Ceat Plans Tie-Ups With Dd, Others For Cricket Rating Telecast

Christened the Ceat Cricket Rating (CCR), the new individual rating system has been built by Ceat along with sports promotion and marketing major Professional Management Group (PMG). According to J B. Khodaiji, executive director (marketing), Ceat, the rating would be developed as a separate brand which would be targeted not only at Ceat's domestic markets but also at the export market.

The company, therefore, has specifically chosen television channels which have a footprint covering countries to which Ceat exports its products like Sri Lanka.

Ceat has earmarked an annual advertising budget of around Rs 15 crore for all its products.

 

However, the CCR would be given additional funds which would come from its corporate advertising budget. Although exact figures were not available, the company is planning to spend at least Rs 2.5 crore in the current financial year to promote CCR. In the first few years, the company will be doing specific advertising to promote CCR as a brand worldwide.

Ceat would be tying up with television channels for the entire cricketing seasons and not for specific tournaments.

This way it plans to track international cricket, both test cricket and one-day matches, wherever it is being played. For example, its tie-up with sports channel ESPN is for the entire 105 days of cricketing rights that the channel has. The channel, in fact, has already started showing the new rating for the ongoing Singer Cup in Sri Lanka.

The arrangements with other channels may, however, differ in nature. While the ESPN deal includes a certain amount of product advertising rights also, other channels may just be signed up for exclusively telecasting the new ratings devised by Ceat.

The mix between product advertising and corporate image advertising would therefore differ for individual tournaments.

Part of the promotion campaign includes instituting a new award for `The International Cricketer of the Year' which according to Khodaiji, is the very first international award in the world.

On basis of CCR figures, Ceat is awarding West Indian batsman Brian Lara as the international cricketer of the year.

Lara is expected to come down to India in September end to receive the award. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 1.75 crore.

The tyre major has also bought the exclusive rights from the Oxford University Press to print and sell a book called ``The Dictionary of Cricket'' in India. Accordingly, 3,000-odd copies have been purchased by Ceat to be used as a hand-out tool in promoting CCR.

According to Khodaiji, the company has taken a long-term approach for promoting its top-of-the-line-products to capitalise on the fast changing consumption pattern in the tyre industry. Currently, the non-truck segment is only 40 per cent of the total tyre market. However, industry observers say that the pattern will soon be reversing and may even go along the lines of the American tyre industry. In the US, 90 per cent of the tyres are sold in the non-truck segment.

The rationale for opting for cricket as a marketing vehicle for promoting Ceat products comes from hard figures backed by market research conducted by Ceat.

According to the research, cricket is the favourite game of Ceat's target audience comprising car and two-wheeler owners. Thus, Ceat hopes to get value for money exposure in a already cluttered television advertising scenario.