Their men"s cricket team hasn"t won an IPL title in 16 seasons, while the women "s team has only recently won the WPL. Yet, it has one of the largest fan bases and some of the largest sponsorship deals in its kitty. Royal Challengers Bengaluru"s on-field performances might have fallen short of expectations, yet its teams have never been short of spunk, making it one of the most valuable brands in the Indian sports ecosystem.
And it’s not just cricket. RCB has forayed beyond the 22 yards and into the fields of retail, content and even thought leadership, with the ultimate ambition of being recognised as a premium global brand. Rajesh V Menon, the VP and head of RCB, takes us through the journey on an episode of Sports UnLtd. Edited excerpts:
Q. RCB doesn"t yet have an IPL trophy but still has one of the largest followings among cricket fans, and some of the largest sponsorship deals. How have you built up the brand beyond on-field performance?
Just to start with, we have a WPL team as well and we have won the trophy this year. So that"s a good beginning from a trophy point of view.
Now, to go back to RCB as a brand… the RCB fans don’t just support the men’s team they support brand RCB. If you look at the turnout and support for RCB’s WPL games, it was phenomenal. Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru [where we played the first leg] was packed, then when we went to Delhi, 90 percent of the stadium cheered for RCB. RCB as a brand transcends multiple geographies. Born in Bengaluru, but here to thrill the nation is how we envisaged the brand.
When we conceptualised the brand, we didn’t pin ourselves to one geography. We looked at India as a whole and understood the key insights of young India.
In the 90s or early 2000s, our social ecosystem was very conservative. People lived in big, joint families, which acted as a safety net should something go wrong. But when the Indian economy opened up, people started to migrate to bigger cities. That’s where the safety net was broken. IT jobs, startups became aspirational. But we know that of the many thousand startups, only a few succeed, hence there is fear of failure. That was a critical insight on which RCB was built. We wanted something to nudge this populace, to tell them it’s okay. That’s where RCB’s philosophy of ‘Play Bold’ came in. What we’re saying through this is nothing but ‘you don’t know what’s on the other side unless you go and play bold’. This philosophy resonated with young India, and we align the philosophy with everything that we did and that we are doing.
Q. What are the verticals through which you are building Brand RCB?
We are building RCB as a lifestyle brand. When we look at expanding the brand into multiple dimensions, both on and off the field, it resonates with different cohorts and target groups [TGs]. For example, we joined hands with Puma and launched an athleisure range, which wasn’t only confined to the games, but people started wearing it to offices and also in their leisure time. That brought the brand traction across different zones. Second, the RCB Bar and Café, [the first of which opened in the heart of Bengaluru], and the second just opened in Bengaluru’s T2 airport. We"re looking at expanding as we speak. It isn’t just a place for cricket but for fans to socialise and entertain themselves. Third, we have launched our fitness app Hustle, and in three months, we have logged around 11,000 subscriptions.
On the field, we have created a dog enclosure for pet parents to bring their canines along for the game. We are also the only team which became carbon-neutral. All these initiatives resonate with different sets of TGs which adds back to the brand. Especially the young TG, which is critical to the growth of the brand.
First Published: Apr 26, 2024, 10:38
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