SILVER: HSBC India

Client: HSBC India
Submitted By: HSBC India
Campaign Title: Sponsorship of the India Premier League live webcast

The Challenge:
Given the popularity of Indian Premier League, HSBC looked at capitalizing on a part of the IPL mania through available and affordable avenues. Other goals included:
» Developing the online presence of HSBC India
» Improving the overall HSBC branding scores in India
» Generating incremental business through engaging means

Digital Strategy:
By taking up the gold sponsorship of IPL3 on YouTube, HSBC aligned itself to its target group’s media consumption habit, while also being innovative.
» The affinity for watching cricket matches is 42% higher among the core HSBC target group than all adults, making association with IPL an imperative.
» Instead of using conventional media like TV, we capitalized on the fact that India now ranks no.4 in worldwide internet usage and chose to advertise on this medium.
» Association with a website like YouTube helped portray HSBC as progressive and innovative.
» Branding done on other cricketing sites provided a 360 degree feel to HSBC’s association with IPL online.
» Property branding of “live score updates” on other cricketing sites gave the impression that HSBC “owned” all IPL related properties on the Internet.
» The Launch of an HSBC-branded cricket game increased user interaction.
» The campaign reinforced the positioning of “The World’s Local Bank.”
» Staff engagement was generated by “Cricket Fever Hits HSBC,” an offline internal campaign launched for employees.

Results:
The property made it to the no.1 spot in the world for the sports genre on YouTube — overtaking NFL and CBS sports too. Product lead generation communication also garnered good results, while the HSBC Brand Health Index Score moved up.