Building of brand ‘Sri Lanka Cricket’

The share of media on the ‘MCC Cowdrey Lecture’ in the Nursery Pavilion at Lord’s on 4 July has been relatively high, given the revelations that were made by the respected former Cricket Captain.

Apart from the juicy content that was shared, few realised that what was said was essentially how ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ had evolved in the country and now it is so close to a person just like any other brand, be it Sunlight, Dettol or Dialog.

Given that I come from a marketing background, my mind absorbed the information purely from a brand development perspective. Let me throw more light on this angle of absorption.

 

‘Brand SL Cricket’

The essence of this brand is ‘excitement,’ but it has a strong connectivity with every Sri Lankan that hinges around patriotism and being proud that we are Sri Lankan. This is essentially seen when the brand is featured in another market, like for example when the Sri Lankan team plays England in the UK for instance.

The second element that has made this brand very powerful is the advertising expenditure around it post winning the World Cup in 1996. This includes not only the sponsorship money that the team attracts, but also player endorsements on private sector brands. If all this is valued, ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ will be way above IPL brand value of $4 billion in my view, but sadly no one had valued this most valuable asset of Sri Lanka.

But a point that needs to be understood is that ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ is created by the fans it attracts and the events with which it has been associated. Hence most of the success must be attributed to the fans, who we hardly hear about in the news media, which means that this brand belongs to the people of the country. This means that the administrators must be accountable and responsible to them as they created the brand.  

Challenge

The challenge for ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ is to get a brand custodian who will calculate the brand value and understand the propositions that are wrapped around the brand. Thereafter, a clear brand development plan can be done that will include the promotional side as well sharpening the identity as it evolves in the changing fashion of the game – be it the five day game, one day or 20 overs – but more importantly to safeguard the brand from unruly activity that will devalue the brand value.

If I am to share a best practice from my experience, if one does a brand equity study on a brand like Dettol, you find out the detail architecture of the brand and what activities added value to the core proposition of being a disinfectant. The study will also identify what activities hurt the brand values that it possesses.

This is the type of management science that ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ requires, which is my take of the Cowdrey Lecture of 4 July. But sadly the gulf that exists as at now in the reality of Sri Lanka cricket makes such theories a wish list rather than a definitive action.

Building of ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’

An important point to note is that if we take a typical brand like Signal toothpaste for instance, the brand custodian can clearly mark out the values that brand must be wrapped with, for instance caring, aggressive but protective, just like the personality of a father in a home.

But in the case of ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket,’ it’s the situations around it that have unfolded that have resulted in the brand values that are around the name ‘Sri Lanka Cricket,’ which means that it’s uncontrollable to a certain extent as it’s based on the dynamism in the market place which makes the difference from a consumer brand.

However, it must be said that with careful planning even a situational brand like ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ can be managed with careful management of the communication and essentially PR provided that the product is the best that Sri Lanka can show case. This again is another take that I picked up from the Cowdrey Lecture.

Cowdrey architecture

Based on the argument that I explained of a situational brand like ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket,’ I will be using extracts from the Cowdrey Lecture of 4 July which was brilliantly articulated by the former Cricket Captain, which in my view is his hard wiring that he got of being trained as a lawyer. Let me pick up the key happenings from this lecture that shaped ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket,’ using the works of brand theorist Keller in the Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid.

1. Brand salience

The speaker said: “Cricket in Sri Lanka is no longer just a sport: it is a shared passion that is a source of fun and a force for unity. It is a treasured sport that occupies a celebrated place in our society. It is remarkable that in a very short period an alien game has become our national obsession, played and followed with almost fanatical passion and love.”

2. Performance

The speaker said: “In 1981, Sri Lanka’s cricket suffered from an identity crisis and there was far too little Sri Lankan in the way we played our cricket.”

The speaker said in the pre-World Cup period: “The leadership of Arjuna during this period was critical to our emergence as a global force. It was Arjuna who understood most clearly why we needed to break free from the shackles of our colonial past and forge a new identity, an identity forged exclusively from Sri Lankan values, an identity that fed from the passion, vibrancy and emotion of normal Sri Lankans.

