL (Indian Fashion League) while FreeCharge is doing it

with #FreeChargeBolt.

Brand Engagement

Myntra

FreeCharge

YES Bank

Spykar

Oppo

Gionee

Makemytrip

Intex

Daikin

Britannia 5050

Ola Cabs

3,55,846

3,39,923

2,73,890

2,61,814

2,53,122

2,28,736

2,18,616

1,78,483

1,62,677

1,21,015

1,00,891

Top 11 Brands by Total Engagement

(likes + share + comments + favorites + retweets)

Social MediaPg 7

Engagements were also analyzed by specific engagement type. The three engagement types measured were:

Ÿ Applause, representing favorable responses and including metrics such as likes and favorites,

Ÿ Conversation, representing consumer responses and including metrics such as comments and replies,

Ÿ Amplification, representing brand advocacy and including metrics such as shares and retweets

Only Freecharge, Britannia 5050 and Yes Bank have been consistent in all three engagement types.

Top brands by Engagement type

FreeCharge

Gionee

Ola Cabs

Britannia 5050

Kingfisher

DTDC

YES Bank

RedFM

HE Deo

Lux Cozi

Vivo

86,556

63,154

43,262

42,401

17,994

12,098

11,705

7,087

6,456

6,096

5,260

Top 11 Brands by Amplification

Myntra

YES Bank

Spykar

Oppo

FreeCharge

Makemytrip

Intex

Gionee

Daikin

Finolex

Britannia 5050

Top 11 Brands by Appluase

3,51,724

2,60,622

2,56,781

2,50,079

2,30,816

2,16,394

1,69,636

1,64,992

1,47,450

80,295

77,489

(comments + replies) (shares + retweets)

Vodafone

FreeCharge

Daikin

Intex

Videocond2h

DTDC

Spykar

RedFM

YES Bank

Britannia 5050

Oppo

Top 11 Brands by Conversation

(likes + favorites)

44,904

22,551

10,298

7,410

3,652

2,744

2,583

1,579

1,563

1,125

1,005

Brand EngagementSocial MediaPg 8

Kingfisher & Zeven made it to the Top 11 in

amplification chart by sweeping out their

competitors.

Unlike most brands who offered only banner ads,

these companies also came up with a variety of

content including blog posts, GIF and videos.

To get more views and engagement, brands pinned

their most important posts on profile. One such

successful post was by Kingfisher which garnered 3

million views.

Brand EngagementSocial MediaPg 9

Britannia and DTDC were the most active brands. Britannia leads the chart with 4779 posts with 227 posts a day (all timeline

tweets). Unsurprisingly, almost 95% of these posts are tweets..

Brand activity

Britannia 50 50

DTDC

FreeCharge

Ola cabs

Gionee

Zeven

HEScreamSquad

Kingfisher

Vodafone

YES Bank

Housing

4,757

2,082

1,906

1,824

1,377

1,160

963

913

771

604

566

Top 11 Brands by Tweet Activity

(Tweets)

4,779

2,253

2,126

1,928

1,425

1,357

1,035

974

774

682

617

Britannia5050

FreeCharge

DTDC

Ola cabs

Gionee

Zeven

HE Deo

Kingfisher

Vodafone

YES Bank

Housing

Top 11 Brands by Total activity

(Tweets + Fb posts)

Pg 10 Social Media

This parameter highlights how well a brand focuses on social communication. The top 4 brands in this category exploited the

power of social media to help establish conversation with customers. They used it for real-time digital customer care. Moreover,

Britannia and Freecharge also engaged their users around the IPL and their marketing campaigns.

44,870

3,641

1,377

1,274

1,008

927

591

468

454

307

293

Vodafone

Videocond2h

Daikin

DTDC

Britannia 5050

FreeCharge

DHFL

Ola Cabs

Britannia GoodDay

Zeven

Burger King

Top 11 Brands by Replies to Customers

(No. of replies)

Replies to Customer

Pg 11 Social Media

As Jay Baer says, “Content is fire and social media is gasoline”, strong content is crucial for social media success. Even though

many top brands were burning a lot of cash and effort on social media, they failed to generate original and authentic content

leading to low engagement. On the other hand, some brands like Finolex and Zeven emerged as hidden talents on content front.

Content strategy

Purple Cap

Brands who bowled out their opponents with best economy rate

Conversation with users

Personal authentic responses

Game related content

Real time responsive Content creation

Variety in content Creation

Branded content

Synergy of content with the game

On air publicity of hashtag

Actively used hashtag with the game

How we Scored?Engagement authenticity Content Development Content distribution Strategy

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Winner

#1 #1

#2#3

#4

Ÿ The content and brand voice of all the brands were authentic.

Ÿ Kingfisher was the best in content development closely followed by Yes Bank and FreeCharge.

