By Chandra Shekher Iyer.
If you like binging on munchies you must be no stranger to a stack of Pringles. In today’s story, Hobo.Video is here with a brand case study as to how Pringles utilised India’s biggest sporting event like IPL 2020 and turned it into their marketing playground. The consumers of Indian snacks have a varied palette. The snack consumers stick to traditional Indian snacks or Namkeen (locally called). However, they also have a palette for what other countries have to offer.
According to data analysis by Globaldata, The Indian Potato chips market was estimated to be $2.95 billion just three years back. Further data showed that the annual rate of growth was 18.7%. The market is expected to rake into a value of more than $5 billion by next year.
About Pringles
Pringles are potato-based stackable chips. The brand hails from America and till 1968 it was sold by Procter & Gamble. The chips’ name at the time was “Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips”… Glad that they newfangled to Pringles. In 2012 the brand was acquired by Kelloggs and is providing stackable chips in more than 140 countries.
Image Source: Deposit Photos
Facts about Pringles:-
- Pringles have been around for 4 decades and have launched more than 100 flavours.
- Since Kelloggs acquired pringles, the sales have seen a whopping rise of $ 6.5 billion in revenue in the financial year of 2014.
- The brand’s mascot is called Julius Pringles who looks like a handsome, crispy flavourful Chip with a moustache.
- The brand’s chip-making machine developer was author Gene Wolf, a veteran who served in the Korean War. After Gene took up Engineering and graduated from the University of Houston, he worked with Procter & Gamble where he developed the machine. Wolfe later went on to write fan favourite novels Lord of the Rings and Hobbit.
- The brand is named after Pringle Drive in Cincinnati which the owners thought sounded nice.
The world faced a full toss delivery as Covid-19 left the world bamboozled but here is how Pringles hit big sixes out of the Park in IPL 2020.
Aim
India is a country that is crazy for Cricket. According to Statscore, it’s the most-watched sport in the sub-continent with IPL 2020 having viewing minutes of over 356 million. In fact, it won’t be an understatement that it is also as pious as a religion for Indians.
Thus, Pringles tried to capitalise on IPL by starting a campaign that centred around IPL 2020, also addressing the issue of enjoying responsibly as fans. To quote Dumbeldore, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light”. As 2020 was trying and testing time for all, a large sporting event came on as light which could show us to enjoy from which was the need of the hour to curb the spread of the virus.
Challenges
According to analysis from BARC( Broadcast Audience Research Council) India, it was reported that More than 115 million people watched the IPL every year.
The marketing agency Zoo Media had an objective to come up with an engaging, creative idea for the engagement of the audience, since the pandemic Covid-19 restricted entry into stadiums. Moreover, the tournament took place in Dubai in closed stadiums. Cricket is one of the biggest fan-oriented sports in the history of sports.
Despite the excitement of fans for IPL 2020, there was a herculean task as the sight of an IPL cricket match being held in an empty stadium seemed very mundane. It meant that fans could not get to cheer for their teams in packed stadiums with friends.
Creative Strategy
The idea was to provide the same fervour and frenzy of watching a cricket match in a stadium from home. Most importantly the idea would also address people’s responsibility to curb the pandemic by staying at home. In addition, the idea tried to prove a point that IPL 2020 could be enjoyed from home also.
Campaign
Collaborating with IPL 2020, Pringles came up with the #WaveitwithPringles AR filter. They came up with a sensational combination of Mexican wave and AR filter. Firstly, the Mexican wave is one of the rave rituals in which fans participate in a stadium. Secondly, we all know what an AR filter does to enhance our self-doubting selfies. In other words, the pot had been stirred with the right ingredients.
Furthermore jumping on the influencer marketing hype train. For this campaign, Kelloggs’ Pringles collaborated with over 200 macro and nano influencers.
If you are an influencer who’s looking to collaborate with a band then you should join Hobo.Video. At Hobo.Video, there are a lot of in-house trusted brands who are looking to collaborate with influencers irrespective of their reach. They are looking for quirky, enthusiastic personalities who love showing their personality and perspectives to the world.
Implementation of Campaign
Kellogg’s Pringles created an AR filter that included 6 chips cheering for teams. In other words, it meant that when a fan used the filter and opened their mouth, the filter using facial recognition would transition into 6 chips doing Mexican waves and cheering with pre-recorded sounds of jeers and chants of fans in stadiums.
The credit for creating the animation of the filter and promoting it on social media goes to The Rabbit Hole. This was a great way to engage fans as the filter gave them a stadium-like experience from home.
200 nano influencers and 18 macro-influencers collaborated in this campaign with the likes of Ankush Bahugna, Danish Sait, Sunny Chopra, Shilpa Dwivedi and many more. The influencers asked fans to use the filter in their stories and support their favourite teams in a stadium-like manner but from home.
Statistics
The campaign received more than 2 million impressions, 18.4 K opens, 9.6 K captures and 918 shares from fans who watched IPL 2020 worldwide.
Conclusion
The Pandemic bought many aspects of life to a stand-still but IPL 2020 and pringles gave fans something to cheer up about. For a country like India where cricket is often associated with religion, IPL 2020 in a dull year looked like a festival that fans celebrated with utter joy!
The campaign and the strategy presented a very strong message in the world’s struggle against the pandemic that mega sporting events like IPL 2020 could be enjoyed from home. Campaigns like these are to see more associations with other sporting events certainly.
If that caught your eye then you can check more brand case studies:
