The story goes that free passes for Sachin Tendulkar’s last Ranji match, largesse from Bhupinder Hooda to his political clientele, have been freely traded for cash.
Some went for Rs 10,000 apiece. Are you surprised therefore that the lahli stadium emptied no sooner the master took just 7 balls to be bowled by a rookie called Mohit Sharma SundayIJ lahli was all about being seen when Sachin was batting and very little to do with the game going on in Ranjitsinhji’s name.
Yet, Sachin has had this tryst with marketing moolah. So here he is, as this column is being written, in the fag end of “autumn,” refusing to get bowled in the second innings, unbeaten on 55, hoping to bat through Bombay’s victory Wednesday. Euphoria is already being orchestrated by his social media minders, including whispers that he reconsider his retirement!
Truth be told: whatever Sachin may or may not do in this non-descript Ranji match, there are sharks in his team who’re are out to squeeze the lemon. They’re no different than his political guru, who after securing him a Rajya Sabha seat and an out-of-turn house in lutyen’s Delhi, has designs (in-my-humble-opinion, suicidal) to parade the man in Rahul Gandhi’s rallies!
This politico-marketing mafia doesn’t care how much pulp is left in the lemon, at least by Sachin’s own exalted standardsIJ So, they’re pitching the forthcoming Test match series as a block buster for Star Sports. One can’t grudge the bonanza to Star India CEO Uday Shankar: he was prescient to have the rights to India playing at home. So, if the BCCI and Sachin got together and cancelled an overseas tour just to create an unprecedented farewell series, Shankar can only be guilty laughing his way to the bank. (Star holds title sponsorship rights to the series.
It is supposed to have acquired the rights at the base price set by the Board at Rs 2 crore per match. For the broadcast rights, it pays Rs 38 crore for a single match.) If we believe estimates published by Business Standard, the Shankar now stands to make for his bosses four to five times the ad revenue compared to a normal Test series. “From the early negotiations, it looks like advertisers won't mind paying up to Rs 3 lakh for a 10-second slot on the match,” an unnamed media planner has estimated: Ad rates for the last match, to be held at the Wankhede in Mumbai being pegged at Rs 3-3.5 lakh for 10 seconds, and the ones for the penultimate Test at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens at Rs 2.5-3 lakh.IJ
NB: The usual Test at home languishes at Rs 40,000 and 60,000; the yield could be lower if the opponent was Zimbabwe or Bangladesh. But here’s my early warning about diminishing returns. Peddling Sachin against a tired West Indies is an insult and an overkill. It caricatures the most enduring marketing machine of Indian sports.
What’s left is to tell the West Indians to bowl friendly stuff so that the ageing maestro lasts longer than he did since his last Test century two years ago! So, here’s what marketers could do beyond pumping endless ads of Sachin selling biscuits or cement: How about factoring upfront that the master may play, at best, one or two substantive innings out of the four on handIJ
If that’s agreed, let’s have something innovative just so that the viewing public isn’t laughing at the advert (or cursing it, actually!) when the big man is trudging back to the dressing roomIJ One given would therefore be to shun mindless pumping of regular creatives. They’ll look indefensible between the 300-odd 10-second slots that go in a match, including the breaks between the overs, drinks break and fall of wickets.
Does salvation then lie in new creativesIJ Perhaps, no,Because Sachin surely won’t be caught giving shooting schedules in the run up to his last two Tests. So, what if the agencies haven’t sat and thought through this in advanceIJ Salvation, perhaps, lies in repurposing the creatives and meshing them with tasteful renditions of the aam admi. Remember Sachin masks in one particular commercial, now replicated in NaMo’s ralliesIJ
Or how about bringing an entire town to a complete stand stillIJ I’d even love a flash mob! One final point - It’s time to get real: This iconic Indian brand is falling into a badly scripted retirement and he has no partners or talent to repurpose himself with the equivalent of KBC or Mohabatein. So rethink the overkill. Youth in India don’t really care for Sachin.
(The columnist is CEO & Co-Founder, India Strategy Group, Hammurabi & Solomon Consulting llP. Tweets @therohitbansal).