Tag Archives: cricket

Ten in exclusive talks for cricket rights

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Network Ten has entered into a period of exclusivity with Cricket Australia, that will last until the end of the month, for the media rights to the sport. The exclusivity window locks out other bidders from negotiating with Cricket Australia.

It is reported that Ten is offering to pay $350 million over five years for rights to all forms of cricket which will amount to roughly $70 million annually, quite a jump from the estimated $45 million that Nine is said to have paid for its seven-year deal. Ten’s offer will cover Test cricket, limited-over internationals and the domestic Big Bash League.

The Big Bash League has only appeared on subscription television channel, Fox Sports, but Cricket Australia is reportedly keen on airing some games on free-to-air channels.

The Seven Network is also said to have thrown its hat into the ring, prior to the exclusivity period, reportedly offering $320 million for all rights. The Australian has reported Seven has also presented three other options including separate offers for the Big Bash League, currently held by Fox Sports, One Day Internationals and International Test matches.

Though Ten is making a strong case in obtaining the rights, Channel Nine still has the right of last refusal, meaning the network has the right to see all other offers made by rival networks and the option to match them.

Yesterday The Australian also reported that Telstra was no longer vying for Cricket Australia’s mobile and digital content rights, increasing the likelihood they could end up in the hands of a free-to-air broadcaster.

Cricket Australia is hoping to finalise a broadcasting deal by mid June.

 

Creating websites, apps and a new cricket league

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Campaign: KFC T20 Big Bash League websites and app

Client: Cricket Australia

Agency: Reactive

Platform: Sitecore

 

Background

After a hotly-contested pitch, Reactive won the digital account for Cricket Australia’s new KFC T20 Big Bash League in 2011. The initial project involved creating the league website and eight team sites all on a single Sitecore content management system (CMS) implementation. The nine sites have since clocked up jaw-dropping numbers, with site traffic exceeding expectations.

Since the launch in July 2011, more than eight million page views have been recorded across the league and team sites, with the average fan spending six minutes per visit on the Big Bash League website during the season.

After seeing significant growth in site traffic and interest after the launch of the new league, in December 2011 Cricket Australia and Reactive followed up with the launch of Android and iPhone apps for the KFC T20 Big Bash League, implemented in order to make it as easy as possible for fans to stay connected with their favourite team.

Choose Your Team

Objectives

The challenges facing Reactive and the KFC T20 Big Bash League project included:

  • launching the digital presence for a new cricket league and eight new teams by providing the digital interpretation of the brands initially developed by FutureBrand,
  • introducing and increasing fan engagement with the Big Bash League, its teams and players, six months prior to a ball being bowled,
  • creating rivalry between the teams to have fans declaring their allegiances and joining in the rivalry
  • working in a multi-vendor environment with concurrent delivery on the same Sitecore platform – Cricket Australia was also in the process of delivering cricket. com.au and state websites onto the Sitecore platform, and
  • engaging users of the mobile apps with an exemplary content experience enabling visitors to connect with the new league via the convenience of their phone.

Strategy

Cricket Australia selected Sitecore for its focus on usability that allows casual users to easily manage websites, its multi-site management provides support and content sharing across many sites, and its sport and entertainment credentials – Sitecore is used by a number of high profile sports team: the US National Football League (Atlanta Falcons), English Premier League (Manchester City) and the US National Basketball Association (lebronjames.com).

To overcome low levels of initial familiarity, the idea was to create an energetic and cohesive program across all nine websites, leveraging opportunities afforded by digital media to reach the youth-oriented target market.

With the KFC T20 Big Bash League heralding a new era in cricket, the Android and iPhone apps provide more ways for fans to engage with T20 cricket.

The mobile apps provide immediate coverage of the KFC T20 Big Bash League anywhere, anytime. From live scores to match alerts, fans have immediate access to the action while they’re on the go. The Android and iPhone apps feature:

  • live scores and player stats,
  • video and match highlights in high definition,
  • match alerts, so fans never miss a game,
  • ability for fans to customise the app in their team colours and get the latest team news and results,
  • live match tweets from their team, and
  • behind-the-scenes video, player interviews, match highlights and more.

Hurricanes

Execution

Following a stringent information architecture process that clearly defined the overall structure, content and hierarchy for each site, Reactive worked closely with Cricket Australia on the visuals for the sites, customising each design according to the appropriate team/league branding produced by FutureBrand.

Building the Big Bash League sites with Sitecore CMS, Reactive had to strike a balance between keeping all nine sites technically consistent yet visually distinct. Templates were developed in HTML and CSS, and included flexibility for customisation and future enhancements.

