The immense growth of Indian premier league

                      The immense growth of  Indian premier league

Before the birth of IPL:

Cricket which was more of English men’s sport entered India due to colonization. After which English men’s sport lost its lust in their place. But astonishingly, it was considered more of religion than of a sport in India. Every year the fan base increased to a considerable level. There was a usual model of 50 over matches and test series prevalent. After which the Zee entertainment enterprises launched ICL(Indian Cricket League) where they had auctioning for players and teams. The team comprised of few retired foreign players and the rest were budding Indian players. Zee had an opinion stating that BCCI would support their thought on the other hand BCCI banned ICL due to some circumstances. And promised that BCCI would start their own league of cricket. As promised by BCCI Lalit Modi along with BCCI launched the festival(IPL) of cricket matches in 2008.

Birth of Indian premier league:

IPL is a ritual which takes place every year and exactly depicts the festival which takes place in India. Where people do celebrate, rejoice which binds people from all parts of the country and globe too. This event exactly worked has ICL did but with little more modification where they auctioned players from the current team and budding players. They devised the team's name from different parts of India, which stirs the love for the cities to which they belong.

The presence of business tycoons:

With the teams been sold under a different banner. One of the teams was bought by Mukesh Ambani who named the team “MUMBAI INDIAN”. Sharukh khan a famous film personality owns a team “Kolkata Knight Riders”. India Cements one of the leading cement manufacturers owns a team “Chennai Super Kings” and much more.

Due to auctioning and for building strong teams, the players were paid heftily. Which poured in from the sponsors who thought this would be the best invest and best marketing strategy. This attracted more players from different parts of the country as well as globally which indirectly aroused the love for the sport from the region where the player came from.

The first match was played in Delhi at Feroz Shah Kotla. Akshay Kumar a famous actor was the brand ambassador of the team which played. It aroused so much of hype that one would definitely visit the inauguration of a ceremony. For the people’s surprise, he performed acrobatic stunt from the stadium’s roof. For the people who just saw him in movies, they were very much excited on seeing him on the floor. This created a very different experience where Indian people had not experienced. IPL the best product with perfect marketing:

MAKING OF THE PRODUCT:

The very first, from the auctioning of the players were aired which lead to a lot of transparency and trust among the people. Which gained a huge amount of trust.

Brand name, under different regions of India exactly aroused the love for the own city and the place they belong to. Which in more got a huge loyal set of audience who would support whole heartedly to the team.

People from different parts of the globe and budding players from India are playing which indirectly lead to many new and passionate talents in making.

Since it was the time where the companies meet the huge crowd of people directly during the match. Many sponsors and companies popped up. Which lead to huge profit for the teams.

Surprise element: The “cheerleaders”, it was the first-time cheerleader concept came into practice. A group of young ladies would dance to cheer the players but indirectly cheered the audience. This new concept got more audience to the stadium

MARKETING STRATEGY FOR THE PRODUCT:

As suggested by the Marketing Legend Philip Kotler, let’s now position the IPL in 5 p category:

Product: Combination of sport and entertainment for three hours. Which arouses a huge number of supporters from the region they are related to the sport.

Price: The price is people’s time they spend. And sometimes they do need to buy a ticket which is above 150 or more. Where the sponsors use this time effectively.

Place: Any device which has internet and dish connection like computer, tablets, phone, television.

Promotion: Companies rush to do their promotion. Starting from auctioning, airing, during the match, events between the sport, post-match parties till the end of the ceremony. Some of the sponsors who joined the ceremony where, Vodafone India Ltd, Amazon, Yamaha Motorcycles, Ceat, wire-maker Polycab, Parle Agro’s Frooti, MakeMyTrip, YES Bank and Voltas to connect their target consumers. 

Purpose: This a bundle of entertainment packaged with sports for a maximum profit.

