Niine — The Party Pooper at India vs NZ series?

I have been trying to understand the Female Intimate Hygiene market as part of my course curriculum with Kraftshala. Coincidentally, something interesting caught my attention while I was watching the last T20 of India vs New Zealand series.

Let’s think this through. Cricket is a religion for fans. A quick reach medium for brands. With a good creative, the platform allows anyone to touch millions of Indians in a matter of weeks. Now I have been a keen follower of on-ground associations when it comes to cricket. This association did not make sense to me at first- Cricket has always been skewed towards a male audience and commands high investments.

My question was —

Wouldn’t advertising on a Daily soap instead help Niine reach the right audience and ensure efficient marketing spends?

To understand this better, let’s have a look at the ‘Brand Opportunity Framework’. Depending on the market, a category/ brand can be Established or Emerging.

Brand Opportunity Framework

1. Royal — Brands with high awareness in an established category. Eg — Airtel in Telecom.
2. Visionary — Brands with high awareness in an emerging category. Eg — Bounce in Bike Rentals.
3. Ropewalker — Brands with low awareness in an emerging category. Eg — Syska in Smart Bulbs.
4. Party Pooper — Brands with low awareness in an established category. These players cause disruption. They have strong product differentiation. This is what Paper Boat to Beverages, Dark Fantasy to Biscuits and Tesla to Automobile.

Niine, with it’s cricket association makes it a Party Pooper. It is a new brand in an established category, disrupting the market through an unconventional media strategy.

A closer look at its communication validates the hypothesis. Niine’s focus is around narratives involving Father-Daughter / Brother -Sister unlike traditional Mom — Daughter / Independent Female storylines by Stayfree & Whisper.

So presence on a cricket platform does make sense from a relevance point of view. So the question now is -

Wouldn’t advertising on a Daily soap instead help Niine reach the right audience and ensure efficient marketing spends?

A quick look at this report by BARC threw up some interesting observations.

As on 2018, Women form 48% of cricket viewership with 342 Mn viewers.

Adding on-

1. Cricket outside India (in few countries, such as NZ) does not require a long term commitment, and the entry cost is relatively low.
2. TV Ratings for a series like Ind-NZ are comparable to any top Hindi daily soap. (Between 2.2- 2.5)
3. Presence on a platform like cricket will only drive conversations around Niine, helping it increase the talk-ability of the category, which remains category’s biggest challenge till date.

So Niine ticks all boxes with this association. They reached out to a relevant audience, healthy gender-mix, on a quick reach platform without compromising on TV reach/ ratings.

New-age brands are challenging biases daily. These are a new breed of marketers that love to break conventional rules. Next few years for the industry are going to be very exciting!