Cricket vs Bollywood: Who wins this?
They are the two iconic forces of Indian pop culture. But which one truly captures your imagination?
Movies are always about winners
Pranesh Misra
Twenty-first century India saw the birth of two religions: Cricket and Bollywood! Being modern religions, these did not need churches, temples or citadels for their propagation ��� modern electronic and audio visual media were used instead, in line with communication technologies of the times.
Deities of established religions have been used in communication to chart change in social attitudes and behaviour. Communication vehicles have taken the shape of holy books or mythological stories in which Gods were used to teach citizens the appropriate social response to moral decisions. Similarly, our new ���Gods��� ��� the stars of cricket or Bollywood ��� teach consumers appropriate behaviour at the supermarket!
Although both Bollywood and cricket are powerful weapons in the hands of advertisers, I believe that Bollywood does have a significant edge. Cricket, being a competitive sport, is emotionally unidirectional ��� it is about winning or losing and the trappings that go with it.
Bollywood deals with a wider range of emotions, thus offering a richer array of themes ��� comedy, love, righteousness, rebellion, fantasy, escape, social mobility, and so on. As a result, Bollywood is so much more flexible for use in commercial communication.
There are always some winners in Bollywood, but in cricket, there is a significant chance of being a loser. Bollywood���s stories are shaped to appeal to their audiences and the ending is within authors��� control. Cricket, with its unpredictable endings, can make the ratings go up or down uncontrollably.
Cricket is thus a greater gamble than Bollywood. Imagine the advertiser���s loss when an expensive cricket star is dropped from the team for underperformance! Bollywood careers also go through ups and downs, but are relatively more predictable. People forgive Bollywood stars more than cricketers.
Filmstars, being professional actors, are able to offer superior performance in television commercials. It is difficult to get cricketers to act for television commercials. Remember Kapil Dev���s famous ���Palmolive ka jawab nahin!��� ��� a line that is memorable because of its unintended humour, the funny way it was delivered.
Bollywood beats cricket on shelf-life. Once a match is over, it is history. Ratings drop dramatically from live to replays. Cinema, on the other hand, lasts far beyond the release date. This enhances the value of in-film communication.
Bollywood is so much more an ingrained part of our culture, our everyday lives. Advertising is not only dependent on Bollywood for its stars, but also borrows scenes, dialogues and songs as inspiration and cultural context. The best that cricket can offer, in contrast, is its stars. In sum, cricket has its communication platforms, but Bollywood offers a far wider and richer menu of options for communication development ��� making it overall a superior option over cricket.
(The author is president & COO, Lowe Lintas India)
Pranesh Misra
Twenty-first century India saw the birth of two religions: Cricket and Bollywood! Being modern religions, these did not need churches, temples or citadels for their propagation ��� modern electronic and audio visual media were used instead, in line with communication technologies of the times.
Deities of established religions have been used in communication to chart change in social attitudes and behaviour. Communication vehicles have taken the shape of holy books or mythological stories in which Gods were used to teach citizens the appropriate social response to moral decisions. Similarly, our new ���Gods��� ��� the stars of cricket or Bollywood ��� teach consumers appropriate behaviour at the supermarket!
Although both Bollywood and cricket are powerful weapons in the hands of advertisers, I believe that Bollywood does have a significant edge. Cricket, being a competitive sport, is emotionally unidirectional ��� it is about winning or losing and the trappings that go with it.
Bollywood deals with a wider range of emotions, thus offering a richer array of themes ��� comedy, love, righteousness, rebellion, fantasy, escape, social mobility, and so on. As a result, Bollywood is so much more flexible for use in commercial communication.
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There are always some winners in Bollywood, but in cricket, there is a significant chance of being a loser. Bollywood���s stories are shaped to appeal to their audiences and the ending is within authors��� control. Cricket, with its unpredictable endings, can make the ratings go up or down uncontrollably.
Cricket is thus a greater gamble than Bollywood. Imagine the advertiser���s loss when an expensive cricket star is dropped from the team for underperformance! Bollywood careers also go through ups and downs, but are relatively more predictable. People forgive Bollywood stars more than cricketers.
Filmstars, being professional actors, are able to offer superior performance in television commercials. It is difficult to get cricketers to act for television commercials. Remember Kapil Dev���s famous ���Palmolive ka jawab nahin!��� ��� a line that is memorable because of its unintended humour, the funny way it was delivered.
Bollywood beats cricket on shelf-life. Once a match is over, it is history. Ratings drop dramatically from live to replays. Cinema, on the other hand, lasts far beyond the release date. This enhances the value of in-film communication.
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Bollywood is so much more an ingrained part of our culture, our everyday lives. Advertising is not only dependent on Bollywood for its stars, but also borrows scenes, dialogues and songs as inspiration and cultural context. The best that cricket can offer, in contrast, is its stars. In sum, cricket has its communication platforms, but Bollywood offers a far wider and richer menu of options for communication development ��� making it overall a superior option over cricket.
(The author is president & COO, Lowe Lintas India)
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A match gets eyeballs for 8 long hours
RC Venkateish
If a group of media professionals were to get together to invent a television spectacle that would be ���made for TV��� for the Indian audience, they probably could not come up with anything better than cricket.
There is nothing else that can hold an audience in thrall for eight hours at a stretch (imagine watching a Bollywood performance of eight hours) while providing commercial space at three-and-a-half minute intervals and providing numerous opportunities for features, replays, to recapture moments of ecstasy all packaged and served to an audience glued to the screen as if by an invisible magnetic force.
Cricket is an advertiser���s dream for the sheer breadth of opportunities it offers for audience reach, involvement and innovation, as well as the numerous possibilities for weaving brand values into the viewing experience, which is unparalleled.
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Comparing cricket with Bollywood is like comparing champagne with caviar. One is heady, born of passion with intense involvement and the other, a gastronomic delight. Marketers and advertisers have realised the value of cricket above anything else as a media vehicle. The best-known brands in the country have been built on cricket and some of the erstwhile big spenders like FMCGs who have in the last decade pulled out of cricket, have largely seen their business fortunes head down under. Cricket bests Bollywood on three major counts:
Guaranteed Reach: As any media planner will tell you, in today���s environment of fragmenting viewership, audience reach is the most precious commodity around. Any media plan worth its salt would need to build its backbone around solid programming capable of delivering reach. While we can probably predict to a decimal point what an India Pakistan ODI will deliver, the same is not true for Bollywood.
Audience involvement and solus ad delivery: The unique construct of the game enables ad placement throughout the day in an uncluttered environment, as opposed to being present in a six-minute capsule along with a host of other brands.
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Opportunities for brand linkages: Here too cricket provides tremendous ongoing brand association value in a live situation, rather than the often not so subtle brand intrusions that have of late become the norm in Bollywood films.Cricket is hugely undervalued in India, both in terms of media costs as well as in the understanding of its intrinsic value in the minds of many marketers and media planners. In the end, there are more cricketers who have made the transition to Bollywood, while the Bollywooders are yet to open their account!
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(The author is MD, ESPN-Star Sports India)Start a SIP with as low as ₹500 with ET Money App!
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