Innocean's integrated approach in Hyundai campaign for ICC WC wins along with India!

Talks had been on between Innocean and Hyundai even before the agreement between Hyundai and ICC had been finalised. The ICC has been the largest sporting property ever acquired by Hyundai in India in terms of an air & on ground components. Inspired by its international experience Innocean Worldwide India decided to set up a dedicated vertical for Sports Marketing & Events. The team is led by an expert Tarun Chaudhary Gr.Director Sports Marketing who is assisted by two more team members with experience in events, PR and sports management.

Innocean drew up a multi-touch point approach to orchestrate the same. The entire activity was split into three clear cut stages: Stage I -announcing association with passion of the nation Cricket; Stage II- leveraging the association to enhance empathy & engagement; Stage III: Creating brand appeal & connect accelerators by way of special events. Each of these has specific catalysts thrown in for creating traction with audiences.

Innocean also incorporated a pulsating anthem sung by Shaan, composed by Clinton and penned by Innocean's ECD Saurabh Dasgupta ' Cricket hai yeh mausam dekhegi duniya taiyaar hain hum... that hit airwaves across radio, TV and digital space. "Ring-tone downloads were made available across mobile operators on the portal: Hungama with great success. On Day one alone one saw a few thousand downloads," says Dasgupta.

On air Hyundai decided to unveil its new global philosophy & brand tag line: New Thinking. New Possibility. A spanking new TVC was premiered in India in concert with a global burst. "Interestingly we decided to weave the New Thinking idea into our anthem as well", adds Saurabh Dasgupta. An Indian edit featuring the ICC anthem, shots of players getting ready for a high voltage performance and high energy car shots was put out with great impact. The media approach as outlined by B Sridhar Group Director Media Services at Innocean: "involved using sports ESPN-Star Sports as main stay alongside high affinity & frequency genres like news, infotainment and select GECs to create a high impact surround. All these served to connect the cricketing neurons in consumers' mind with brand Hyundai. This endeavour was ably supported by MPG."

The clincher came up in the form of some big-ticket on ground initiatives. Elaborating on these Tarun Chaudhury said, "In all these we made sure there was ample scope for brand-connect with the sport, adequate consumer engagement backed by quality gratifications." Innocean conceptualised some unique first on this front. "The main amongst these was the "FIRST BALL TOUR' which began a week before the Tournament and culminated in the inaugural match at Dhaka. And as a corollary the Final Ball Tour which began before the semis, culminating in the finals at Mumbai. Incidentally this Tour was the brainchild of Sridhar a cricket buff himself."- adds Tarun. Herein the official Kookaburra balls were placed in specially decked up cars and taken around in a convoy across the dealerships in the top 10 cities. This allowed consumers to see the actual official ball put their good luck messages on a wishing wall and win exclusive prizes in quizzes and test drives. The apex of these activities was in the actual handing over of the balls before the beginning of the match by Hyundai representatives to the umpires in Dhaka & Mumbai, which was telecast live on ESPN.

Additionally Hyundai set up large fan parks in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and the new T3 terminal in Delhi for the fans to cheer their team, watch the match, get tattoos done, flags painted on their faces and win Hyundai-ICC merchandise as well. The semi- finals saw a cumulative turnout of over 80,000 people at the 4 venues. In the finals the audience across the locations surged to over 1.25 lacs. In addition the company gave away a special cricket kit with every purchase in the months of February and March 2011. A special limited edition cricket ball too is being offered with every test drive of Hyundai's best selling model i10. The enquiry levels at Hyundai dealerships have seen a 15-18 % upward tick in this period.

Agency expects close to 15-20% additional revenue contribution from Sports Marketing on an annual basis. Summing up the exercise Vivek Srivastava Jt. MD of Innocean said '"this entire exercise has opened a new frontier for enhancing the brand power for our client Hyundai. India's win makes it even more gratifying in terms of timing this initiative. Also it has enabled us to launch Sports Marketing vertical in India by bringing our global best practices given Innocean's network experience with FIFA, UEFA, Australian Open and USPGA. For us it is gratifying because this ICC partnership has enabled Hyundai to get one step closer in its emotive appeal to Indians cutting across geographies and demographics." "In times to come we foresee a lot more sports properties being leverages from the Hyundai's global repertoire depending on their relevance in India, Cricket of course will occupy the centre stage," adds Srivastava.

On an overall level Hyundai and Innocean view this initiative as one with far reaching impact and long-term potential. This sets the stage for rightfully unifying product level innovation, consumer trust with a passionate connect at a national level. In his rounding off statement, Tarun Chaudhury said, "With the Cup in India's bag the stage is set more exciting cricket based engagement strategies for our client Hyundai." | By Vanessa Azavedo [vanessa(at)adgully.com]