Considering the Customer behavior:

In ‘Welcome to the experience economy’ by B Joseph Pine and James H Gilmore, the author has perfectly read the behavior of the consumers. Gone is the era where people just looked into the product and their quality checked twice while buying or making up a decision about. Due to change in the lifestyle people crave for the experience. The author has well-articulated about the current scenario of people’s behavior.” In today’s service economy, many companies simply wrap experience around traditional offering to sell them better”

When comparing this with IPL, they had used up the entire set of services to create a great experience to the audience who spend the time and money to watch the match. Their engagement is mainly the cause of the people’s attachment with the region (team’s name like Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai) or their support cause of the favorite player. Which makes them relate to the match, say performance by Sivamani was mostly for the important matches of Chennai Super Kings which Related them more regionally.

Due to the high experience serviced by them, they do have a price related to it (ticket rate) which are high. They do charge for the experience they provide. The important decision is the price of the ticket which was fixed initially, comprises for the match and experience. This made the people get into the groove of pricing exhibited by them. Since the experience is off to the fullest by the audience they do have affective reaction (think from the heart) and don’t think about pricing since they are satisfied by the quality of the experience they indulge. As well said by one of the marketing legends consumers are cognitive miser (who think from the brain). When they are too much engrossed with the experience they fail to think of their head. And end up paying a price premium if they are satisfied.

 The four quadrants of experience:

According to the study by B Joseph Pine and James H Gilmore, an event like IPL would exactly fit into the “SWEET SPOT” where all the four quadrants of realms would join at the center where it gives you perfect set of Entertainment, educational, esthetic and escapist

Entertainment: It is perfectly packed with all type of entertainment, with Bollywood stars venturing in the match, cheerleaders, the band, the music around.

Educational: They teach about the marketing strategy, aspects of playing cricket and lot more like plot in which the game is moving, the motive for every player's action

Esthetic:  They are the people who watch the match, absorb the insight about the game and remain idle

Escapist: People who are cheering for the team and have a true feeling that they are playing for the team.

These are the different types of experience which exactly one experiences when going to Disneyland or Las Vegas.

Designing memorable experiences by B Joseph Pine and James H Gilmore

Furthermore, looking deeper into the experience created by IPL:

•    Theme the experience: IPL which is exactly called cricketainment (cricket + entertainment) which explains the feel of cricket something more that. Which had wavy movements of cheerleaders, loud band, ambassadors from the cine field. IPL is more that cricketainment and has the equal mix of emotions.

•    Harmonize Impressions with positive cues: The positive vibes are felt after the match, the media reports as follows” a good game has been played with the full involvement of audience and the players” this is the exact feel of every match. If there is dissonance among the audience due to loss of the match, still people convince themselves reduce the dissonance. Saying that the money is worth spent for the feel and experience and does not matter for winning and losing

•    Eliminate negative cues: IPL is so much co-created with match-fixing, illegal practices. Which leads to the elimination of Chennai Super Kings. This would have been a good lesson for the people who deal with match-fixing or even think of it. The council should take measure to avoid this from happening as this might pull the reputation down. The entire working of the system ( IPL) revolves around the trust of people. If that is lost the entire brand is pulled down.

•    Mix in Memorabilia: There has been increasing number of merchandise sales and the poster of their favorite players. There are different types of goodies available like the cap, badges, Jersey, footwear, mugs, wristband, keychain, miniature and fan gear.

•    Engage all five senses: IPL is typically like a movie in the theatre some may like it some may not. Some may have emerged the best player and some would not have. After all, it contributes to the entire functioning and success of IPL

CONCLUSION:

IPL is well market product with perfect quantities of cricket, entertainment, and emotion. Since they are a highly involved product if there is dissonance they reduce it by inducing perfect information. People do just for the money or the time they spent on the show or television. This is probably one of the best opportunities IPL had got. And the growing number of teams, sponsors pouring in for the advertisement, new budding players will still make the vibe of IPL to grow which will bring new experiences every year.