Results and Effectiveness

In a budget less than an average IPL spender, the media agency created the most talked about kids’ event. It generated huge PR with special mention in Economic Times as a successful event. The event was awarded by LIMA International Licensing Excellence Award. The activity delivered 5Mn+ OTS across media. The event was conducted over 6 weeks in 9 cities, 15,133 participants, 45 Semi-finalists and 9 city champions. The Client managed to sell a whopping 14 million packs of CricketAttax cards for US$ 4.1 Mn, surpassing the target by 37% !!! CricketAttax Championship created a culture of trading cards and collectable, for the first time in India. It has now become an annual event.

Creative Execution

A multi-media execution consisting of TV, Digital and on-ground. Announced the championship using a clever strategic partnership with Pogo , which was facing the threat of losing audiences on account of IPL, & other leading high parent-kid co-viewing channels (as Parents also had to be brought in the fold for them to open their purse strings). Drove traffic to especially designed Cricket Attax website where the players had to register themselves. Through prudent marketing alliances with leading retail chains, their premises were made available for the initial rounds of CricketAttaxChampionship, driving foot-falls and it ensured the parental on-lookers too across 9 cities and 157 centers. Leveraging the IPL tie up, the semi finals and finals of the Championship were hosted in the IPL stadia thus adding further muscle to the activity. The actual IPL heroes felicitated the CricketAttax Championship winners. Got discussion happening on national tv during post session analysis of the actual IPL game.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Topps inked an alliance with IPL to introduce cricket-based trading-cards. It needed to bring in US$3.0 Mn from the sale of cards to justify the investment. Communication goal was to ensure this ROI. Past records indicated target audience collected and traded cards around big events. However, the sales generated through these were not even a fraction of what was required. Hence a big idea was needed. It also needed to make an impact in the consumers' mind to make them carry it forward as the ad dollars were limited. 2 big insights that triggered the big idea were: 1. Empowerment: give the status of team IPL owners to our consumers (male 8-14, SEC AB homes), 2. Participation : Make them part of the live action in the stadium. Media Agency came up with the big idea to launch CricketAttax National Championship, giving the kids an opportunity to create, own and play for a team in the IPL stadia, as live matches unfolded.