Naysayers wrote off ICL, but this dream child of Subhash Chandra is sporting ahead with a steady approach. pallavi srivastava finds out more...

4Ps Power Brand Awards 2007

Don’t raise your eyebrows if you find Kareena & Saif, Katrina & Salman (or may be even Akshay ;-)) or Deepika & Ranbeer cheerleading the Hyderabad Heroes and the Mumbai Champs for the Indian Cricket League’s (ICL) coming tournament in October. The grapevine has it that the second season of ICL would have much more excitement then ever before. “We are planning something very interesting and innovative around the concept of cheerleaders for the upcoming ICL tournament, but I can’t disclose the exact details at this point of time,” said Shariq Patel, SVP (Operations and Marketing), ICL.

For the uninitiated, it was ICL that pioneered the entire idea of the T20 format, having teams on the lines of English Premiere League (EPL). However, due to its hype and star power, the IPL (Indian Premier league) swept the first round of the face - off. Now it seems that Subhash Chandra’s ICL is in no mood to be rated as a second grade cricketing tournament (as branded by BCCI). As a matter of fact, ICL is gearing up to confront the BCCI’s apple eye IPL and has rolled up a huge marketing campaign, investing a whopping Rs.50 crore (three times to that of the previous year). This will create a huge buzz around the brand ICL, just when every one thought that ICL did the disappearing act. To counter the stellar creatives that IPL had come out with, ICL has now roped in FCB Ulka as its creative agency in order to devise a brand new ad campaign. This new campaign would soon hit the television screens and would get equal support from other media avenues such as outdoors, radio, Internet et al. To give itself a distinguishing edge, ICL’s communication strategy would initially focus on the players. This is in-line to ICL’s core idea of nurturing local talent and helping the sport in the country. Apart from the multi-million dollar multi-media campaign, ICL is taking a lot of ground promotional initiatives to connect with the audience at a deeper level. For instance, in July 2008, it has launched the ‘Youth Mobilisation’ initiative. The idea behind this was to support various youth ventures like inter–collegiate festivals, events, workshops, seminars, et al in association with various educational institutions across the country. This would allow the cricketing body to connect its brand with the youth of the nation. Talks with IITs and management schools are already in final stages. “ICL is a brand that has given young Indian cricketers the platform to perform. We are extending that identity to all segments of youth. We want to be associated with college related sports events like marathons. We would also send our coaches and players to interact with them to inspire them. The idea is to promote sports and ICL as a way of life by increasing the youth involvement,” explains Shariq. Connecting with the audiences with the help of initiatives like these, might actually help to gain a wider acceptance.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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