BEFORE

AFTER

All hell has broken loose because India has crashed out of the cricket World Cup. The nation is angry, dejected and disappointed. Most crucially, not many are watching the telecast of the remaining matches. So even fewer people are watching the ads. This has created an unprecedented crisis in the world of advertising.

The World Cup had attracted advertising worth hundreds of crores. One understands that an inventory was kept aside. Like Tatkal train tickets, the unsold space was to be sold at the last minute at a premium. It will possibly remain unsold now. The advertisers who have spent the money are screaming murder. They want to opt out of the channel or at least shift their advertising to the daily soaps. The channel is not willing and they have contracts on their side.

All that the advertisers have been able to do is replace their cricket-related advertising by more sedate brand campaigns. The million dollar issue is did they not know that if India crashed out, the viewership of the matches would plummet?

No one expected India to crash out. The series wins against West Indies and Sri Lanka just before the World Cup gave every one a lot of confidence. Greg Chappell mending his ways and toeing the Vengsarkar line boosted optimism. Return of Ganguly at the top of the order made them feel that now we have a heady cocktail of experience and youth. The first hurdle was easy — beating Bermuda and Bangladesh. These two victories would have taken us to Super 8 and at least six more matches.

Plus that would have made the Indian supporters (read ad viewers) interested in other teams. Viewership of all matches would have been assured. Advertisers thought that break-even was not an issue. No insurance was taken — legally or otherwise. After all no one on the Titanic ever believed that the ship would sink.

But was the return on investment made by the marketing stalwarts in terms of buying advertising space really so secure? Consider a “what if” situation. Instead of India getting beaten by Bangladesh, England gets beaten by Kenya. This is not really an improbable situation. India thus reaches the Super Eight but with zero points in the kitty by virtue of their loss to Sri Lanka. England goes home and Kenya is in Super Eight. In such a situation, the Indian supporters will continue to watch the matches. And then India loses their first three matches — say against Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Zero points on the board and the remaining three matches are with Kenya, Ireland and West Indies.

How many of us would stay up at night to watch those? Would the situation then be much different? The point really is that India in cricket is not what Brazil is in soccer, so the possibility of India losing its TV audience during the World Cup is always there. This is an inescapable reality that deserves to be factored in when planning purchases of television time worth hundreds of crores. Even if it is hindsight — the goof-up must be apparent to the big spenders. So, don’t blame Rahul Dravid alone. India Inc also did not have a plan B.