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Tag: Joseph Eapen

  • India produced 36% of global chatter for World Cup week 1: Repucom study

    India produced 36% of global chatter for World Cup week 1: Repucom study

    MUMBAI: The ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 is seeing a strong rush of trends on social media platforms. Comparing the social media buzz from both the first weeks’ action of the 2011 and 2015 Cricket World Cups, the growth of India’s online community has made them the dominant force in international social engagement within the sport, states a report released by sports marketing research company Repucom. 

     

    According to the report, in the first week of the tournament held in 2011, the top 10 most active nations talking about the Cricket World Cup had produced just under 9,000 (8,930) online interactions. When compared to the same period of this year’s competition, the top 10 most active nations produced over 82 times as much traffic (7,39,050). Besides over 36 per cent of the global chatter was produced by one nation, India.

     

    Speaking about the emerging social media trends, Repucom South Asia senior vice president and India director Joseph Eapen said, “Commercially speaking, India’s official Facebook page generates $16,156 per post of potential media value to their sponsors. This average was taken from a sample of 10 posts during the first seven days during the World Cup.”

     

    Eapen also states that the ICC has been making big efforts in bringing digital platforms to the foreground of this year’s tournament through collaborations with Twitter as well as extending their digital coverage with live scores, in-match clips, exclusive videos and an official app. 

     

    According to the report, other teams which have produced the biggest online buzz this year include Pakistan, Australia and the UK. Surprisingly though nations like the US have  also contributed to a good deal of engagement. “In 2011, the US was responsible for 29 per cent of the global online buzz. In 2015, that percentage has dropped to nine per cent, showing the growth in online competition and share of voice,” the report adds.

     

    In its concluding remarks the report says that of all the competing nations, England and South Africa join India as the only teams to rank in both the top five most well followed Facebook and Twitter accounts.

  • World Kabaddi League features in top sporting properties in inaugural year

    World Kabaddi League features in top sporting properties in inaugural year

    MUMBAI: After its initial season, the Wave World Kabaddi League (WKL) attracted an aggregate reach of just over 101 million individuals as per TAM India in its very first edition placing it among the top five sporting properties in India, claim the organisers.

     

    This is both in terms of viewers as well as visibility to sponsoring brands. The league, which was telecast live on Sony Six, also garnered 1.5 million views on YouTube with 60 per cent of the views coming in from the diaspora in United States, Canada, UK and as far as Italy. Additionally an estimated 50 million reach was acquired through international feed in Pakistan, Middle East, Europe, US and Canada.

     

    WKL CEO Raman Raheja said, “We are overjoyed with the response to the WKL in its very first year. The idea of keeping the latter and final parts of the WKL in India, where the sport is extremely popular, also paid rich dividends in terms of TV exposure for the sponsors. We are now looking to a bigger event in the second edition.”

     

    Repucom, a research company that measures ROI for all sports across the world, gave an interesting comparison of WKL’s sponsored property exposure on TV as compared to other sports. Repucom India analyzed that the 86 matches played during the first season garnered as many as 143 hours of screen exposure, which translated into an hour and 40 minutes of exposure per match.

     

    The event as a whole received media value worth Rs 301,02,60,323 for 86 matches with an average worth of Rs 3,50,03,027 per match.  Wave Infratech’s media value was put at Rs 135,90,62,603 for all the matches at an average Rs 1,58,03,054 per match.

     

    Title sponsors, Wave Infratech, earned maximum visibility and ROI with 45 per cent of share compared to all the other sponsors exhibited during the event. Among other main properties, the static board earned 37 hours on screen exposure (18 per cent share compared to other sponsors) and the  Jersey front was the second leading property with 22 hours on screen exposure (19 per cent share compared to other sponsors).

     

    Repucom South Asia/India director and senior vice president- Joseph Eapen said, “We recommend that teams acquire more sponsors on the team apparels like jersey front, jersey back, jersey side, chest logo and trousers to cash the exposures and value from apparels.”

     

  • Repucom predicts that IPTL will help boost tennis in Asia

    Repucom predicts that IPTL will help boost tennis in Asia

    MUMBAI: As the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) begins its Delhi leg today, sports marketing research company, Repucom, has predicted an upsurge in tennis fans across Asia and the Middle East.

