Brand Control Council of India Perhaps the most engrossing news that has been doing the rounds nowadays, is the BCCI announcing new schemes regarding its conduct, pay schemes etc.
I was left wondering on why have they not introduced , Goals, KRA’s , the Deliverables , Hours of Training at the nets per year when they introduced performance based pay systems - in effect a full fledged ‘corporatisation ‘ of the Game.
So far so good - but wait did I miss out on something , I always used to believe that these people (players) have devoted their life to Cricket and becuz they were able to convert their dream to reality they are not in the Corporate rut and boy was I jealous . They were held in high esteem , not because they are famous, but because they dared to be different and had the guts to go out and play their heart out .
Now it is a different story now even they have to worry about year end
performance appraisals and month end paycheques poor guys , Crab Mentality cant have somebody happy ! .
Now lets focus on one of the rulings – No player can endorse more than 3 brands or is it companies or is it campaigns /Ads in a year . And no brand or is it company or a campaign/Ad can take more that 2 players at a time.
Now let me get one thing straight, Research people / Companies do research worth lakhs to find a ‘ brand fit’ between a celebrity and the Brand Values . Lot of MR people go to lots of places stay in great places to get out vital significant Quant and Quali insights into this whole process of Brand Fit . Clients Pay money , MR people spend effort and time period . But now …….
Although somehow all brand values seem to fit SRK or AB or Sachin or Dhoni for some weird reason . but we’ll let this thought pass for the time being!
So BCCI now has controlled how many Brand Fit possible in a year , C mon even if the MR people say that Uthappa is the purrrfect fit for your itch guard cream , you CANT do anything , you must go in for Kader Khan or Pawar (Not Romesh .. you twit ! ) …………Period.
What happens to the Sports Management firms ! nothing they will become like media managers , buy as much brands as possible and allocate it to the players………………. 2 each . Lawyers will get a lot of business as they would be fighting with the BCCI on how a Brand / Ad/Campaign/Company are all same things …. Uthappa would be doing Lux, Surf , Rin, Rexona but they are in fact Brand “Extentions” of only Two Categories ! (We might have some Players and lawyers taking up a crash course in MICA to understand the nuances …. Cheapo ! )
But but , having said that I am again slightly confused reg. the concept of a Brand Ambassador . In the case of sports , I had thought , a Sport becomes popular , more and more people watch it , few sportsmen become popular and their Brand Value is mapped and calculated using sophisticated matrices ( although Sachin will always get more than anybody no matter what he scores but that’s a different thing………! ) As higher number of eyeballs are captured , a brand thinks that by associating with this celebrity it can piggyback and get some leverage . So Far so Good.
So in effect it is supply demand thing , more the demand for a sports more the demand for the people playing the sport , and more the demand for endorsements . So in effect the people (public) who are raising a hue and cry over the endorsements done by players , when in fact it is due to THEM that they are getting any kind of work !
So stop watching cricket and they would stop getting endorsements !!!
hey ………. now that is interesting , I think the BCCI has actually done a BIG favor to the players . As anywayz they were not going to get any renewals of their contracts with Pepsi’s of the world , but now they need not get embarrassed they can always say that they have deliberately not taken up any endorsement for the sake of the country ! Kool Na .. BCCI wins, The Players Wins , The Public …… always the Ch#$@# a’s !
If you have read this far then I must appreciate your patience , anyhow the above thing did not make anysense to me and if it did to you , please please do comment . Would love to hear from you .
Btw, I am raising a PIL that SRk should reduce the ads that he is doing as his films are not upto the mark and also KBC is going down in TRP’s . there should be a cap on 1 ad every year and 1 extra ad for every hit movie he give . Sounds logical right , performance based incentive .. ha ha .
Leaving you with this thought, Turning a hobby into your profession is the most difficult thing to achieve, but once you do that it is no more a hobby!
Btw. If you wondering what has the image got to do with the article ...NOTHING ... I had just clicked it yesterday and was force fitting it .. thats all . Being a MICAn i could have given you a 20 point paper on the relevance of the pic , but lets leave it now.
Cheers
