My11Circle, in partnership with DViO, executed a multifaceted campaign to enhance its brand presence and user acquisition during the IPL season. The campaign enlisted cricket stars Rinku Singh and Yashasvi Jaiswal as brand ambassadors and included the launch of the "My11Circle Ultimate Fantasy Player of the Match" initiative. The execution involved creating diverse, snackable content for performance marketing platforms like Google UAC and Meta, ranging from 5-second bumpers to 4-minute videos.
DViO's innovative use of high-end 3D, CGI, and VFX content played a crucial role. The campaign produced a mix of performance bytes, bumper ads, and long-format videos, including engaging player interviews and city-specific CGI content featuring Lucknow Supergiants players.
Category Introduction
Over the past six years, the fantasy sports industry has poured ₹3,100 crore into real-world sports through sponsorships and partnerships. This is expected to continue, with an estimated contribution of ₹29,000 crore to the sports economy by 2027. The market itself is a powerhouse, valued at $25.44 billion in 2022 and projected to reach a staggering $72.06 billion by 2030.
So, what's driving this growth? Experts point to the surge in annual sports events like the IPL and kabaddi leagues, along with the growing influence of media. YouTube channels, blogs, and other platforms where fantasy sports enthusiasts dissect upcoming trends are fuelling the fire.
Brand Introduction
Games24x7, a Mumbai company with fantasy sports platform My11Circle and gaming platform RummyCircle, became a billion-dollar startup in March 2022. This year, the brand replaced Dream11 as the official fantasy sports partner for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next five years. This strategic move aims to shake up the market and solidify them as a major player in online gaming.
The fantasy cricket app has seen a big response with a significant increase in teams created since the IPL began. Many users are turning their love of fantasy cricket into real-world winnings to heighten their cricket consumption experience. Compared to last year, there are 50% more winners taking home big prizes. This growth is driven by a 4-fold increase in prize categories offered on the platform compared to last year.
Summary
Ahead of the huge 3-month cricket season, the fantasy cricket app scaled new heights by roping in the rising stars of Indian cricket, Rinku Singh and Yashasvi Jaiswal, to their list of brand ambassadors, as they gained a new opportunity as Associate Sponsors of the Indian Premier League, apart from being the principal sponsors of Lucknow Supergiants.
Multiple campaigns eyeing acquisition, retention and enhancement of brand image were part of the cricket season, ranging from 5-second performance bytes to 5-minute player and vox-pop interviews.
Objective
Maximum clicks on the performance bytes and new user acquisition were the primary objectives of the campaigns. This was followed by retention callouts which solidified the active presence of the existing players on the platform. Furthermore, the social spike campaign ‘My11Circle I Want Match Tickets’ was to be supported, in order to increase the number of followers on all of the brand’s social media handles.
Brief
To create thumb-stopping, snackable, byte-sized content that is generic and not series-specific in nature.
These assets would be taken live on performance marketing platforms like Google UAC and Meta (Facebook and Instagram). Thus, the need was to create platform-specific content, keeping these nuances in mind. This includes:
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Concepts/ scripts for bytes with the construct incorporating the best learnings and best practices
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Concepts/ scripts for bumper ads along with the callouts communication themes
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Experimentative concepts/video formats: creative ideas/constructs incorporating the endorsing cricketers in imaginative ways.
Creative idea
A couple of innovative approaches were adopted to overcome the challenges and to fit the performance and social content to the core campaign offering of the brand, which was 'Ek crore se hi toh shuruaat hai, toh socho kitni badi baat hai'
Unique creative vehicles were used in the scripts and visualisation to achieve this, followed by creative storytelling approaches for the rest of the acquisition and retention callout bytes of 10-40 seconds each.
DViO’s expertise in producing high-end 3D, CGI and VFX content further enhanced the quality of the output.
The content produced ranged from 5-second bumpers to long format videos of 4 minutes. While the tactical bytes were planned in a way to acquire more users and retain the existing users, the long-format social videos, including a Vox Pop across 5 Indian cities, played a crucial role in establishing the brand presence and solidifying it across multiple social media platforms.
In addition to the stadium branding for the app for all the IPL Matches, the intellectual property of ‘My11Circle Ultimate Fantasy Player of the Match’ which was coined by team DViO, was utilized during the entire duration of the season.
Challenges
Crafting snackable performance and social content on multiple acquisition and retention call-out fronts for the brand in a highly reduced period of pre-production, production and post, as the aforementioned scale-up took place in no time.
Team DViO had to make sure every bit of content, from the concepts and scripts to the final output matched the brand offerings, enhance the quality of the performance and social content that directly talks to the audience and adopt a storytelling approach to a number of bite-sized videos which was close to impossible.
Execution
The execution began with the scripting, tailor-made for stalwart Sourav Ganguly, and post-shoot, the other brand ambassadors were lined up for the shoots. A major challenge posed was that the multi-celeb scripts needed to be shot separately as the shoots were done with individual players on the set, but precise planning and organization proved to be an efficient solution.
A teaser to the campaign was also released and picked up by several meme pages and cricket pages where the players accidentally dropped hints about the first prize on the platform.
Following this, 8 players of the Lucknow Supergiants also became a part of the campaign where DViO came up with unique Lucknow-specific ideas for performance and social content.
Lucknow geography and culture-based CGI videos and concepts featuring the cricketers were a grand and spectacular addition, followed by long-format videos where the players were interviewed for fun and engaging content for social media.
DViO further amplified the ability to pull off mind-blowing stadium branding by creating the designs for the brand's association with the Indian Premier League.
Results
Views – 43 Cr
Reach – 28.5 cr
Engagement – 39 Lacs
Ritesh Kanani, Director - Brand Marketing, My11Circle, said, "DViO’s innovative approach and expertise have been instrumental in elevating our brand presence and driving user engagement. Through strategic planning and creative execution, DViO has helped us connect with cricket enthusiasts across various touchpoints, amplifying our brand's association with the IPL."
"Leveraging innovative strategies, DViO went beyond traditional marketing to integrate virtual and on-ground interactive experiences during match phases, amplifying My11Circle's association with the IPL," said Sowmya Iyer, CEO and Founder, DViO Digital. "Our collaboration with My11Circle has been about creating memorable experiences for cricket fans while solidifying the brand's position as a leader in fantasy gaming."
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