WITH the Airtel Champions LeagueTwenty20 all set to kick off Friday, here is an interesting perspective on the response of consumers to the three IPL teams playing in the CL T20 – Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The perspective was collated as part of a Consumer Response to Investment in Cricket study carried out around the IPL 2010. The study was conceptualized and marketed by Domor Communication Consulting in partnership with TNS India. A total of 10,000 respondents from 12 centres in India were contacted across a 12-week period from late February to early May 2010.
The Cric study, which measured the impact of brand/s associated with IPL, the changes in brand metrics including awareness, disposition and imagery. Cric uses an extensive pre and post measurement to isolate the effect of existing brand equity
In one of the segments, the study estimated the strength of the 8 IPL teams on the basis of a Cognitive- Affective- Conative model – How much do respondents know of the team? What do respondents feel about the team and what do respondents do as a result of their thoughts and feelings?
It is interesting that during IPL 2010, out of a total of 8 IPL teams, the average consumer could only remember a maximum of 5 teams even when the tournament was on. In the CL T20, with 10 teams, out of which only 3 teams are from the IPL, getting the other teams into the consumer memory would be the first challenge before you can get the consumer rooting for them or following their fortunes.
While the top 3 teams of IPL earned themselves a place in the CL T20, it is interesting to see how much of familiarity and popularity they enjoy among the consumers. This would determine the extent of their following in the CL T20 also.
At the beginning of the IPL 2010, 63% of the consumers recalled MI spontaneously. CSK also had reasonably high awareness – 54%. However, RCB score was significantly lower at 44%. Even at the end of the IPL 2010, the ordering was not any different – MI: 87%, CSK: 69% and RCB: 55%. CSK, despite winning, was lower than MI on recall and RCB, despite finishing third, was lower on familiarity than Kolkata Knight Riders or Delhi Daredevils.
Popularity and support follows a similar pattern – around 25% of the consumers considered MI their favourite team at the start of the IPL while 21% favoured CSK. At the end of the IPL 2010, 50% of the consumers favoured MI while only 23% favoured CSK despite their victory. RCB started out with only 12% people favouring them and ended up with 10%.
RCB, therefore, is unlikely to be a big draw in the CL T20 either – the team has low recall and popularity, it has a small loyal base, concentrated in its hometown – Bangalore. Interestingly, as the IPL progressed, the good performance of RCB did not result in its popularity going up.
The consumer expectation of who is likely to win was also similar. At the start of IPL 2010, equal proportion (17% each) believed that MI or CSK would win. A smaller proportion – 10% – expected RCB to win at the start of the IPL 2010. In the last week of the IPL, 62% expected MI to win while 10% each expected CSK and RCB to win – reflecting the dominance of MI’s performance.
Looking at the trends in popularity and ranking during the IPL 2010, it is evident that team popularity is largely determined by performance. However, in general, popularity falls rapidly with poor performance but picks up slowly with good performance – so a consistent team like MI scores higher on popularity than a ‘volatile performance’ team like CSK.
The key draw in the CL T20 for the Indian audience is largely MI. CSK does not enjoy very high familiarity or support of the consumers despite winning the IPL 2010 and RCB has low popularity.
(Domor Communication Consulting is a specialist consulting firm focused on marketing effectiveness. The firm has been established in strategic partnership with international domain leader, R3.)