Ÿ FreeCharge and Yes Bank outperformed the other brands in content distribution strategy.

x1Engagement Authenticity Key Content Development Content Distribution Strategy

Purple Cap: Top 5 Contenders

Pg 13 Content Strategy

Ceat Tyres

The official strategic time-out partner Ceat couldn’t make the most of it with poor content strategy. With a dedicated cricket

rating website and social media accounts (Ceat CCR), they could have done wonders. But the big brand failed to spark a real

conversation with users and offered a very little in terms of content.

Freecharge and Yes Bank

These 2 brands had a strong content

strategy and executed them well. Only

these brands displayed hashtags on TV

commercials and used them actively on

social media during the game.

Finolex

Personal authentic responses, clear

hashtag strategy, and its active use

with the game made Gujarat Lions

sponsor Finolex in the top 3 in

content strategy chart.

Zeven

The RCB sponsor is the only startup

who made it to the 5th position in

content strategy. They competed with

big brands by generating engaging

and economic content.

Pg 14 Content Strategy

Display advertising is an arena with wide areas to cover. There’s desktop and mobile, video and static banners, and engagement ads. We tried to cover all the areas to unveil the top performers in display advertising.

We found that the most of the e-commerce companies’ focus is display marketing and they really excel in this segment

The top position is awarded to the brand who guarded the main scoring areas by investing in top display marketing spots

Display Marketing

Website for the gameRelevance of the website with the gameWebsite is hosted on the brand domain

Purchased premium spots on sports websiteAds are related to the TV/digital campaign On-air ad spot on TV/HOTSTAROfficial campaign website display in the commercial

How we Scored?Web Engagement Real time AD buys

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Winner

Blue Cap

Brand who fielded well in Display Marketing

Ÿ FreeCharge and Britannia5050 were the best in the web engagement, mainly because of their game related website.

Amazon and Flipkart were only the two brands in top five who did not focus on web engagement.

Ÿ However, in real-time ad buys, the ecommerce giants, Amazon and Flipkart ruled by leaps and bounds.

Pg 16 Display Marketing

x1Web EngagementKey Real time Ad buys

Blue Cap: Top 5 Contenders

#1

#2#3

#4 #5

Freecharge

Freecharge was again all over the arena. They came up with

really interesting ways to engage users on their app using

hashtags like #ScoreKyaHoga and #freeChargeBolt. Their ad

campaign is only focused for smartphone users. So they

invested heavily in display marketing, buying realtime ads on

espncricinfo app.

He Deodorant (Emami)

He Deodorant failed to make it to the top 5. But their display marketing efforts were commendable. They have been intelligent

to purchase on-air ad spots during strategic timeouts. Unlike many big brands, He Deodorant tried to make the most of the IPL

with a dedicated website for the game.

Pg 17 Display Marketing

Amazon

The e-commerce giant didn't come up with a game related marketing campaign like they did last year. Nor did they create a

dedicated website for the campaign. But they did a great job in display marketing by buying ad spots on-air, sports websites,

and mobile apps. If you are an IPL lover, you could find them almost everywhere.

Britannia 50-50

Britannia fought hard in display

marketing scoring 4th position in

the chart. They also created an

engaging dedicated website for the

game to support their digital

marketing contests. With more

purchases on real time ads, they

could have easily topped the chart.

Pg 18 Display Marketing

Freecharge is totally standing apart from every other brand. Yes Bank, Ola Cabs, Kingfisher and Vodafone are

also making the most of social media. However, many top brands including Ceat, Amazon and even Vivo

itself are missing the digital marketing support for their high-priced ad campaigns.

'Digital' wrote Simon Silvester “is more efficient and more impactful because it can hit only the right people,

and only at the right time.”

It seems Zeven executed its IPL digital marketing campaign with this thought in mind. They are powering

their social media strategy with engaging content and display marketing. Unlike Amazon and Flipkart with

massive marketing budgets, Zeven couldn't buy ad spots. But they are certainly spot-on in their digital

presence.

We are still midway in the tournament with peak time yet to come. The companies can still capture audience's

imagination by boosting efforts on social media, content, and display ads.

Meanwhile, the pitch of digital marketing in IPL is looking great for the companies. Who will win? Maybe

the one who understands the pitch.

Conclusion

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Content Strategy

Display Marketing

Social Media

Score by Category

Top 11 Digital Marketing kings of IPL

1

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

11

1010

Overall Ranking

That's all for the strategic timeout. We will be back at the end of IPL with all the highlights.

XOR Labs is a digital marketing company specializing in social media, content, and display marketing. We help

businesses maximise ROI using analytics, data-driven techniques, and crafting digital marketing campaigns.

We are helping shape the digital marketing narratives in ecommerce, technology, finance, healthcare, real

estate, entertainment, and education sector.

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