This Is How Cricbuzz Is Targeting 75M Users This ICC Cricket World Cup #CWC15

With new features on the portal, innovating marketing campaign and partnership with Hike messenger, online cricket portal Cricbuzz plans to target 75 million users duting the ICC World Cup 2015

Prasant NaiduInsights
Cricbuzz world cup 2015

Cricbuzz the online cricket site acquired by Times of India Group’s digital arm Times Internet last year is now in the top 5 sports apps globally, behind ESPNScoreCenter and the official apps of FIFA and the NFL. According to the company, Cricbuzz, the largest mobile app for cricket news and scores in India, was used by over 50 million people with more than 80% of users on their mobile devices during IPL 2014. In January, Cricbuzz users spent over 2.5 billion minutes on the app, generating 2.6 billion page views.

This ICC Cricket World Cup Cricbuzz has set its target to reach out to 75 million users.

Integrating new features

To begin with Cricbuzz integrated few interesting features keeping in mind the World Cup and its crazy fans. From having a new section to team details to dedicated timelines - a section that takes a look at the timeline of each tournament since 1975, to relive the epic moments.

Data is crucial when it comes to any sporting event. Cricbuzz has section like Stats, Points Table and Boundary Tracker - tracking 4’s and 6’s being scored in the tournament with a leaderboard to make it more interesting. Features like  ‘Captains and Kits’, a collection of caricatures of team captains for the last 30 years, bring the humor quotient on the portal.

All these features are backed by editorial content powered by the experience of Times Internet and insights of the tournament at the users’ fingertips.

“Cricket Ka Keeda” campaign

Cricket is a religion and a World Cup is a month-long festivity for the cricket crazy fans in the country. Targeting the net savvy, smartphone users, working professionals/students and everyone who loves cricket, Times Internet rolled out ‘Cricket Ka Keeda’ campaign. It comprises of three wacky TV campaigns which showcases everyday situations and what happens when the ‘Cricket Ka Keeda’ bites to make them hilarious.

In the Milk ad, a husband smoothly throws a milk packet which lands on his wife’s head while he’s busy surfing the Cricbuzz App.

In the college ad, one student casually enters the class handing over his towel to the lecturer and goes on to practice bowling techniques in front of him. The third ad is set up in an ongoing conference where the boss asks an employee about the quarterly forecasts and he gets up and adjusts his positioning as if he’s going to start batting right there. “Cricket creates such passion among its followers that they get immersed in that world and forget everything else. The creative idea and the scripts developed in-house capture that spirit where the consumer gets bitten by the cricket bug literally,” says Pratik Mazumder, vice president and head marketing, Times Internet.

Cricbuzz launched the campaign during the India-Australia-England Tri Series which started January 18th and targets it through the World Cup. In two of its creatives, Times Internet captures the madness for the game but in the Milk ad the company is also promoting the mobile app. The move isn’t surprising in a country where users are spending more time on mobile for social media activities and watching videos. Apart from TV, print ads, digital and outdoor adaptations will be used to promote the platform’s mobile app.

Social media accounts - Facebook and Twitter have focused on bringing live match updates and sharing the rich content by the editorial team on its portal.

Messaging app Hike partnership

Social media networks are passé in India, messaging apps now rule in the country according to the latest Social, Mobile and Digital 2015 report by We Are Social. Hike, the homegrown messaging app - which labels itself as the youth messaging app of the country - recently launched ‘World Cup 2015’ in partnership with CricBuzz. According to the alliance Hike’s Android users will receive a card with real-time score updates and match results starting February 13, 2015. This chat will be active until March 31st and will contain content relevant to the latest match; post which the chat will disappear from all the users’ chat roster.

In addition, Hike which has 35 million users will also provide its users access to view detailed scorecards and news from the World Cup, points tables and additional content, within the app. Users will also be able to share match scorecards with friends in one-to-one and group chats.” We’ve been doing a lot of things around building traction on CricBuzz and our content partnership with Hike takes it to the next level. Through hike, we’ll be touching over 35 million users. We’re excited to see how this takes off,” said Pankaj Chhaparwal, CEO, CricBuzz. With the league matches still going on in the tournament, it looks like Cricbuzz is hitting the right chords.

However, it won’t be a cakewalk for Cricbuzz with ESPNcricinfo bringing in a suite of innovative apps and playing with data. One will have to wait for more complete results with the end of the tournament.

Image credit: Facebook