Mumbai: The Cricket World Cup, officially known as ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, is a grand celebration of sportsmanship and exceptional performance. For ardent cricket fans, it’s a spectacular event, and brands eagerly leverage it to enhance their visibility and significance.
As a prelude to this high-octane cricket season, this year Platinum Guild International (PGI) – India’s Men of Platinum welcomed leading cricketer “SKY” – Suryakumar Yadav into their fold and launched a new collection of platinum jewellery for men with him as the face. The initiative was unveiled in tandem with the Asia Cup. It seamlessly intertwined Suryakumar’s personal journey with the exceptional traits that platinum represents, truly encapsulating the spirit of a man of character and a Man of Platinum.
In a bid to further strengthen the brand’s association with cricket, Men of Platinum has now collaborated with one of the leading cricketing platforms ESPNcricinfo for an integrated content initiative to celebrate the World Cup season.
The content series aims to identify the “Man of Platinum” across key matches of the tournament, and it went live on October 5th, 2023 . It will be an ongoing special segment for select 24 match days via a property called ESPNcricinfo Direct Hit. Each mini-episode is then also amplified across ESPN and the brand’s social handles. The segment is hosted by Raunak Kapoor, a panel of cricketing experts from around the world including Anil Kumble, Dale Steyn, Shane Bond, Cheteshwar Pujara, Wasim Jaffer, Aaron Finch, Deep Dasgupta, Matthew Hayden & Steve Harmison will converge upon ESPNcricinfo and will decide upon the one player who truly deserves the title of ‘Man of Platinum of the day’. The Man of Platinum for each of these matches is decided through a combination of factors the most critical being a display of rare values that the brand stands for. Cricket as we know is a sport where values like courage, resilience, self-belief, perseverance, team spirit – inclusiveness have a great role to play. What is even tougher is to demonstrate softer values like compassion in the intensity of the moment and the game.
But it is these values that have turned players into legends and have given the game many historic moments to recount. They are moments etched in every fan’s memory. These are moments when qualities that are truly rare like platinum come to the fore. The content initiative is further scaled up by inviting fan participation via a contest on the brand’s social handles. Lucky winners would be gratified with merchandise signed by – Suryakumar Yadav himself. Key influencers like Samir Kochhar (popular actor & TV presenter), Varun Duggirala (entrepreneur, content creator & podcaster), Durjoy Dutta (Indian author and screenwriter) also join in to amplify this initiative driving home a key message that in sport while performance is key so is character & a code of conduct that only few rare men live by.
“Over the years, PGI and Wavemaker as a team, has created one of the most impactful content IP for the brand, called League of Platinum Men. Through our recent collaboration with media partner ESPN Cricinfo, we have announced ‘Men of Platinum’ in cricket. We aim to generate conversation about the values which extend beyond the player stats, and their performance but define their transformation. On the back of a global platform like the Cricket World Cup, we aspire to make this a global sporting conversation that transcends sports and countries.” explains Shekhar Banerjee, Chief Client Officer and office Head – West, North and East at Wavemaker India.
Speaking on this unique content marketing initiative, Sujala Martis, Consumer Marketing Director, Platinum Guild International (PGI) – India said, “We are excited to launch this content initiative with ESPNcricinfo and call out a ‘Man of Platinum” for the match. From a brand perspective calling out the significance of character and key values when it’s easy to forget them given the rush & intensity of the game seemed like a natural extension. Each game has moments that test everything the player stands for and, in these moments, they make instinctive choices that are led by values. It’s a narrative that fits seamlessly into our brand. Through this, we are creating content that will resonate with all the fans while inviting them to participate & be a part of this conversation”.
