To leverage its 2019 IPL sponsorship, Yes Bank created an activation programme aimed at Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
It involved its own Yes Bank Premier League tournament played in stadiums across 10 cities and supported by an in-person masterclass series and comic social media content.
Territory: India
Agency: Mullen Lintas/Dentsu Webchutney
Objectives
Yes Bank took over from Citi in the IPL’s finance category from 2013, with the explicit goal of using the tournament’s national and diverse reach to boost brand recognition and expand its pan-India retail banking franchise. The bank’s overall corporate strategy is based around capturing mindshare and wallet share among Indian youth, primarily through digital financial infrastructure and digital marketing.
The objective of the 2019 #MeriTeamMeriLeague activation was to build brand preference through cricket and engage the country’s small businesses. Specific objectives included:
Capture SME mindshare
Position Yes Bank as a bank which engages and understands its customers beyond banking
Provide opportunities to engage with key business influencers of the regions for potential business development
Build Yes Bank as the brand in SME space.
Activation
The idea behind the activation was not only informed by the data showing that cricket is a sport that binds all of India together with a passion that spans all races and religions, but also by the idea that India’s MSME business owners are familiar with small business/cricket analogies. The pitch is challenging, the competition fierce and the marketplace often throws out surprise yorkers, but it is MSMEs which regularly hit the boundary as the primary drivers of India’s growing GDP.
The core creative idea was to create a Yes Bank Premier League tournament – the #MeriTeamMeriLeague – which was a brand-backed, IPL-linked competition for small business owners that gave them an opportunity to experience being owner, coach and captain of a cricket franchise.
This competition brought together MSME teams from across India to play each other in 10 cities (Chennai, Bangalore, Amritsar, Delhi, Surat, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Pune and Hyderabad).
The aim of the tournament, which itself attracted corporate sponsorship from Jeep, RAW, Apollo Hospitals & Brew House, was to demonstrate how Yes Bank goes the extra mile to understand clients and share moments of togetherness with them.
Alongside the #MeriTeamMeriLeague, the brand ran a series of ‘Masterclasses with Cheteshwar Pujara’. The India star offered cricket tips and shared anecdotes of his tours and experiences.
To support the branded tournament and drive brand awareness and buzz around it, Yes Bank launched a set of four comic video ads about how teams across the country were preparing for the tournament, across its social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The creative sought to make MSME customers feel like the campaign was telling ‘their story’ so all featured various genuine small business owners and their colleagues in their own premises.
A parallel social media campaign ran across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube supported by website amplification.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Search engine marketing and search engine optimisation was used to target the relevant audiences in order to maximum results.
Outcome
The 160 matches of the Yes Bank Premier League spanned 10 cities and saw 2,400 people from the MSME sector participate.
The campaign’s digital reach was 19 million: 13 million video views and six million other post impressions.
Matches from the league streamed live on YouTube generated a further 500,000 organic views and a total watch time of 223,531.