Make IPL a serial killer with 6 TVRs battle gun.

Invade the worlds largest democracy - India.

A month before the league, the operation with no current belief or past success was declared a failure by skeptics.

Past operations of competitive leagues with similar war tactics had failed on account of faulty weapons missing the targets. None managed to conquer loyalty for city-based teams in India neither was there a drive to buy tickets or watch the scant telecasts on television.

Cricket did not have recruitment beyond males. It was a herculean task for sporting battles to be entertaining for civilian families that had not experienced battles of this scale previously.

IPL was to be telecast at prime time everyday therefore contending with new and strong army of shows, best performing soaps soldiers and family based entertainment armor across channels.

City based loyalties had minimal existence in comparison to country pride for international sporting battles and needed to be developed.

Conventionally, a behavioral change would require a structured, supervised framework for applying and reinforcing desired ideals over a long period of time. But we only had 30 days.

Challenging the very premise, our intervention was based on the insight that the consumer would change if a seamless integrated message is sent across to them with great intensity in limited period of time. In order to accomplish this orbit shifting challenge, two strategic operations were designed to target the country: Mission Reach and Mission Pride.

The most powerful weapon The Nuclear Bomb was used to make the impact and shake the very foundation of the country. Television and print together posed as the only two nuclear missiles, which could in one go zero in on people across age group and gender. An alliance between the two was used to announce the onset of this mortal combat.

A guerilla war was unleashed which focused the ambush on smaller units of people targeting their interests and behavior patterns. We made them contend with each other. The virus of One Pride One Notion (P1N1), was injected using civilian entertainment amenities like radio for masses, cinema for classes and outdoor for corporate where feelings of passion, pride and allegiance for city based teams were diffused. Simultaneously, a Tech-virus was released over internet and mobile. It created a viral effect, particularly among the youth and cricket enthusiasts.

Every possible ammunition and shells were lodged so that not a single individual escaped the entertainment attack. 1. TVCs were operated at 5000 GRPs impact ensuring each target is reached at least 50 times. Repeated attacks were made with 90 program sponsorships, special programming, aston bands, countdown bugs and day branding. 2. Landmines were laid in the form of 5, 26,512 column centimeters coverage across print media, innovative impact covers and launch ads on front page. 3. On the day of the launch, we seized the Yahoos home page, first ever takeover of this kind capturing the Indian internet junkies.

4. 65,900 walkie-talkies transmitted the Karmayudh ringtone virus and effect spread to a million who used it as their caller ring back tone in turn affecting other with the deadly virus. Not limiting to national attack, regional guerrilla wars divided the city tribes: 1. A war between the radio jockeys across a radio station where they extended support to their choice of team while dismissing the others inciting revenge from others. 2. Mobile community called smsgupshup.com created with 25,777 members who sent in support cheers and drafted game strategies every day. 3. videos and voting options. Like bombs, there were drag and drop options for unit logos, visible on the page and used as mail signatures to declare ones loyalty. 4. 292 theaters across 10 states ran team anthems which inflamed the already divided passions. 5. 125 city specific outdoor hoardings were launched precisely hunting premium sites.

A large chunk of the ammunition was provided free of cost, across media.

OPERATION SUCCESSFUL. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Media bombarded the imagination of over a billion people. All the speculation surrounding IPL was put to rest as the entire country was driven into a frenzy. The Indian Premier League broke all records for the opening season of any sporting combat in the world. Both missions were accomplished: targeting entire country and dividing them locally. . Not only were there eyeballs on television in the form of sustained TRPs of 6.3 for 59 matches across 44 days but also stadium occupancy across eight zones stood at whopping 80% - a significant number in comparison to 10% occupancy of previous unsuccessful leagues.

According to us, the biggest outcome of the media induced success for the event was two-fold: We created the super-bowl of India. In other countries, it took anywhere between 5-15 years to create a similar impact from a sporting event. It helped IPL generate unprecedented revenue for the next year when rates when double (IPL re-negotiated channel contract by 60% higher). It also helped team owners break even potential to 2-3 years

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D i s c l a i me r : T h i sc a s es t u d yi sf o r i n f o r ma t i o n a l p u r p o s eo n l ya n df o r a n yd e t a i l sc o n t a c t : k i n g s h u k . mi t r a @ ma x u s g l o b a l . c o m