Marketers’ Guide to engaging & entertaining T20 cricket enthusiasts

Entertainment and cricket have a special place in the heart of Indians, making the T20 format a special favourite as it’s the best of both worlds. No matter where the viewer is watching the game, the innate desire to express the hurrah is prominent. The dejection at the loss of a wicket is just as real. Nostalgia also appears on the field as viewers regale each other with their gully cricket experiences.

When it comes to cricket, Bharat’s emotions peak. Loaded with passionate emotions, Bharat finds it the easiest to convey these emotions in Indic languages. Enveloped in the comfort of preferred Indic languages, the volume of content Bharat creates and consumes with this expression rises considerably. Last year, during a major domestic T20 cricket league, 42 Mn users created and consumed content in Indic languages on ShareChat. The said content garnered 1.17 Bn views.

These conversations often start before the game and go much further, and include the anticipation for the game and the consequences of where it would lead the sport in the future. They continue prominently across the game in the background as a running, parallel commentary. This behaviour of Bharat stems from the fact that the professional commentary accompanying the game is never enough for Bharat. It loves to debate and banter about everything.

Bharat seeks to share perspectives on every component of the game — current player performances, conditions on the field and the history of the city-based teams. It also loves to consume trivia content and participate in larger, trending conversations around the game. While these conversations increase in volume and intensity when a match is on, Bharat loves to keep talking about the key moments much later too — increasing the touchpoints for Bharat to enter these conversations.

Brands stand to win big by participating in these continuous, exciting conversations on the platform to engage Bharat. The audiences are out there, talking their hearts out about the game. Brands need to listen in and meet Bharat where these expressions are taking place — on Indic language-first platforms.

Pivot Bharat’s love for T20 towards your brand

Last summer, conversations around India’s most celebrated T20 league tournament garnered 5 Bn views, over 310 Mn video plays, over 110 Mn engagement and over 400 Mn interactions on ShareChat. While all Indic languages saw significant traction, Kannada was the winner for interactions and video plays. On ShareChat Chatrooms, most live sessions took place in Tamil, Kannada and Hindi.

The numbers tell the tale of Bharat’s voracious appetite for cricket-centric content. Brands must leverage these sentiments to cheer alongside Bharat. They have to tap into the moments that make the game magical and weave their campaign message around it to deliver a perfect over. It would open up dozens of opportunities to interact with consumers and build brand preference and top-of-mind recall.

Brands can opt for cricket-centric ad formats on ShareChat to become a part of Bharat’s T20 cricket experience — and witness the metrics soar across objectives.

Trending Tags and ShareChat Chatrooms further make it easier for brands to strengthen their T20 cricket-centric strategy to reach Bharat. They allow brands to go effectively entertain and engage Bharat on ShareChat.

Trending Tags around players, teams and memes are immensely popular on ShareChat, followed by memes and match moments. These tags reflect Bharat’s mood around the game in real-time. Conversations on the platform increase when top-performing and most-loved teams of the league are playing on the field. Last year during a major T20 league, users spent an average of 7.47 mins on Trending Tags. Brands can slip their messages into these conversation-starters to boost visibility with ease.

Furthermore, brands can become a part of Bharat’s passionate conversations with ShareChat Chatrooms. The live audio interface allows creators and users to host Chatrooms in real-time, interacting with like-minded people on topics they love in the Indic languages they prefer. Leveraging the feature, brands can let their target audiences know they are just like them when it comes to cricket — fans.

It is now increasingly crucial for brands to go beyond match advertising and tap into the surrounding conversations for reaching Bharat effectively. ShareChat’s ad formats allow brands to garner visibility on the platform while enhancing Bharat’s matchday experience. Brands must include these in their T20 cricket-centric strategy to connect with the audiences in a positively-charged environment, funnelling the sentiments into high results across campaign metrics.