    The line-up rivalling a grand slam, exemplifies the growth, popularity and market for tennis in Asia and the Middle East, says the study. Repucom´s Sports DNA study reveals that 11 per cent of people interviewed aged 16-69 in urban areas of India this year, stated that they were interested in tennis, constituting 29 million people, a significant figure when considering the status of cricket in the country.

    Singapore is by far the country with the highest proliferation of tennis fans amongst the four countries where the event is taking place, with 40 per cent of people interested in tennis, which equates to 1.78 million of the population, followed by 20 per cent of people said to be interested in tennis in the UAE, constituting approximately 7,40,000 people. 17.4 per cent of people interviewed in urban areas of the Philippines last year stated that they were interested in tennis, which results in 5.5 million of the population, claims the study.

    The IPTL player line-up includes tennis stars, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Andy Murray, Caroline Wozniacki, Ana Ivanovic, Indian starlet Sania Mirza, as well as tennis legends Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, who will all draw attention to the sport, leading to a further increase of interest in tennis, Repucom predicts.

    Repucom South Asia senior vice president and India director, Joseph Eapen, said: “The IPTL will be a big boost for tennis in Asia. People are more aware of the sport and Asia and the Middle East are investing a lot of money in developing world-class sports stadiums and grounds. Globosport, an existing Repucom client and organisers of the event, have done a tremendous job in securing the biggest stars in tennis and promoting the much anticipated event. In these regions that are highly passionate about sports, the IPTL will inspire people to watch and even play tennis.”

     

  • Repucom adds Procam International to its existing portfolio

    Repucom adds Procam International to its existing portfolio

    MUMBAI:  Global sports marketing research consultancy  Repucom has  signed two deals with Procam International wherein it will provide sponsorship evaluation and social media intelligence for Procam’s marathon events like the Airtel Half Delhi Marathon (AHDM) and the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM).

     As part of the deal Repucom will be conducting a Catalyst to measure the activation in the form of a 20-day Treadmillion Challenge in over 30 locations in India that will lead to the main event. Catalyst is a framework used by the company to analyse the effectiveness of on-site activation in the context of sponsorships which generates insights on property engagement and attendee profiling, activation diagnosis and impacts on brands.

    Speaking about the deal Repucom senior vice president south Asia and director India Joseph Eapen said, “Catalyst is unique and employs a consistent methodology and questions set to measure activation, effectiveness across different types of sponsorship, brand portfolios and territories, which will greatly benefit Procam and increase visibility and awareness of their flagship events.”

     The tenth edition of the Airtel Half Delhi Marathon will take place this Sunday, 22 November. The event attracts names in the field of distance running such as Kenyan running star, Edwin Kipyego and Atsedu Tsegay from Ethiopia, who broke the course record last year with the time of 59:12. Winner of last year’s half marathon event, Florence Kiplagat from Kenya and 2013 champion, Wude Avalew of Ethiopia, are other names in the women’s race who are also expected to compete in the event next Saturday.

    The twelfth edition of the SCMM will be held on 18 January 2015. Sporting icons such as Michael Johnson, Linford Christie, Steve Ovett, Paul Tergat, Dame Kelly Holmes, Gail Devers, Gabriela Szabo, Kapil Dev, Vijay Amritraj, Aravinda DeSilva, Javagal Srinath, Anju Bobby George, have been SCMM event ambassadors. Bollywood superstar John Abraham has also been the event’s Indian brand ambassador.

     

  • Repucom eyes India’s expansion to a multi sport nation

    Repucom eyes India’s expansion to a multi sport nation

    MUMBAI: The year 2014 has been a wonderful one for sports in India. With a number of sporting leagues starting and big conglomerates putting in their money and muscles to make India a multi sport country, the brands are ready to jump on to the band wagon.

     

    To run the show, finances of a large magnitude, a sustained and reliable inflow of premium information and analytics is of crucial importance  and so is the evaluation to help clubs, teams, franchise owners or sponsors to better understand the returns of sponsorships as well as, provide a frame of reference for future projects and aids in the planning process. However, not all has been and can be evaluated. So, here comes Repucom, a sport marketing research company, which helps find a solution to this.