With fan engagement as a key objective, the KFC T20 Big Bash League site includes features such as a live countdown, hype videos to generate anticipation for the start of the competition and rich media content, encouraging fans to pick their teams.

Extensive social integration such as the Facebook Like Ladder and Fan Voice page create a sense of tribalism, as fans are urged to join in and declare their allegiances, making them part of this exciting milestone in Australian sporting history.

Reactive was able to tap into local and global Sitecore resources that provided them with both feedback and advice on best practice implementation of the solution. This resulted in nine visually distinctive websites that are all part of one cohesive platform.

Hurricanes app

Technical description

  • Sitecore CMS
  • Cadability/Infoplum – to show game scores and team statistics,
  • Brightcove video player – to provide fans with screenings of live matches and highlights,
  • Disqus for commenting, and
  • social API integration to Facebook and Twitter.

The apps were built across the iPhone and Android platforms, ensuring wide compatibility. The apps communicate with live score information via a ‘restful’ API that Reactive developers custom built.

The app’s content is managed via Sitecore CMS, while push notifications are managed and served with Urban Airship for both apps. Analytics are captured with Flurry, a mobile app analytics platform. For each device, our developers used slightly different designs so that they fit in with their own ecosystems and neither felt like a ‘port’ of the other.

Three apps

Results

The Sitecore platform allowed Reactive and Cricket Australia to rapidly build and launch a digital presence for the new KFC T20 Big Bash League and team pages inside of 10 months.

Sitecore provides a centralised platform for eight team sites to work out of, which allows for easier management of content and admin access.

The websites have clocked up jaw-dropping numbers, with site traffic exceeding expectations. Over six million page views were delivered during the season and fan engagement on the site was over three and a half minutes. The newfound fans have continued pouring in, with an average 75-80% of new visits recorded.

The KFC T20 Big Bash League mobile apps, which pull in news and data from Sitecore, are also recording impressive numbers. The iPhone app has over 84,000 downloads and, during the cricket season, peaked at number one in the App Store for free sports apps. Cricket fans are clamouring to download the Android app as well, with over 23,500 new users since launch. The Android version is rated 4.7 stars out of five on the Android Market and the iPhone version is rated four out of five stars.

 

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Surf and turf: Coke to install pop-up beach in SCG stand

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Coca-Cola will turn a stand in the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) into a pop-up beach for the summer cricket season. Coca-Cola ‘Beach @ The Cricket’ will be the world’s first pop-up beach in a cricket ground and another foray into experiential marketing for the brand.

The beach will feature splash pools and free Coca-Cola products, embedding the brand in two Australian summer traditions.

Marketing manager at Coca-Cola South Pacific, Antoinette Tyrrell, says the aim is to get fans participating in cricket in a whole new way and spark interest and conversations.

“We’ve all grown up playing cricket on the beach. For Aussies, there’s no need to choose between the beach and the cricket this summer, we’ve brought the beach and Australia’s best cricketers to them,” Tyrrell says.

“Through our partnership with Cricket Australia, Coca-Cola has created this one of a kind, world first experience for our consumers.”

A fully-integrated marketing and advertising campaign will run through the heart of the summer cricket season from December to early February, supported by on-pack consumer promotion, TVCs, a Channel 9 media partnership, point-of-sale, social media and digital.

Members of the Australian cricket team, including captain Michael Clarke, star in the TVC.

Fans can win a spot in the modified stand by winning from specially marked bottles, entering a competition on Nine’s Today show or by being upgraded to the section at the game for being best dressed.

Cricket Australia has taken an active role in the partnership, also hoping to boost conversations around the cricket this summer. “Together, we’re offering the ultimate Australian summer experience – the sand between your toes, water at your feet, an ice cold Coke in your hand and Australia’s favourite team in front of you,” Mike McKenna, executive general manager, operations, at Cricket Australia says.

Experiential agency Elite Sports Properties worked with George Patterson Y&R, media buyers IKON, shopper agency Mix, Ogilvy, One Green Bean and Wunderman on the integrated campaign. Packaging was created by Passport.

 

Vodafone dumps V8 Supercar and cricket sponsorships

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Vodafone has cancelled its six-year sponsorship of the V8 Supercars and 11-year sponsorship of the Australian cricket team to re-invest the money in customer service and the roll out of a new mobile network, the company announced yesterday.

Announcing the decision on its blog, the telco stated that the change was being made as “a strategic shift in its marketing and sponsorship spending, with plans to concentrate its investments in rolling out the new Vodafone mobile network and improving its customer service capabilities.”

