As originally published in Synergyzer Issue 2 – 2016

Cricket is celebrated wholeheartedly across our country and may it be World T20 or ICC World Cup tournaments, the sport is a must watch for Pakistanis. From screenings to family gatherings, the game unites us greens to root for one cause: Our team. The pleasure is apparent throughout mass media as well as digital media, from talk shows to TVC’s and tweets to anthems flooding our social platforms. The joy and harmony that this game brings are not only well understood, but looked forward to by school going kids to the senior citizens of our society; all hope for the team to bring home that cup!

Meanwhile, the value additions to the cricket experience that have been trending lately in Pakistan cannot be overlooked. From TV channels to brand activations, giveaways, and campaigns, the cricket season brings a range of variety for consumers to not only enhance their cricket experience but maybe even give them a chance to watch their beloved team perform on the ground. Organizations are in a constant battle to position the most appealing and the highest selling cricket campaign on media each year, innovating their way into the market and competing not just for their sales, but for the consumer’s enthusiasm and of course, the love of the game.

At the same time, the tech-savvy young cricket lovers use social platforms to communicate their experiences, love, frustration and all other possible emotions for the game that flood throughout social media from hashtags to Tweets and Facebook posts. This trend is also followed by celebrities and cricket experts, who post their opinions first hand on their social media platforms, which are of great importance to cricket lovers. They do not only trend on social media but their opinions are also used on traditional media platforms from news to talk shows and so on. Hence, brands have now largely targeted the digital media market for cricket campaigning to gain maximum mileage and increase brand engagement on digital platforms.

One such exemplary campaign that has managed to make it big in the past two years, with their collaborations, sponsorships and a perfectly targeted execution is Jubilee Life’s campaign, “For the Love of the Game”. The campaign is successfully completing its second year and is aimed across several digital media platforms. Jubilee Life being associated with sports for a long time believes in the importance of the spirit of the game and cricket being the most followed sport. Hence, the insurance giant decided to campaign on the digital medium to provide its target market including cricket lovers, a memorably credible cricket experience.

The campaign runs the course of a cricket tournament, taking onboard a renowned cricket celebrity each year to discuss the prospects of the Pakistani team, comment on the matches and allow fans to ask questions via the social media platform. The campaign consisted of pre and post-match analysis videos and several Facebook post segments such as Ask the Expert, Star of The Game, Game Changers, Game Winners, predicting the victory with ‘Who’s Victory Today’ and autographed goodies from the celebrity.

In 2015, Jubilee Life Insurance took Wasim Akram on board for their digital media campaign. Due to the endorsement and campaign structure, the digital trend picked up great momentum and became one of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter within two hours. Within four hours, the hashtag #wewillbringitback became the topmost trend across India and Pakistan which is a spectacular milestone for the organization. The high degree of audience engagement is evident with the 19,000 tweets generated and over 3 million users reached via the Jubilee Life digital platform. Not only on Twitter, but the pre and post-match videos and question-answer sessions with Wasim Akram became a huge success and were shared on other social media websites and pages while also used by news media institutions to quote him. Giving the opportunity of asking questions from Wasim Akram, the young generation created a buzz of engagement of one of its kind, which also gave rise to some great cricket arguments across the digital platforms. The campaign was successfully able to connect the celebrity with the target audience while also providing updates, making the Jubilee Life Facebook portal a complete go-to guide for cricket fans.

This year, yet again, JLI managed to create good hype for the T20 World Cup, taking Amir Sohail onboard for their campaign, ‘For the Love of the Game.’ Since cricketers are considered the national heroes of our country and Aamir Sohail is a great cricket enthusiast and a legendary player of the Pakistan Cricket Team, the credibility value of the campaign was maintained. During this year’s campaign, over 50 videos and an average of 5 posts a day were uploaded onto the insurance company’s social media platforms as well as shared on Aamir Sohail’s social media pages. An anthem was also composed by Imran Momina of Fuzon band that was promoted on radios as well as social media. The 2016 campaign resulted in an increase in JLI’s fan base by over 50,000 likes with over 19 million people reached across their digital media platforms via posts and hashtags.

Among the series of videos, a particularly touching moment was when Aamir Sohail shared his experience of the first game against India in the “Flashback Fever with Aamir Sohail”. He discussed the reasons that make the Pakistan versus India matches such a great deal to us saying, “We had traveled all night and landed in Sharjah early in the morning to face India the same day. We were exhausted and the pressure to play against India is very high. But as we reached the ground, it was the game and the enthusiasm that made me feel like I need to win this, and prove something to my country.” The greatness of the game lies in the sportsmanship of our players and the support of the nation and this campaign played a greater role in reminding the nation of the spirit of the game.

Javed Ahmed, the managing director and CEO of Jubilee Life said, “We are glad to reach out to our consumers and target audiences in a way that engages audiences for what they love. At Jubilee Life, we have always supported sports, games, and spirit, and cricket being the utmost love of the people of this country; we are honored to provide a platform to connect the cricket heroes with their fans.” Although the campaign worked spectacularly well for Jubilee life insurance some tweaks could have been made in the way the videos were created. To make the videos more engaging, Aamir Sohail’s expert and deeply insightful critique could have been interspersed with animated data visualizations to make it more appealing, nevertheless, the campaign not only provided interactive platforms for fans to interact with their favorite cricketing celebrities, but it also introduced great dialogue and debates across social media. The activity also benefited the brand greatly in terms of increasing its reach and approaching the target audiences for Jubilee Life

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