ICC World Cup 2011 account goes to Ogilvy

Three countries, 13 venues, two groups, 12 teams, prize money of a record $10 million ' that is what the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will feature. What separates you from this grand event is a wait of little less than 300 days. And it is the same time frame that Ogilvy has in hand to ideate and prepare itself to handle the entire advertising capsule for ICC during the 2011 World Cup.

Ogilvy bagged the account, managing to beat five other agencies that the ICC contacted in the process. It should also be noted that ESPN Star had, in 2006, paid US$ 1.1 billion to ICC to acquire telecast rights of all ICC matches till 2015. Prior to that, in 2000, Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) paid ICC US$ 550m for the commercial rights to ICC's major events until 2007 i.e. including CWC 2007.

It is estimated that between 80 to 90 percent of total cricket revenue is generated by India, so you just imagine the scope of advertising existing in India! Upon bagging the advertising deal from ICC, Ogilvy's Abhijit Avasthi, National Creative Director, speaking exclusively with Adgully said, "Basically it was a multi agency pitch. They saw our credentials and with the pitch that we offered, I guess that impressed them and we won the account."

When we tried to dig deeper into the nature and uniqueness of O&M's pitch, Avasthi said, "Well can't talk about the strategy about the pitch. But in our pitch we presented that ICC by virtue comes once in four years and make people understand its worth. And with the history that O&M has regarding the cricketing tournaments, helped us to win the account."