Twenty three years ago it was on the same day (June 25th) that the underdogs had made history and since then cricket has been "THE GAME" for us, Indians. We have been watching, eating, drinking, talking and walking cricket since then and this, by no means, is an exaggeration. Any product starting from a fairness cream to a car, if endorsed by a cricketer is supposed to fetch more market. Cricket is our religion and cricketers our Gods. Streets are named, tattoos printed, strikes held in the names of these men. And the game has become one of the top grossers in terms of business.
But what suddenly happened to us? Nobody cares if Laxman made a century at St. Kitts. Nobody realizes India was headed for a follow on. It is as if suddenly all the cricket-fever in our brains has been erased by some unknown virus. And the virus, yes, you can guess, is Football, or is it called Soccer! Football has become "THE GAME" replacing cricket, at least temporarily ( until the news of Sachin making a 155 in some match is not yet out ;) ). Questions have changed. From "How much did Dravid score" to "What’s an off-side? How many yellow cards equal a red card?". Topics have changed from Greg Chappell to the Scolaris and the Klinsmanns. And people fearing being left out of discussions involving football have started a 2 day course on football, trying to memorize the player-country table and even gone as far as picking a favorite team and a favorite player and cheer their teams :).
Why would I write all this? If it were not for the hoarding of a star hotel in Hyderabad showing a fork dug into a football offering soccer-dinners( or whatever they are called), I would have not written all this. Not only this one hoarding but every other shop/business you see has something related to football. From T-shirts to TVs, nothing is left out without a trace of soccer in it.
And the immediate question that comes to any mind - Are businesses trying to capture the craze of the people? Or are these guys the ones who are inducing this craze.
Reminds of something I heard about "Rose Days" and "Daffodil days" being popularized by greeting-card publishing companies trying to boost their business.
I guess by the next world cup, we will have chicken footballs like the drumsticks, to savor, while watching the so-called favorite team sweating out in a penalty shoot-out( er, what’s a penalty shoot-out! ). :)
Till then, peace.
3 comments:
that's the magic baby!! no other sport in history has over 200 national teams . . . . . except maybe the bloodsport called war :)
and about whether businesses are exploiting the craze and making money, looks to me like this is a win-win situation. apparently, a tv brand in england is selling a tv every fifteen seconds!!
it's a good parallel that you have drawn between this and the innumerable 'special days' out there. but for some reason [which i don't have the patience to explore and explain now :)], i feel that the case isn't the same. the parameters look exactly the same on the surface, but there's something missing here. why don't you take a stance and we'll see if we can re-stress-test the comments section :D
-w
Its obvious. If I were an MBA, I would find out whats the 'in-thing' now and model my marketing in that direction to get the customer's attention.
But for businesses like the greeting cards, there's nothing called an 'in-thing' except for the Valentine's day and 3-4 other days in the whole year. What would they do? Simple. Create the in-things themselves and popularize them. And I guess they were successful in doing so, otherwise, how would the bollywood hero end up with Rani Mukherjee, if not for the famous band-on-the-"friendship day" thing.
Its well and good until something called the "Dont put all your eggs in one omelette day" comes into picture and we have to distribute greetings on this fateful day !! ha ha.
PS : The Dont put all your eggs thing is real. Its on July 8th. :))
PPS : We may either end up discussing obvious marketing-mantras or give the world a new marketing idea !! :D
me bad at marketing. so i have nothing to say this time.
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