     

     The research company, with more than 20 offices worldwide and 1000 plus clients, conducts sponsorship evaluation, market research, consultancy, media evaluation and commercial auditing. And keeping an eye on India’s growing sport culture, Repucom is all set to cash-in on the frenzy.

     

    Repucom south Asia senior VP and India director Joseph Eapen says, “India is one of our key country of interest, from a cricket crazy country, now a truly a multi-sport country. From the past seven years, we were providing the sponsorship ROI metrics for cricket – IPL and all homes series; then came HIL, IBL, racing, and this year we are providing the same for Pro Kabaddi League, Indian Super League, running and International Premier Tennis League. So it is an important time and we are on it to quantity the investments.”

    So how is it all done?

     

    The company covers a varied amount of sports research through its various initiatives. It conducts sponsorship evaluation for TV, print and the online space. It arrives at ROI in terms of 100 per cent advertising equivalency and mainly quality index that quantifies the ROI on the basis of the quality of integration with the sport or any branded content. The quality factor it considers is size, duration, position and number of brand hits.

     

    Through social intelligence it picks up drivers of social conversations like the rights holders, the event, the sponsors, the celebrity associated with it or the promotional activities around an event, organic and  otherwise and develop a KPI score card that provides clients insights on a pre-event, weekly, monthly as well as post event basis. In the case of the Hero ISL, it was done on a daily basis.

     

    Through Bespoke Research it utilizes methodologies tailored to the individual requirements of clients. Sports DNA is a sponsorship planning and monitoring tool for clients pursuing an international strategy. According to Eapen, it is the world’s largest multi-client sports study, running consecutively since 2000, allowing high-quality market research via consistent and comparable methodology. It is built upon a twice-yearly survey of over 30 markets worldwide to deliver a wide range of insights globally.

     

    Similarly, Catalyst is a framework that analyses the effectiveness of on-site activation in the context of sponsorships which generates key insights on property engagement and attendee profiling, activation diagnosis and impacts on brands. Currently it is being done for Procam International (for their activations leading to the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon) in 30 plus locations in India.

     

    But the tool which is creating the most buzz is Celebrity DBI. It is an independent index that quantifies and qualifies consumer perceptions of celebrities. The categories of celebrities indexed include actors, athletes, film and TV stars, musical performers, business leaders etc. Subcategory examples include coaches, designers, chefs, politicians. It evaluates celebrities in 13 key markets worldwide like Germany, France, Italy, United States, China, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Japan, India etc.

     

    “It’s the only global celebrity evaluation service designed to provide superior brand-relevant insights. Brands, agencies, rights holders, teams, leagues and other marketers worldwide can measure, compare and leverage the impact of celebrities both locally and globally. The expanded database features more than 5,000,” says Eapen.

     

    In India the company has been working with IMG, Hero, Muthoot, Pepsi, Vodafone, Yes Bank, Star Sports, USL, Garnier Men, Airtel, Standard Chartered, Mahindra, Toyota, Red Bull, Johnnie Walker, Nokia and Panasonic. For branded content it has been working with Idea, L’oreal, Tata tea, Snapdeal, Vodafone, Sunfeast, Maruti, Cornetto, Lux, Oreo and Lenovo.

     

    For the ongoing ISL the company has firehose access to twitter feeds and a special tool to look at Facebook posts, plus uses Crimson Hexagon, Social Bakers and other tools are used by their in-house and global digital team.

     

    It has also been working with broadcasters for their branded content analysis it says it is proud of their association with Viacom18, especially Colors, as they have a contract to provide ROI metrics for all of their branded content.

     

    In the field of cricket the company has been conducting commercial auditing for ICC; as their compliance monitor – policing the broadcast of rights-related content through compliance monitoring helps to ensure that all events, branding and commercial stipulations are adhered to according to contract.

     

    With India now being a key market that is offering a lot of consumption potential for the business of sports, according to Eapen, besides the usual four of gate revenues, sponsorship revenues, media rights and merchandising there is another added factor- the 10+2 ad cap. “This reduction in ad inventory will force brands to look at integration and placement within the content – sport is an ideal platform for this

     

    Talking about the company’s future expansion plans in India, Eapen informs that a lot of growth will happen from the sport sponsorship consultancy services turn knowledge into action. “Our fact-based insight and recommendations allow brands, right holders and agencies to maximise the value of their investments in sport and entertainment” he concludes.