This case study explores how we tapped into audience enthusiasm for cricket to foster engagement and awareness of Intel's 12th Gen Processor in India.
The Challenge
Beyond finalizing the platform to promote Intel 12th gen processors, curating content was the key. The content had to connect back to the brand/ product values, had to make sure it drove relevancy with the audience & most importantly encourage the TG to engage with the content. To achieve this, the daunting task was to align respective brand managers across business units, account leads in the system and the content team at Cricinfo.
Insight and Strategy
The second quarter of 2022 witnessed the onset of some of the biggest events across sports: Cricket on IPL, Football on EPL and UEFA Champions League and Wimbledon and French Open Tennis tournaments. Q2 is also peppered with summer sales during holidays, where driving engagement for subsequent consideration becomes the key objective.
The research data showed that Intel consumer segments lean towards different sports, but one sport that bound the country and something that was common across most of the Intel Business Units (BU) audience was Cricket. Backed by research data which confirmed high reach and affinity, 3 (Evo, Vpro & DCAI) out of 5 business units stood out on the scorecard as best suited for Cricket
In the given situation, IPL was in its final leg of the tournament and was the perfect match considering the research metrics. But the highly leveraged video inventory would not help us stand out of the clutter, nor give us the opportunity to garner engagement.
Execution, Solution and Innovation
The goal was to maximize exposure, relevance, and engagement through an integrated Intel campaign that shifted from live sports to sports websites, leveraging Cricinfo for reach, stickiness, and engagement. A content-driven approach catered to diverse audiences with a three-pronged strategy for integrated activation, relevancy, and product offerings.
Evo: A two-episode video series featuring cricket experts Daniel Vettori and Raunak Kapoor connected the evolution of cricket in the IPL with Intel Evo laptops' pinnacle of evolution, engaging fans for ideas to take the game to the next level.
Vpro: A two-episode cricket video series featured expert analysis on the best partnerships of the week, named "Heroes of the Week," highlighting Intel vPro's values for ITDMs as "heroes" for driving innovation, efficiency, security, and sustainability.
DCAI: High-impact display and video inventory on DCAI's website created an umbrella campaign for brand recall and to tap into DCAI's niche audience.
Cricinfo has a monthly unique visitor count of around 19 million and the highest time spent compared to competitors. Content was promoted on the platform's YouTube channel, which has 1.35 million subscribers, and video views peaked at 42 million during the IPL. Social media handles were also activated for robust engagement.
Result and Business Effect
The campaign drove ~100 million impressions, over 3Mn video views & close to 400,000 clicks to website.
Cricket fans showed an exceptional response by engaging with content, posting their ideas & suggestions on social media. Close to 300K fan posts where they spoke about how the sport can evolve for the cricket evolved episodes & also gave their opinion as to who showcased the best partnerships during the week for the Heroes of the week episode.
Further supporting the success of the campaign are the website metrics. The campaign garnered more than 300K page views, an excellent scroll rate of 11.4%, avg time spent of over 2mins & a page interaction rate of 8.5%.
