Bharat Loves Cricket & ShareChat: How Can Brands Make The Most Of It?

Indians instantly think of cricket when they think about sports. The popularity of cricket in India is beyond comparison. Thus, it's no surprise that cricket commands a majority of viewership among the country's sports enthusiasts.

For most viewers cricket is a religion. The fanaticism for the game is well established. Very recently, we saw a live example when during the T20 World Cup match of India Vs Pakistan, the online sales saw a high decline* especially during the last two nail-biting overs.

The popularity of cricket in India has many reasons. The simplicity of the game, the readily available cricket infrastructures in almost every city and state, supporting physical attributes for the game, and the way it brings people together across demographics is a thing of beauty. Marketers have been leveraging this love for cricket to reach fans with relevant messages for decades, now switching over to language & mobile-first formats in sync with the changing times.

ShareChat: Where Bharat expresses its love for cricket

In India, every cricketing event involving the Indian team generates tremendous conversation, regardless of the time or place. A sizable volume of these conversations have found a home with ShareChat.

In 2021, ShareChat launched a new feature to integrate scoreboard and ball-to-ball commentary in eight Indic languages*. By using the feature, people across the country were able to communicate and share their thoughts freely in real-time during major cricket tournaments.

With more than 40 Cr monthly active users, ShareChat Network which is, ShareChat and Moj app combined, is now the 3rd largest homegrown digital ecosystem in India. And is fast becoming the touch point for passion and celebration during the peak cricket seasons in India.

In the recent past, both the apps have become the go-to destination for over 8 Cr users who regularly engage with cricket related content on the apps, earning a ‘Cricket Power User’ tag for themselves.

Additionally, users are generating cricket-related content using the platform. In the last two years, ShareChat Network has seen astounding results on all cricket related content with:

The large numbers of cricket enthusiasts on the ShareChat Network and the innovative marketing solutions offered makes it the perfect playground for brands.

Why should brands use a language first approach?

India is home to 22 official languages and several dialects and as more Indians go digital their preference of Indic languages for online engagement is inevitable.

Khaled Hosseini said, “If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside.” The reason brands need to focus on a language-first approach is that 70%* of consumers find content in their own language to be more relatable and reliable. They will be more inclined to respond to the call-to-action if they resonate with the content.

It is expected that in the near future, the affordable smartphones and cheap mobile data coupled with the ever growing consumerism across India will give way to exponential growth of language-first consumers.

However, along with language, team sports like cricket play an important role in bringing together communities across the globe and especially a secular nation like India. People from across India irrespective of their language preferences showed love for cricket during IPL 2022. ShareChat Network saw views spike in multiple Indic Languages like:

ShareChat Network also recorded an all-time high in time spent with users spending 1.1 Lakh Crore minutes during the IPL 2022.

And it was not the first time that during a cricket event ShareChat Network witnessed enthusiastic participation from cricket enthusiasts but a similar development was also seen during the T20 World Cup 2022. ShareChat Network recorded more than 170 Cr views and engagement of more than 3.2 Cr.

It is quite clear that language plays an important part in spreading brand messages and driving resonance. To leverage the full extent of its benefits the ShareChat network offers quite innovative solutions for brands.

Solutions on ShareChat

• LIVE Scorecard: LIVE scorecard shows updates of the entire series and helps create maximum visibility for the brand during live matches

• Live Branded Celebration: Provides visual branding opportunities by introducing an innovation on the platform lets the users interact with the brand while cheering for their favourite team.

• Custom Chatrooms: An exclusive chatroom property is created that features cricket experts and veterans from both the playing nations to discuss the match of the day which help redirect users to the app or website of the brand.

• Editable Wish Webcard: These editable webcards and their various templates can be used by our users to send wishes to team India in their own language. It helps brands engage with the audience and generate some brand love.

• Interactive Platform Poll: Users will be asked multiple popularity based questions or to predict who will win that particular day’s match. This helps generate visibility for the brands.

Solutions on Moj

• Interactive Lenses: Using AI-led technology, interactive lenses facilitate instant audio-visual brand recall, strengthening the campaign narrative, increasing visibility and driving unparalleled engagement.

• Hashtag Challenges: Works as an open invitation for users to create content to their heart's content. The format is led by a hero video where a prominent personality performs the hook steps for fans to follow suit.

• Moj Live: With Moj Live, the brand gets to open the floor to engaging live discussions between creators and enthusiast users on a topic that favours the larger marketing goals.

You can read more in detail about all brand solutions by ShareChat Network here.

Connecting with your audience, winning their trust and loyalty is not an easy task. With the rise of language-first consumers, brands have a chance to win a new audience and beat out their competition. It is essential for brands to leverage the ShareChat Network and penetrate Bharat during cricket season effectively and position themselves as a brand that resonates well with language-first audiences.

*Data Source

1. First Post

2. BW Disrupt

3. Devnagri