Twitter product strategies for Brands: Streaming during LIVE Cricket

Twitter is a conversational layer of the internet hosting a diverse audience, which collectively drives shared experiences and passion points.

Due to the sheer volume of passionate chatter around them, live sporting events are made more memorable and engaging by Twitter leading to a high advertising impact. 69% of sports fans surveyed on Twitter agree that it helps them feel more connected to the game.¹

When Twitter is used as a complement to a live event on TV, users show higher levels of engagement (+31%) and memorability (+35%)² than when only following it on the big screen. Hence, when paired with Twitter as a marketing mix, brands reach a larger audience by boosting the original TV ad investment—delivering both cumulative reach and engagement for marketers.

With cultural relevance being the third-largest driver for purchase, brands that are on Twitter are 41% more likely to be seen as culturally relevant than those not on the platform.³ To be culturally relevant, they can be well abreast with consumer passion points, tap active communities and participate in celebratory moments.

●  The Auto-reply or the Heart/Retweet-to-Remind functionality acts as a unique personalised feature - It can be utilized by brands for setting reminders that customize tweet-notifications for the user.

Star Sports India deployed the tool during the last cricket season — the users were engaged for the opening match through Twitter reminders, which observed 80K+ veritable actions. The brand also changed its username to ‘Star Sports at 7:30 PM’ that marked the kickoff time slot for the match.

#Dream11IPL 2020 begins with MI v CSK at 7:30 PM! 🏏

❤️ this tweet and we'll give you a reminder when the match starts! 🔔 pic.twitter.com/mXKdXza5VU

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) September 16, 2020

●   Twitter Polls to innovate and engage with fan love - Industry-relevant discussions can be curated by picking discussion points of collective interest, thus gauging user opinion and generating excitement. 

OPPO India executed a phased campaign—#TheSmashing6 with Polls, by building anticipation before IPL 2020 and urging users to categorise players basis titles such as #Masterclass, #GenNext, #IceMan etc. This created a whopping 20M+ impressions on Twitter with an engagement rate of 6.45%⁴, thus tying together different layers of Polls by hooking on a cricketer fanbase.

Alert: Looking for Cricket’s Mr. #IceMan ❄️ Who has been the coolest captain through the last decade? Vote NOW and make him reach #TheSmashing6! 👇 #BeTheInfinite

— OPPO India (@oppomobileindia) November 5, 2020

 ●   Leverage premium publisher content with Pre-roll Views to promote high-quality videos - Branded sponsorship videos can be aligned with most-watched and rising publishers that the target audience is already watching.

During this cricket season, Apple advertised against some great snackable content from former cricketer and leading cricket commentator, Aakash Chopra through his Twitter account - @cricketakaash. Audiences engaged with compelling, informative, and interactive content hosted on Twitter by the former Indian cricketer.

●   Owning Twitter Explore Tab real estate for 24 hours with First View, Promoted Trend and Spotlight to leverage active cricket fanfare - To drive a stronger tune-in for the live stream and to get fans ready for the event with complimentary conversations.

Disney+HotstarVIP leveraged Twitter's impact property to drive home the 'cricketainment' message. With this  inclusive communication, the OTT platform established itself as "Entertainment ka all-rounder" and won fan love on the timeline.

Kabhi Ajay, kabhi Abhishek, kabhi Virat, kabhi Mahi, kabhi Radhika, kabhi Sushmita - saal bhar milega in sab se attention Disney+ Hotstar VIP par. Aaj hi subscribe karein, sirf ₹399/year. #CricketainmentShuru pic.twitter.com/kf15HpRc6W

— Disney+HotstarVIP (@DisneyplusHSVIP) April 9, 2021

●   Unique cricket challenges to create larger movements by rallying fans through the use of quirky challenges

Disney+ Hotstar asked fans to celebrate 8 teams in 8 languages through 8 unique dance steps. Their latest campaign #IndiaKiVibeAlagHai is a fun way to drive fan participation. Users shared dance steps and cheers for their favorite teams and connected with the new campaign vibe.

●   Moment marketing to tap the cricket momentum with the use of funny, entertaining tweets Brands can sync videos / gifs / memes in real time with specific matches, leagues and players, across Twitter. This technology can target highly granular cricketing moments like match starts, finishes, fours, sixes, fall of wicket etc.

Eg.: The Media & Entertainment brands can use cult dialogues as memes to create a watch-along experience when cricket moments play out in real-time.

●   Watch Parties to join a national moment and participate through Twitter stands, during times of isolation

62% of people on Twitter say they are interested in brands hosting live watch parties.⁵ A watch party is a larger campaign rolled out in a phased manner leading up to the livestream. A brand can be effectively marketed by coupling a watch party with hype and sustenance features like Custom Emoji, Heart-to-Remind, Dynamic Spotlight, hashtags, SuperThreads with superfans, and maintaining the momentum with Highlights.

●   Conversation leaderboard: Brands can lean into Twitter’s social listening superpower and create a heatmap/ leaderboard to track team-wise fandom. #Stanning for teams can help drive weekly contests, thus celebrating healthy rivalry—and fuelling the conversation leaderboard at all points of the event history. 

●   AR innovation: Augmented reality can be introduced by brands as an opportunity to provide fans with interactive, out-of-the-box experiences. They can explore concepts driven by new-age integrations and bring cricket excitement straight to the fans.

Source:

1. Sparklr, commissioned by Twitter, Twitter as a Stadium Survey, August 2020, USA

2. NeuroInsight Research for Twitter, Live Event NeuroInsight, August 2017

3. Kantar & Twitter cultural relevance research, total population,100 US brands tested, Dec 2019;   Maru, Twitter Insiders Event Research, US, Dec 2019

4. Q3 2020 Tech OEM- Consumer Benchmark: 2.5% ER, 8 INR CPE

Twitter Insiders, US Only, April 9-13, 2020

The pages slugged ‘Brand Connect’ are equivalent to advertisements and are not written and produced by Forbes India journalists.