Business pickups for SL from IPL 2013

Sports embargo

The reality is that there is a trade embargo at play with the GSP+ fallout. But we never thought a sports embargo will be enforced on Sri Lanka. Then it happened. When the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu wrote to the Prime Minister of India that she would not permit any Sri Lanka cricketer or umpire to participate in Chennai, it was the first realisation of the word sports embargo to Sri Lanka.

Pick-up 1: It’s time that the Sri Lankan private sector engages the Government and develops a strategy to correct this issue. If not, the next is where Sri Lankan export products will face a ban and then the people and finally we can be up against a very serious issue. The Sri Lankan private sector must get involved to solve this deadlock. This is not a political issue now but a country issue and we have support the public sector to solve the crisis before it spreads to the rest of world.

Have three

Given the entrenched competition and money involved, the stakes are high from the owners, advertisers and sponsors. Hence every team has a mentor, performance analyst and psychologist. On Sunday night we saw how the great Viv Richards changed the attitudes of the Delhi Daredevils team to thrash Mumbai Indians after losing five matches in a row.

Pick-up 2: Every one of us must have the three of them in our life: Mentor, performance analyst and psychologist. A pastor or a priest can also fit one of the roles. But the important thing is that they must be there in some shape if you want to be competitive in today’s world.

Drop yourself

When Darren Lehman (team coach for Sunrisers) and Kumar Sangakkara were discussing the best team for the wicket, Sangakkara did the selfless thing of dropping himself. It just showed the class in the top batsmen as that was what was best for the team. It was very unusual for a captain of a team to be dropped. But I guess when competition is so ruthless, you have to take cutting-edge decisions.

Pick-up 3: There are times when a business leader must give way to a team member to don the mantle. It can be at a multi-million dollar business pitch or sometimes the organisation’s reins. But these are the cutting-edge business decisions that make today’s entities winners. We have to move away from protocol and accepted norms if we want cutting-edge results.

 Talent over money

Sri Lanka’s T20 Captain and Vice Captain in the other formats Dinesh Chandimal decided to skip a $ 100,000 base price offer by IPL 2013, to focus on technical training with his coaches and to take English lessons/media training.

Pick-up 4: It’s a strong cue to a youngster on how to fashion one’s own career. There are many lucrative offers that come our way, but it’s important to focus on our career and polishing up the rugged areas rather than going after material benefits. At the end of the day, self-fulfilment is more important to a human being than money.

Helicopter view

The first week media report from IPL reveals that overall ratings are at 3.8 as against 3.9 of last year. Whilst this may be true, it’s important to take a helicopter view I feel given that digital media penetration has significantly increased with over 3.4 million Tweets, Facebook updates and YouTube viewing. In fact if one goes deeper, if one analyses the cities across India that have over a million people called LCI markets, the growth has increased on TVRs at 4.5.

Pick-up 5: The communication game is changing drastically. Unless one becomes savvy with the new methods of communication with and among people, be it FB, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google+, especially because of the mobile penetration at 20 million in Sri Lanka, using only traditional media will be a no-brainer.

Money drama link

It’s strange but the architecture of IPL is that players, franchise owners and advertisers all make money. Where there is money, there is passion and drama. That’s the reality and that’s where cutting-edge performance happens.

Pick-up 6: Though money is not the sole motivator in today’s world, qualitative aspects like the company one works for are getting less attractive to retain talent. There must be money in terms of salary, bonus and share offers. If not you cannot get the drama inside office. Without drama, cutting-edge performance cannot be elicited. Watch an IPL match today and you will see the dynamism I am talking of.

Use platforms

The way I see it, IPL is just a platform for buyers and sellers to meet. DLF got a strong mileage from the IPL linkage. So did small mobile brands like LAVA and Carbon. Aircel was known only in the south of India but now it’s a household name across the country.

Pick-up 7: Find platforms where you can ride the wave in a given country. Wow.lk is also a platform that is becoming a strong brand. It was reported that Dialog paid $ 1.57 million for it. Maybe fashion design brands can use this platform as getting approval for a payment gateway is a tough task. Clogard toothpaste rode the herbal toothpaste platform in Sri Lanka and captured almost one-third of the share in the dentifrice market.

Some skin helps

When Poonam Pandey announced to India that she would strip if KKR won the IPL, it created media and excitement in some consumer segments which helped IPL brand penetration. Sometimes skin helps gets media attention, but it must be meaningfully done.

Pick-up 8: Use some skin if relevant. Even in the recent Elephant drinks commercials, there is some skin. It sure helps get strong word of mouth and share of voice.

Owners stay away

If you have noticed, Sharukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty have taken a back stage in the 2013 edition of IPL. In fact KKR has hired a CEO, Venky Mysore, to do the task of taking the team to the next steps. Apparently the brand is worth $ 57.5 million post the 2012 title win.

Pick-up 9: When working with a team, give them objectives but allow them to chalk up the style they want to adopt in achieving them. If not, performance gets affected. Owners must stay away from business once you employ a professional. If not, don’t employ professionals or owners must become professional leaders with the leadership/team skills set.

MI is $ 48 million

Even the Mumbai Indians may not be performing that great but the fact of the matter is that Brand Finance Plc has valued the brand at $ 48 million and is in the 146th position of the world’s most valuable brands. Incidentally, Manchester United as a brand is valued at US$ 852 million.

Pick-up 10: Whilst the focus is on revenue and profits in an organisation, a point to note is that the real value to a company is the brand they have built and its value. For instance, Rocell as a brand was just Rs. 300 million way back in 2007 but today the brand exceeds Rs. 900 million. So if the owners want to spin the company, the money that can be earned will be more from intangibles such as brand value rather than tangible items such as land, machinery and vehicles.

Consumer connect

Pepsico beat Airtel to get the sponsorship rights for IPL for the next five years with a value twice as much as DLF. Some can argue that one could have fetched more for the brand IPL given that reports are emerging that its value has dropped from $ 4.1 billion to $ 2.9 billion due to the investments being higher than the return in terms of viewership and ratings.

 But the new relationship with Pepsico will increase the consumer connect and thereby help drive the IPL brand value is my view. Given that Pepsico brands include Pepsi and Lays snacks, overall viewership and valuations can have an impact.

Pick-up 11: Sometimes we must take marketing decisions to spruce up the brand which is qualitative in nature rather than having to stick to financials given the changing business climate globally. The best time to build brands is during depressed times as the clutter levels are lower on media and many deals can be cut with media owners and buyers.

Conclusion

Whilst the IPL edition 2013 has been really exciting, I feel the pick-ups to business are a greater resource than the sporting extravaganza.

(The author is an award winning marketer and a respected business personality who has a double degree in marketing and an MBA and is a doctoral candidate. He is a black belt Karateka and an alumnus of Harvard University, Boston. The thoughts are strictly his personal views.)