Brand IPL on the Blogsphere

Perfectly timed, hogging the prime hours of the Indian summer, IPL gave us more than one reason to stay glued to our television sets. This one sporting event has taken cricket as a game to a whole new frenzy. Cricket enthusiasts have become fanatics, and the cricket fanatics, well the less said the better. Even the grumpy grandfather, who crinkled his nose for crippling the game from the glorious matches straddling over days to a mere 20 overs joke, is smiling in approval. He is also secretly envious of the multitude of opportunities young cricketing talents have today. And with Bollywood showing generous amounts of interest, we as marketers will only be too glad to put our monies on the table without batting an eyelid.

Indian Premier League managed 16, 500 posts in 45 day.

Each of the 8 teams chosen to play, in the past month, has managed to exhibit certain personality traits unique to the team. The teams have managed to create substantial buzz on the blogsphere. Consumer Generated Media has been voraciously following everything about IPL form the fat pay cheques to Sachin’s injury to the skimpy skirts of the cheerleaders ;), nothing is being spared.

Clearly blogs and bloggers have their own biases, and some teams have been doing the rounds far more than others.

Despite not qualifying for the semis, Knight Riders managed to rake in maximum number of posts in the blogsphere. Is it the SRK Magic or Kolkatta's ardent support for their team?

Rajasthan Royals, the winner and the least expensive team of the tournament,

got noticed by blogs towards the last leg of the tournament. Fianlly their Stellar performance got noticed!

I made a few observations, some scary, some surprising and some just bowled me over

- A team’s performance alone is not enough for them to tide the blogsphere.
- Although ‘Eat cricket. Sleep cricket. Drink cricket’ still holds true, Bollywood continues to remain the unbeatable baap of entertainment
- An individual gets far more recognition than a team as a whole
- Particular incidents picked up by media, like SRK smoking or spending too much time with his team or Vijay Mallya firing Chaaru Sharma, can spike the trend chart.

The flamboyant Mallya and the bollywood king SRK have made bigger dents on the blogsphere than the shrewd Amabani

- IPL ads have also contributed to certain amount of noise on the blogsphere.

IPL or no IPL cricket will always be a favourite topic on blog. But this one event has created a lot of gossip value for the sport. Even non-cricket bloggers like me are blogging about it. From an extravagant opening ceremony to Bajji allegedly slapping Sreeshant, blogs and bloggers have been reveling in all the juicy details.

Do i need to elaborate this :)

A lot of brands are piggybacking on the noise IPL has managed to stir. It has positive influence on readership and viewership. Media has put the 45 day event on the front page and prime time of news channels. What’s more, it has decided to stay put there for the entire course of summer alluring readers and viewers. Despite all the degraded voyeurism, the sponsors are thrilled, as they are getting more than their monies worth.

Who is the popular Captain?

Thanks to Bollywood, IPL was executed in a rather filmy style full of action, drama, masala, and yeah we did manage to catch a glimpse of good cricket somewhere along the way. Without Bollywood’s fervent support the cricketing fraternity alone wouldn’t have managed to pull off a 45 days fanfare.