Star looks for glory, fumbles at the stands

Even as Star Sports flexes its marketing muscles for Rio Olympics 2016, advertisers play the waiting game

Sports on TV over the last ten years, says the Nielsen State of the Sports Media Report 2015, has undergone a dramatic transformation. "There is an enormous amount of sports content to choose from and a shocking amount of hours viewed." This was perhaps one of the many reports that the team at Star India pored over as it decided to go all out for the Rio 2016 Olympics, currently being telecast on eight channels (four HD and four non HD) and its digital platform, Hotstar. But as the Games get underway and the channel raises the pitch with #billioncheersforIndia campaign, advertisers have played hard to get. Worse, the channel has struggled to get its packaging right on crucial telecasts, thereby angering viewers and advertisers.

The buzz around the Olympics this time around is missing say experts. Lack of awareness, sketchy packaging, poor management, non-prime time broadcast and the organisers' inability to effectively market the television viewing experience, they say, are to blame. Harish Thawani, chairman, Neo Sports says the broadcast is definitely not up to the mark. "It looks like a case of bad management."

Few big brands have committed to advertising on the channel and even fewer have come up with special Olympic themed ads. The grand spectacle ought to have dragged in more brands with bigger advertising and promotion budgets into the arena. The Nielsen report says that both sports programming and viewing is up manifold, making it attractive for advertisers. Besides, the report adds, live viewing remains the standard for sports and according to data from Q4 2015, 95 per cent of total sports programme viewing happened live. Naturally then, the Olympics offered up a great opportunity.

According to industry veterans, brands have stayed away for two broad reasons. For one, there are institutional issues: Cricket, the game Indians are fanatic about, is not a part of the Olympics, many of the sports events do not resonate with most viewers and the timing of most events is not suited for high viewership. The second reason is that the Games have been presented, marketed and broadcast in manner that leaves a lot to be desired.

Thawani says, "There is no way to know when which event will be telecast and on what channel. The telecast randomly cuts from one event to another at crucial junctures. The overall production is shoddy, though the studio set is good. There hasn't been enough thought in the whole exercise."

Such issues bother advertisers and put off viewers. Thawani adds, "You have eight channels at your disposal, why not dedicate one to Indian athletes and matches? Make buckets of sports/events and show them on dedicated channels."

Sources close to Star Sports reveal that their campaign focused on the Olympics as the biggest of all sporting spectacles. This led to the idea 'Olympic Games. Iss Se Bada Kuch Nahi' (There is nothing bigger than this). Apart from driving awareness about the Games, the ads also helped viewers identify with prospective medal winners. With the likes of Saina Nehwal, Sardar Singh, Yogeshwar Dutt, Deepika Kumari putting forth what Olympics means to them, the games became more relatable and identifiable the channel believed. But therein lies a problem believes film maker and ad veteran Prahlad Kakkar. He says, "Star had the right idea in choosing to lead with personalities. But it needn't have stopped there. Yes, people want to follow the Indian medal prospects, but there are other exciting games and stars. Why depend solely on the success of the Indian athletes?"

The Rio billion cheers campaign has been watched 292,199 times since July 7, 2016. Another promotional film starring wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt has been viewed 187,369 times since July 15, 2016. Clearly people are interested.

Kakkar believes that the channel ought to have presented the Games as an international extravaganza. He says, "Look at the way the contingent has struggled so far. Yes, it is the biggest contingent, but how many realistic medal hopes do we have?"

The packaging is also sub-par. Both Kakkad and Thawani say that the channel has done a poor job of putting out enough information about telecast timings, reruns and such other things. There are problems with the quality of the telecast too. Kakkad also believes that the buzz is missing because, "Sadly, the Tourism Board of Brazil never felt the need to market the destination to Indians heavily, not realising that we love to travel to new places."

Many are surprised at the inability of the teams at Star to draw advertisers even for their digital platform Hotstar. In 2015, there was 1.2 billion hours spent on sports sites via smartphones according to the Nielsen report. This is up an impressive 22 per cent from 2014. Not only did one expect brands to ride the trend, but also cash in on the fact that sports dominates online conversations. According to Nielsen Social, in 2015 sports events only made up 1.4 per cent of TV programming but accounted for close to 50 per cent of all Twitter TV conversation.

While it is not clear whether the advertisers will change their tune over the coming weeks, it is evident that Star will need to rethink the way it is pitching the Games, if it intends to give the grand spectacle its due.