Bangladesh has garnered immense respect in the past few years of cricket history. With a population of 160 million passionate fans, cricket is no less than a religion here. As a result, BPL has become a festival for every cricket lover in Bangladesh. The tournament has grown to become one of the most popular T20 leagues in the world. The spirit created by the division based teams leads to a month filled with intense competition. However, when players fail to live up to expectations, it could instigate the wrath of bitter cricket fans.
Objective
In the fourth season of BPL, WebMax was given the responsibility to manage Chittagong Vikings, a team who came to this tournament after a disappointing performance in 2015. Fans were demoralized and had little hope of success from this season. We took up the challenge to reignite the passion in Vikings supporters. As a part of our integrated digital strategy, we wanted to develop and execute an owned media platform to resonate with the Vikings spirit and reignite the passion within the franchise community.
PROCESS
Idea
Based on behavioral studies, we came up with a fun and addictive game that would encapsulate the Vikings brand, with immersive visuals and a fun interface. We named it “Catch it”. We ensured compatibility with web and mobile devices and used gaming psychology to ensure an addictive element.
Execution
Our game took the user back to the Colosseum for fielding practice, a simple-to-use game that could be played on any device and at any time. The players had to catch the balls that kept coming at them at increasing speed. The score would be based on how quick they were to react to the incoming balls. We developed the algorithm to ensure that speed would be slow at first, and reward users and make it exponentially difficult as the game progressed to get players hooked. To maximize gamification, we curated over 50 audio elements in the game to align the psychological elements in the game with the emotion a player would experience. To ensure virality, we aimed for a high percentage of returning users and optimized the sharing mechanism to:
Get people to share with their friends and give the campaign organic reach
Infuse the competitive Vikings spirit into the campaign
Of course, the campaign amalgamated with passionate fans ruthlessly competing among themselves to win the bragging rights. We took the opportunity to engage with the community and since it was a proprietary platform, we cross-promoted Chittagong Vikings merchandise and game fixtures to draw more eyeballs to the tournament.
RESULTS
Although the team came back from a setback previous season, this game helped reignite the passion among Vikings fans. The game was played 300,000+ times by 10,000+ unique visitors organically, without any media buying. On average, the game was played around 30 times by each unique visitor. Although only the top three scorers were awarded, the community came together with passion and enthusiasm for the brand, making the 2016 BPL season a memorable one for the Vikings fans.
