SONY SIX kick-starts the run-up to FIFA WC 2014

Sony SIX, the newest sporting channel on the block announced its new marketing campaign for 2014 FIFA World Cup titled ‘Live the Magic’. The channel has exclusively brought on board Bollywood star and football enthusiast John Abraham as a strategic move, leveraging the build-up to the world’s greatest footballing extravaganza. The inspiration of the campaign has been drawn from the global obsession of viewers assembling to catch the most anticipated international tournament in the world of football. The term ‘Live the Magic’ was coined to ignite the fervour and the passion for football fanatics, as well as to call out to non-sport enthusiast to join the party.

Adgully caught up with Prasana Krishnan, Business Head, SONY SIX to know more about the campaign and they view this property to perform for the channel.

Speaking on the launch of the marketing campaign he said “There’s no doubt about the passion for football in India. Through our campaign we are just not targeting football fans but also calling out to our general viewers to join in, the tournament brings in the best of international talent and entertainment together with a promise of something for everyone to enjoy”.

He adds that the build to the event is happening via simple steps taken on understanding what FIFA World Cup means to people, what image it throws up in people’s minds and their expectations from an event like this.  It is the most the most viewed sporting event across continents and that is something that we are looking at leveraging.  From a viewership viewpoint, he said, “FIFA World Cup tends to draw a lot of football viewers, who may not be regular football viewers on a week in and week out basis-colloquially termed viewers. Through the past data, what we have seen in the Indian context is that probably 90 - 95% viewers who come to watch FIFA World Cup are not regular football viewers. Football World Cup viewership has been as high as 15-20 times the viewership for a typical league-match or any other bigger league like IPL. The 2010 FIFA World Cup had registered 65 million viewers which is a large number but we plan to reach at least double the number this year; which imply that we have to cater to a much wider audience base and not just football enthusiasts”.

With digitalisation almost falling in place, reaching virgin markets has been made easier for genre-specific channels SIX.  Krishnan believes that from these smaller and interior markets comes a large viewership number, with most being fringe viewers. He believes that with regards to the urban markets, the game, specifically FIFA World Cup, has been attracting a lot of female viewership. "Football is clearly picking up in the non-traditional football markets. No qualms that markets like Bengal, Goa and Kerala have always been traditionally strong markets where football is viewed the sport is also picking up in ‘urban’ youth markets like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. It's an extremely young demographic that is being more actively viewing/playing football. I believe that not all sports attract this level and intensity of passion from players and viewers”, he opined.

He states that the ad film is devised to capture and reflect the essence of community viewership, in this case ‘football lovers’. "The whole idea of the campaign was to make it more inclusive, to be able to appeal to a larger demographic, larger audience, including the non-traditional football viewers," he added.

The TVC has been shot with the idea of replicating the carnival atmosphere surrounding Brazil. The opening scene see’s John Abraham donning the avatar of Brazil’s beloved and sensational striker Neymar Jr. exiting onto the town street. He is joined by fellow town football fans donning the avatar of Portugal’s superstar - Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentina’s footballing Maestro – Messi and France’s lightning bolt – Ribery. The film takes on from here where the characters mosey through town and are joined by their entourage and ensemble of sports fans replicating the feel of the Brazil’s trademark carnival parade. Showcasing colours from several popular international teams, the film emits a grandeur experience signifying an important message on how viewers come together to celebrate and watch the sport of football. The commercial exudes Brazil in its beach, narrow streets, music and carnival-like atmosphere. This intent of the campaign emanates from the channel’s endeavour to capture sports enthusiasts and urge non-sports viewers to come together and enjoy the international football extravaganza. Further the campaign aligns itself to the channels continued commitment of bringing in high quality sports content for viewers across the nation.

Speaking on having John Abraham on board for the campaign Krishnan said, “John exhibits a perfect blend of being an actor in his professional career and an ardent football fan in his personal life. It is his versatility that syncs with our channel’s belief of making content inclusive and entertaining for everyone, deeming him the right fit for our campaign”.
The brainchild of the creative agency Havas Worldwide, the campaign has been directed by Prashant Issar from Tubelight films.

Speaking on the campaign, Vivek Rao, Executive Creative Director, HAVAS MEDIA, said, "FIFA World Cup is the biggest platform for the likes of various football icons to showcase their mastery. The Paper Mache masks bring a distinctive visual element that has all the carnival cues about it. By combining the two, we captured the essence of Brazil and the carnival feel that it would bring to the FIFA world Cup. All this is reflected with the energy, passion, music and crowd participation in the film urging people to watch the magic unfold on Sony Six."

Apart from the main film, there shall be a few more variants of the film along with different promos. Starting from a TV, the campaign will soon be extended to other media. As a 360 degree campaign, for the ‘massy game’, the channel has conceived on-ground activations and mall activations across seven cities in the country, including Bombay, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata. Besides this, there will be optimum usage of the other traditional and new media activities like radio spots, print ads, OOH sites, and digital campaigns running to promote the property. The campaign can also be viewed on www.SonyLIV.com, the online home of Sony Entertainment Network. “We are getting the property cross promoted during the IPL as well. While we have just broken the campaign and it will definitely scale up from here as we also have spots across channels on our own network too. Hence access is an area that we are focusing on in a big way. So between television and digital, we are ensuring that the product is available on a platform agnostic basis”, Krishnan added.

He said that while they are not trying to give out any message, the core idea remains to reach football lovers and in return perform well on the business front. While he maintained that the planning and decision making in still in progress, sources say that the marketing spends at about $2 million.

While the channel is fine-tuning its programming strategy for the same, the idea he said is to engage and entertain ultimately leading up-to prime-time viewership. Krishnan said, "Sony has pioneered the way cricket was telecast in India. Our endeavour is to bring in a similar style of entertainment, glamour and viewer engagement to football. The whole programming plan is geared around making it a 'larger-than-life' event”.

While the channel has roped in Xolo as one of the sponsors, it is looking at bringing another 8-10 sponsors on board. Though Rohit Gupta, MSM President, Network Sales, Licensing and Telephony refrained from giving away  the detailed layout of the inventory sales, he said that, “Off the remaining sponsors, the channel looking for two presenting sponsors with each pegged at around Rs. 20 – 30 crore, four to six associate sponsors pegged at Rs. 10 – 15 crores each. Apart from these, there are also spot buys the channel is looking at; one spot buy package is for Rs. 4 crore while the other is for Rs 8 crore, which would essentially be a smaller set of advertisers”. He also mentioned that while the channel has managed put about 40% inventory afloat, it has got e-commerce companies, mobile handset manufacturers, finance entities present on the slate, but is still in conversation with certain FMCG brands for the same”.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil will kick off on June 12. The tournament will be in two stages; the group stage will feature 32 nations and will be played from June 12 to June 26. The knockout stage will start from June 28 and conclude with the FIFA World Cup Final match on July 13.

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