Mastercard, which acquired title sponsorship rights for BCCI international and domestic home matches in September 2022, taking over from Paytm for the period ending March 2023, has become a Global Partner for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 in India from October 5 to November 19, 2023.
“We had a terrific experience last year when we had a partnership with the BCCI and that worked for us extremely well. I am grateful for that sponsorship with them. They have been very good partners and that is something which gave us a lot of confidence,” said Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Mastercard, speaking with journalists in Mumbai on August 23.
“This year, now, we had this opportunity to sponsor the ICC World Cup cricket here in India. That’s an opportunity which we evaluated thoroughly based on the learnings we had in our previous year’s experience. We said this is something which is going to make a lot of difference, so we said that we will go ahead and do it. And today we are announcing a sponsorship of the ICC World Cup Cricket,” he added.
“He termed the association with the ICC World Cup as Mastercard’s second big step into the world of cricket in the context of India. “But this time around, compared to the first year, we are now making it truly global,” noted Rajamannar.
The brand had signed on former Indian captain MS Dhoni five years ago.
RoI from Cricket
On the RoI from cricket associations, the CMO explained the three dimensions on which it is measured.
“One is, is it making a difference to our brand, does the brand become more salient and desirable? Number two, our business is B2B business (we issue cards through banks) – are we winning business? Are we winning preference in their minds? We measure that. Third, does it give us any competitive advantage? Competitive advantage can be both emotional and tangible,” he elaborated.
The metrics on the above counts for last year’s sponsorships have been ‘very positive’ according to the spokesperson.
On allocating funds to sponsorships and choice of events, he said, “Firstly, we look at the passion category and then we see who the partner in the passion category is. And if it is working consistently, we keep extending our association.”
With finite funding, brands have to pick and choose from options available, explained Rajamannar. The brand did not extend its partnership with the BCCI.
“In this particular case, we don’t have so much money to do this and this and this. So, we have to make our choices and that’s actually why we zoomed in for ICC for this year,” he noted.
On the returns from cricket, he underlined, “Even if you go to any published third-party reports, not even commissioned by us, you will see the brand salience of Mastercard has gone up, brand likeability has gone up. In some cases, they call it affinity or brand love – it’s a very, very good step up.”
Creating ‘Priceless’ Experiences around ICC Men’s World Cup
The brand, which identified 10 passions around the globe to invest in including sports, wants to make its ICC association for the World Cup count by creating ‘priceless’ experiences for stakeholders.
There will be a pre-sale of tickets 24 hours prior for Mastercard consumers and customers including banks.
“That’s something which we have found works very successfully for other sponsorships and other categories across the world. We have other benefits like 20 pc off on all the merchandise that is sold on the ICC website. We will have a few children of the card members who will have the opportunity to hold the flags of the playing teams and be with the players. We have done it very successfully in the UEFA Champions League – we call them the players’ mascots,” said, Rajamannar.
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