Affle partners with Maruti Suzuki; Launches 'Cricket Maharathi'

Affle, Asia's leading mobile media company and Maruti Suzuki, India's number one car manufacturer have collaborated to set up a first-of-its-kind user activation campaign - "Cricket Maharathi' using Affle's proprietary Leaderboard platform. Through "Cricket Maharathi' consumers will now have the power to rate cricketers based on their match performances.

Users can vote for their favourite performer of the day and declare the Cricketer Maharathi of the day. The user created rating system will be completely driven by the passion for cricket as opposed to expert views or complex statistics. These ratings will be awarded on defined scale by interacting with the Maharathi contest on mobile internet and on several other popular mobile media platforms. All ratings will be managed centrally on Affle's leaderboard platform accessible to any user on m.cricketmaharathi.com. Users with highest ratings will stand a chance to win exciting prizes.

Sankalp Mehrotra, Director, Business Development, Affle said, "Cricket ratings and rankings are very popular in India. In an era of user created content, we have created a platform to give a voice to millions of Indian cricket fans via Cricket Maharathi. We are confident that the passionate cricket fans will enjoy playing the leaderboard especially as the excitement around cricket builds up with the ICC World Cup 2011 and the upcoming Indian Premier League, India's away tour of England and so on. In the first week of the pilot phase itself, Cricket Maharathi has generated over 1.5 Million unique votes."

"Maruti Suzuki has been a front runner and an ardent supporter of using frontline mobile media technologies for marketing programs. We are delighted to partner with them in creating this platform for millions of Indian cricket fans." Sankalp added.

Commenting on this partnership Sunila Dhar, Head of Media from Maruti Suzuki said "Maruti has always looked at engaging in unique & immersive ways with the youth and building stronger associations with their passions. In cricket we have found the most universal passion and in Affle the most committed partner who understands our objectives. We are thus very excited to be a part of this activation and believe that it will help build a greater connect with the mobile youth in India."

This campaign further validates Affle's commitment to its consumers about bringing them closer to their passions. Affle has successfully built exciting and popular messaging products like SMS2.0, SMSLive & Pinch in the past and has now launched its' white labelled Leaderboard platform which has enabled an exciting consumer activation - Cricket Maharathi. Over the last few years, Affle's business has grown significantly making it reach out to over 4.5 Mn users for its products and over 250 Mn users who could be targeted by brands for delivering mobile advertising campaigns to. This has been achieved through partnerships with leading carriers & publishers across Asia.