According to consumer business unit director at Vodafone, Noel Hamill, the decision to dump the sponsorships was not made due to poor return on investment. “Our sponsorship of the Australian Test Cricket Team has delivered exceptional value and great experiences to many of our customers, so the decision to conclude the sponsorship at the end of the 2012/13 summer has not been taken lightly,” Hamill said. “We feel that it’s best to refocus our investment and attention on delivering the best possible network and service experience to our customers.”

The sponsorship of the Australian Test Cricket Team will expire when the current contract comes to an end in March 2013 and its sponsorship of TeamVodafone in the V8 Supercar Championships has already closed with the season’s end.

The company has committed to investing $1 billion in a network overhaul. It experienced a tough year in 2011, reporting a $350 million loss and the defection of 554,000 customers.

Vodafone currently has exclusive rights for mobile broadcasting of cricket content on the iPhone, which will be available until the end of the 2012 summer cricket season, according to ZDNet Australia.

Vodafone stated it will continue to explore ongoing sponsorship opportunities with Triple Eight Race Engineering, Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup.

Branding Australian cricket’s subversive little brother

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Project: Twenty20 Big Bash League

Client: Cricket Australia

Agency: FutureBrand

Background

Australian cricket was facing a huge and quite unique challenge in a sports context, due to it having three related but increasingly distinct formats: test, one-day and Twenty20.

Careful portfolio analysis revealed both the potential ‘fit’ between the Twenty20 short-form format and younger audiences but also highlighted the dangers of one format potentially cannibalising or diluting the audience for another format.

Part of the problem was cricket being perceived as a comparatively boring and traditional game, at odds with the intensity and immediacy sought by a younger generation of fans. Structural issues were exacerbated by poor performances at test level, traditionally the barometer for Australia’s popular attitude to cricket, and by other off-field controversy.

The new portfolio strategy was centered around the reinvention of the state-based T20 format to specifically target a younger audience through the introduction of new league, with new teams and new players, all expressed through an unexpected raw, urban attitude – by any estimation a big shift for a sport steeped in tradition and perceived to be on the wane.

Objectives

Australian cricket needed to reengage a potentially lost generation of younger cricket fans as both game attendances and TV audiences were stagnant or in decline.

Increasing competition from other sporting codes displaying a much more ‘in touch’ attitude to overall youth style and channels (as opposed to simple ‘sport’ style) were seriously threatening cricket’s position as ‘Australia’s favourite sport’.

Catch it

Strategy

Inventing a league and tournament with no history, using teams with no grass-roots whilst simultaneously distancing the T20 product from the one-day format without alienating ‘mums and dads’ seemed an almost impossible task (on paper at least).

What we did have going for us was a product that perfectly suited the adrenaline/drama junkie desires of Australian youth yet was still underdeveloped and poorly packaged. We also had a new league format that would address the ‘so what?’ criticisms of previous Big Bash seasons in that it would culminate in a genuine finals series.

One other asset to activate was in the latent strength of local (as opposed to state vs. state) rivalries that generate so much passion in the NRL and AFL. In using much more tangible city profiles we would be able to quickly attach some genuine identity to these new teams.

To increase the distinction from the past each team would select a non-traditional team colour and a name that would not evoke a local animal or historic aspect.  So no ‘Redbacks’, ‘Bushrangers’ or ‘Blues’. Again, this was a big cultural and brand departure.

Lastly was how the teams would be constituted. There would be the excitement of the initial rostering process where unlike the ‘all star’ approach of the Indian IPL, the Big Bash League would combine young local talent, experienced test stars and some cosmopolitan glamour via two overseas stars per team – be they from Delhi, Auckland, Islamabad or Somerset.

Fixture

Execution

There was an opportunity to challenge the visual paradigm cricket and express what ‘anti-cricket’ or ‘cricket’s subversive little brother’ could look like. The heightened dynamism, intensity and immediacy designed to provoke renewed interest from a younger generation of fans.

From the split shield symbol to the gritty concrete textures, every aspect of our creative approach was designed to convey anti-establishment and a ‘counter cricket culture’ that would deliberately polarise audiences – even at the expense of the alienating older traditionalists.

The desired outcomes included projected increases in broadcast reach, game attendance and commercial revenue with a significant contribution from the targeted younger generation of fans and their families.

The new identity and design informed a huge array of social media and advertising applications that collectively challenged preconceptions of cricket, built strong anticipation and awareness of the new league, and ultimately provoked passionate debate about the new teams and players.

Billboard

Results

The results from the first season show a dramatic increase in both broadcast reach (80% increase compared to previous season) and game attendance (58% above KPI with 49% attending a T20 game for the first time) predominantly from the targeted younger audience.

