Today’s the start of the last Test series for Sachin Tendulkar – a legend and a hero to more than a billion of the World’s population….and I had no clue the series was starting today! The past few weeks have seen a flow of articles, montages, TV shows, interviews, etc etc highlighting his achievements, but very few that actually gave the date and time for the series to start…Well, the assumption would’ve been and rightly so, that a true fan would take the trouble to find out and I don’t really fall in that category; so I guess it’s fine. So, having a relatively late start today, I happened to see the start of this test. It was mainly for posterity purposes, so sometime in future, I can tell the next generation (if they care i.e.) that I was lucky to watch (on TV) Sachin’s last two tests (even though it was only about 5 minutes)!
While watching the test, a couple of things caught my attention and I couldn’t resist the urge to pen them down!
1. Getting to know about the Test match
I would’ve blissfully gone about my daily chores had TataSky not decided to include the match into their default starting channel (No. 100). This is the channel that starts up every time you switch on the DTH box. Now, normally this channel would include promotional campaigns from Tata group companies and more often just features about Tatasky. However, today the channel started with Star Sports 3 with Kapil Dev speaking in Hindi! What a freaking smart move by TataSky and Start Sports to lure in ignorant cricket fans like me!! Truly impressed, for once the media house got it right!
But then this was the end of all positives from a marketing and communications standpoint…
2. Where is ESPN?
Well after learning about the Test match, I tried to surf to the HD variety for an ad-free (actually to be honest – an English commentary) viewing. I surfed through the sports channels and kept seeing Star Sports! On closer look however, it said Star Sports 1,2,3, HD1, HD2 .. Where the heck is my ESPN?
Surfing online, I realize that Star has decided to retire ESPN from India. Browsing through news reports, it is learnt that Star was initially contemplating converting ESPN to Fox Sports and has now decided to just retire the brand (news article below). Why the hell would you do that? Why kill a good thing?
At last count; TataSky itself has 12 sports channels with 6 of them from the Star family! 6 Sports channels telecasting different sporting events and differentiated …by a number? Seriously?? That is your strategy and it took you all of 2013 to figure that out??? As it is, life was getting difficult juggling between EPL, La Liga, Cricket and F1 and now the viewer also has to remember the channel number! I am beginning to miss the good old Doordarshan, forget channel surfing, everything came on the one channel. Plus, I would’ve also stayed in touch with Mohan Bagan and East Bengal!
Imagine, HUL replacing its brands Wheel, Rin and Surf (all catering to different customer segments) with numbers …HUL1, HUL2 and HUL3! Why would a firm kill a brand with known associations, great differentiation and good reach? Especially, when the firm just replaces it with a number?
3. Sachin, Nike and a humongous missed opportunity?
One more miss and this was sort of just came daunting to me..Check out Sachin’s signature below; what do you see?
Do you notice that swoosh below the signature? I wonder if Nike ever noticed it as this would’ve been a ‘out-of-the-world celebrity-brand association’ for the firm! Imagine, Sachin Tendulkar, hero to approximately 17% of the world (definitely more), belonging to (arguably) the world’s second-fastest growing economy and a billion customers!
I couldn’t help check Sachin’s brand associations today, not bad for a retiring sportsman belonging to a sport played by a dozen countries! Look at the irony here, Sachin endorses Adidas and Nike gets his sports jersey. So Sachin has a swoosh on his chest and bats for Adidas.
But that’s going away from the topic. Here is a legend who’s signature has your brand logo; why wouldn’t you want him? This was a known fact for over two decades now! In all probability, Nike did realise or rather Adidas did and retained Sachin at all costs!
But imagine this association, had it been, a legend putting the firm’s logo every time he signs anywhere – an autograph book, a TV camera, a fan’s shirt / cap / whatever! Imagine the possibilities Nike could’ve used with this one signature! Imagine a Nike T-shirt, with nothing but his signature and the swoosh below! What a Brand and Product association that could’ve been! Alas, if only, someone noticed and make the effort!
Sources:
*Note – Sourcing of pictures and articles from the below sources was with no specific intentions, but purely a result of Google search
1. Tatasky logo: Quickr.com
2. ESPN Start Sports logo: Sportskeeda.come
3. News Article about Start Sports retiring ESPN: http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/b2j9IeMRzaoVPlCHFYrbKI/Why-Star-Sports-is-retiring-ESPN-brand-in-India.html
4. Sachin’s Signature: Wikipedia.org
5. Sachin’s picture: fanpop.com
Temerecogitatio 