“From Matara came Sanath, a man from a humble background with an immense talent that was raw and without direction or refinement. A talent under the guidance of Arjuna that was harnessed to become one of the most destructive batting forces the game has ever known. It was talent never seen before and now with his retirement never to be seen again.

“Murali came from the hills of Kandy from a more affluent background. Starting off as a fast bowler and later changing to spin, he was blessed with a natural deformity in his bowling arm allowing him to impart so much spin on the ball that it spun at unthinkable angles. He brought wrist spin to off spin”

The speaker said after winning the World Cup: “The impact of that World Cup victory was enormous, both broadening the game’s grassroots as well as connecting all Sri Lankans with one shared passion. For the first time, children from outstations and government schools were allowed to make cricket their own.”

The speaker said on the Lahore attack: “It is strange how clear your thinking is. I did not see my life flash by. There was no insane panic. ‘We are Sri Lankan,’ we thought to ourselves, ‘and we are tough and we will get through hardship and we will overcome because our spirit is strong’. This is what the world saw in our interviews immediately after the attack: we were calm, collected, and rational. Our emotions held true to our role as unofficial ambassadors.”

3. Feelings

The speaker said: “Our cricket embodied everything in our lives, our laughter and tears, our hospitality our generosity, our music our food and drink. It was normality and hope and inspiration in a war-ravaged island. In it was our culture and heritage, enriched by our myriad ethnicities and religions.”

On meeting a soldier post the attack the speaker said: “That soldier looked me in the eye and replied: “It is okay if I die because it is my job and I am ready for it. But you are a hero and if you were to die it would be a great loss for our country.”

4. Resonance

The speaker said: “A game that brings the nation to a standstill; a sport so powerful it is capable of transcending war and politics. This is the spirit of Sri Lanka’s cricket.”

5. Judgement

The speaker as Kumar Sangakkara said: “I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.”

6. Imagery

The speaker said when Murali was no-balled in Autralia “No matter what critics say, the manner in which Arjuna and team stood behind Murali made an entire nation proud. In that moment Sri Lanka adopted the cricketers simply as ‘our boys’ or ‘ape kollo’. Gone was the earlier detachment of the Sri Lankan cricket fan and its place was a new found love for those 15 men. They became our sons, our brothers. Sri Lankans stood with them and shared their trials and tribulations.”

Brand hurt

Where ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’ can get hurt the speaker mentioned: “With the victory in 1996 came money and power to the board and players. Players from within the team itself became involved in power games within the board. Officials elected to power in this way in turn manipulated player loyalty to achieve their own ends. At times board politics would spill over in to the team causing rift, ill feeling and distrust.”

The speaker went to say: “The administration needs to adopt the same values enshrined by the team over the years: Integrity, transparency, commitment and discipline. Unless the administration is capable of becoming more professional, forward-thinking and transparent then we risk alienating the common man.”

Product development

On the area of Product Development, the speaker said: “Although our school cricket structure is extremely strong, our club structure remains archaic. With players diluted among 20 clubs it does not enable the national coaching staff to easily identify and funnel talented players through for further development. The lack of competitiveness of the club tournament does not lend itself to producing hardened first class professionals. Various attempts to change this structure to condense and improve have been resisted by the administration and the clubs concerned, the main reason for this being that any elected cricket board that offended these clubs runs the risk of losing their votes come election time.”

Cricket for nation branding

The speaker on the importance of cricket for the country said: “I pray we do because cricket has such an important role to play in our island’s future. In our cricket we display a unique spirit, a spirit enriched by lessons learned from a history spanning over two-and-a-half millennia. In our cricket you see the character of our people, our history, culture and tradition, our laughter, our joy, our tears and regrets. It is rich in emotion and talent. My responsibility as a Sri Lankan cricketer is to further enrich this beautiful sport, to add to it and enhance it and to leave a richer legacy for other cricketers to follow.”

Next steps

The master piece of the ‘MCC Cowdrey Lecture’ in my view was the first draft of ‘Brand Sri Lanka Cricket’. The question is, when it will become a ‘formal document’ and moreover, when will the cricket-loving public see it being implemented? I guess time will tell.

(The author is an award winning Marketer and Business personality in Sri Lanka, currently reading for a doctoral degree in business administration. The thoughts expressed are strictly his own and not the views any position he holds in society. Rohantha is an alumni of Harvard University, USA.)