Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Time after time, sponsors of big ticket sporting events are ‘ambushed’ by opportunistic competitors without an official sponsorship. But why do street smarts have to be parked outside a sports stadium each time? The Catch the Logo contest showed how disruptive thinking helped Acko, an IPL sponsor, turbo-charge visibility and drive interest in a previously unknown brand.

Background

Acko is a vehicle insurance company with a disruptive business model. In an industry that relies on agents, Acko goes direct to consumers to offer savings. A new entrant in a well-established industry, Acko’s spontaneous awareness was only 2% (Brand Track Data, Sep2020). A brand with pockets of strength in only a few urban markets, Acko wanted to create awareness nationally. Acko negotiated a logo placement deal with one team in the IPL- but with a fraction of the budget of other IPL sponsors, Acko would only get a fraction of the visibility that other brands would get. Acko anticipated that they would get a meagre 10M impressions by virtue of their logo placements.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Our logos were practically invisible in the stadium compared to all the other brand logos. But we put Acko’s disruptive DNA to work in coming up with an idea that turned poor visibility into an advantage. Our logos would only be spotted by someone actively looking for them. And that’s what we were counting on. The Catch the Logo contest offered cash rewards to IPL viewers who spotted and posted photos of hard-to-spot Acko logos with the hashtag #ACKOcatchthelogo. By doing this we turned IPL viewers into Acko logo hunters.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The campaign was intended to reach 22-45y, NCCS AB, Males and Females across the country. The point of in-stadium visibility is to help brands benefit from the ‘Mere exposure’ effect in the long run. But we knew that with our budgets, our placements would be poor and our logos, tiny. If IPL viewers couldn’t see our branding, Acko wouldn’t benefit at all. Acko needed a pinch hit. We decided to activate dormant viewers with the ‘Thrill of the Hunt’. By creating a contest to spot an elusive logo for an unknown brand, we turned the disadvantage of being an unknown brand into a curiosity which resulted in greater engagement for the viewer. Finding the logo thus became a game within a game for IPL viewers and one in which they, themselves, could win something too.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Implementation - Films were aired on YouTube, FB and various other digital platforms Timeline - September 19, 2020 - November 10, 2020 Placement - YouTube, FB and various other digital platforms Scale - Within 2 days of the airing, the views reached to 12 Million* with a reach of 8 Million* *T&C apply.

List the results (30% of vote)

Sales went up approximately by 30-33 % Engagement - 1 Million+ (reactions on social media) Video (Film) Views - 12 Million Impressions - 30 Million (collective data from all the digital platforms) Brand Discovery - Direct traffic on the website went up by 20%