The media value of the T20 Big Bash has increased significantly (730% compared to the previous season).

Over 30% of kids interested in cricket now describe themselves as fanatical about the T20 format compared to the previous season.

Mike McKenna of Cricket Australia says that the target of attracting 16,000 fans per match was exceeded: “We certainly beat that: we’re at nearly 18,000.”

“The TV ratings have really surprised us and delighted us. We were expecting somewhere in the region of 165,000 – and we are well ahead of that in the region of 280,000 per match so we’re very pleased with those KPIs.”

Poster

 

Ashes to ashes: how can cricket bounce back?

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Match-fixing, smaller crowds, laborious 5-day drawn games followed by absolute wallopings; it all makes cricket look like it has lost a bit of its gloss. But it might just bounce back.

This year’s Ashes series against England hasn’t got close to generating the hyperbole and excitement of previous Ashes encounters from the last decade, but nexusmg’s Luke Jenkinson says this is just “the calm before the storm.”

“Cricket Australia is very calculated,” Jenkinson tells Marketing magazine. “They’ll make a bang next year with a new 20/20 competition.”

The new competition is Australia’s take on the successful Indian Premier League, and will hope to snare the world’s best players. Jenkinson says it will “kill off the A-League”, our national football competition, and that people have no reason to be concerned by the lull in public interest in cricket.

“Grassroots will always be fine, they’ve laid the foundations over 30 years of success,” he says. “And they’ve got sponsorship foundations, there’s partners always out there. They’re at capacity with brands knocking on their doors.”

Jenkinson says the calls for a Shane Warne return are “desperate” and only exist because Australians “aren’t used to getting beaten”. But Jenkinson believes a real character like Warne is missing from the game at the moment.

“With any sport we need characters,” Jenkinson says. “Warnie has his TV show, he’s driving Lamborghinis, he’s just got with Liz Hurley. No matter what’s going on in his personal life, his brand just grows stronger and stronger.”

“He’s just putting himself out there, and he’s being himself. People live their lives through others and just want some excitement, so the media keep turning back to Warne.”

Jenkinson thinks that paceman Doug Bollinger might be able to fill that role of the next great sporting character.

“He’s larger than life, he’s got a bit of Merv Hughes in him, Jenkinson says. We saw that with the new Vodafone ads where hes dancing, hes great value.”

WACA events protected from aerial ad ambush

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An Australia versus Pakistan cricket match in WA will be the first to be protected from unauthorised aerial advertising, says the state’s sports minister, Terry Waldron.

The WA Government introduced legislation in early 2010 that provides protection for event organisers and sponsors from ‘sky-writing or the use of banners or advertising attached to aircraft such as blimps, hang gliders and hot-air balloons’, and securing their rights and privileges to that event.

“Ambush aerial marketing is grossly unfair, allowing companies to exploit high-profile advertising opportunities for which legitimate sponsors have paid significant dollars,” said Waldon.

“This legislation will ensure that the rights of sponsors of a major event will be protected at law and provide a further incentive to a sponsor to invest in major events in this State.”

The Act was introduced in response to incidents where events at the Western Australian Cricket Ground were used as advertising opportunities by companies without contracts.

Cricket live on YouTube

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The Indian Premier League (IPL) have partnered with YouTube to offer live online cricket.

This will be the first major sporting event streamed live on YouTube, beginning March 12. The live cast will also be available on-demand for all 60 matches of the tournament.

As part of the deal, Google has exclusive rights to the web and mobile rights of IPL for the next two years. Google and IPL will share sponsorship and advertising revenues.

Were extremely excited to bring IPL cricket fever to millions of Aussies via YouTube. We want YouTube to be a comprehensive destination for online video and that now includes live sport. We look forward to bringing more premium content online here in Australia, Ryan Hall, head of business development for Google Australia.

KFC TVC branded racist

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KFC has landed itself in trouble with one of its TVCs for its ‘Cricket Survival Guide’ campaign being labelled racist in the US.

It depicts ‘Mick’ the Australian surrounded by dancing, rowdy West Indies fans, with whom he shares a bucket of fried chicken to bring them under control.

Media in the US accuse the campaign of continuing a stereotype that African Americans can be placated with fried chicken.

KFC Australia released a statement stating that the ad had been misinterpreted by a segment of people in the US.

“It is a light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team. The ad was reproduced online in the US without KFC’s permission, where we are told a culturally based stereotype exists, leading to the incorrect assertion of racism.

“We unequivocally condemn discrimination of any type and have a proud history as one of the worlds leading employers for diversity,” the statement read.