Marketing via controversy: The Indian Premier League

Controversy marketing, or marketing controversy. Either way, the end result is unparalleled coverage, residual awareness of your product, which later most definitely translates into brand recall, and even sales.

Though not much written about, the use of controversy as a marketing tool is not entirely unknown to marketers and media planners. The key lies in being able to predict the tipping point, and thereby controlling the outcome of the controversy – kind of letting a car run downhill in neutral, but knowing when to brake and halt before the momentum gets the better of the vehicle.

Case 1: DLF Indian Premier League

The case of the DLF Indian Premier League is about a three-stage drama, with a high noise level, and huge amounts of money involved.

In the first week of April 2008, Indians woke up to headlines screaming that the newly launched Indian Premier League could, well, face a total media boycott – an unthinkable situation in a country where cricket is not a sport but a religion.

At the heart of the controversy between the media and the IPL were clauses related to Internet reports and photographs from the cricket matches. The IPL management (the Board of Control for Cricket in India) wanted to appropriate all the rights to all the news in almost any form. The media organisations were up in arms.

The IPL refused to grant accreditation to websites for covering the event. In a converged world, that pretty much meant every media house worth its salt, and then some. Cricinfo, a popular cricket website, uses the internet and mobile phones as platforms for its delivery, though it also publishes a magazine. Virtually all media publications and TV channels have their own websites that cover the game, and they were rattled about the possibility of their accreditation being revoked.

What really got the media's goat was the clause pertaining to photographs. In the fine print of its agreement, IPL claimed sole copyright for all images shot at the tournament venues. It stipulated that photographers would first need to upload their photos on the official IPL website within 24 hours.

The fine print apparently said, ''The IPL shall be entitled to use and reproduce, free of charge, worldwide and without limit in any time and all photographs/images captured by the accredited party at any group ...'' This basically meant that no one would be able to get a glimpse of the events unless the IPL decided to make the images available to them, presumably for a fee.

The ground for the controversy was set.

First, the Sports Journalists Federation of India and the Editors Guild of India wrote to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sharad Pawar, expressing their alarm and concerns and, of course, calling IPL's claims ridiculous.

The next dimension was added when the international media joined the fray. Agence France-Press (AFP) announced that it could not cover the tournament, and Reuters joined in saying it was considering a boycott.

The second week of April had the media going gaga printing and broadcasting news about the impending "total blackout" that was awaiting the IPL. The Press Trust of India too announced its decision to boycott IPL unless the restrictive clauses on media that were part of the accreditation guidelines were changed.

For its part, the IPL made some conciliatory modifications to the initial guidelines, but the question of intellectual property rights on the photographs remained unaddressed. The controversy continued. Moreover, the original guideline stipulation that prohibited syndication of such photographs remained in place, though it allowed a ridiculously small number of photographs, six per match actually, to be used for a newspaper's website.

Two days later, Lalit Modi, chairman and commissioner of the IPL met representatives of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), and thereafter claimed to The Hindu newspaper that the problems relating to the contentious terms and conditions of the media guidelines may have been resolved.

Speaking to The Hindu on 13 April, Modi said, ''I have dropped the last clause, allowed the websites of the newspapers to upload a reasonable number of pictures, instead of six, and clarified certain clauses to them. We have agreed in principle on all matters.''

In fact, the clause at the root of the controversy, which read, ''IPL may request publications to provide for use and reproduction, free of charge, worldwide and without limit in time any photographs/images captured by the Accredited Party at any Ground and the Accredited Party shall make the same available to IPL,'' was dropped in toto.

Reports in the media indicated that the Press Trust of India would be allowed to supply pictures to general websites, though the ones dedicated to cricket would be excluded from the syndication.

With the situation resolved, it was time for business as usual. The DLF Indian Premier League kicked off, so should we say bowled in, on 18 April. However, international agencies such as AFP and Reuters continue to boycott the events.

Case 2: Restaurant

In August 2006, a small, insignificant suburb of Mumbai had an equally insignificant event happening.

A new restaurant was to open its doors to the public in a sparsely populated (by Indian standards) suburb of Mumbai. Located a few hundred metres off the Mumbai–Pune highway, it would have been, and continued to be for the rest of its existence, a small, neighbourhood business.

Except for one thing – the phenomenal national and international media coverage it got for itself within a short span of a week.

Hitler's Cross would not be out of place if cited as a case study in controversy marketing. Despite its differentiated menu, the brand recall of the restaurant would have been limited to its geographical proximity, except for the fact that the owners / management decided to make a restaurant themed after one of the most hated men in history.

The restaurant's interiors were decorated in the Nazi Party's red, white and black, and an enormous portrait of Hitler was the first thing that struck visitors as soon as they entered the door. Later, the manager of Hitlers' Cross would tell The Times of India, "We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people's minds ...'' Different, yes, but which sane person would model their business after a man responsible for an entire World War, and the death of millions of Jews?

Unless, of course, that was the plan. Or, an honest mistake. A hallmark of controversy marketing – the mistake, and the plan must necessarily be indistinguishable.

Considering that Holocaust awareness in India is not all that limited, the restaurant owner seemed to have been asking for trouble. The restaurant's branding angered the minority Jew community in India, which turned out in strength to crusade against the restaurant, which was all very well covered by the press.

Press coverage, of course, is the key to controversy marketing. Even as the restaurant owner, Punit Sablok, went on record saying that his establishment was not promoting Hitler, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation Jonathan Solomon, was equally vocal about the ''severe lack of awareness of the agony of millions of Jews caused by one man,'' promising to work ''to stop his deification''.

Between 18 August and 24 August, the owner removed Hitler's name and the Nazi theme from his restaurant's billboards and menu while clarifying to the press that he'd chosen the name in all innocence, and was not looking to create the hullabaloo it did. The Indian Jewish Federation too reacted positively to the re-branding, and backed down, having achieved its victory. On 30 August, the restaurant finally got its present name, Cross Café.

Cut to today. Cross Café is doing well, and is even a well-known landmark in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai. All said and done, except for the initial controversy around its first theme, there is absolutely nothing that would upset anyone in the world going to this restaurant.

Which again, is a characteristic feature of controversy marketing – business as usual, once the controversy passes. Even today, everyone knows exactly where Kharghar is on the map, and within Kharghar, where Cross Café is. That is more than can be said for the hundred-odd other restaurants that have since come and gone in the city.

In all fairness, the management's innocence, inexperience, or not knowing better created an unpalatable situation, which they thankfully managed to extricate themselves from, and their version of the story is believable. But if you were a conspiracy theorist, you could well make a story of the episode as a well-planned and executed marketing strategy, which would be nothing short of brilliant.

In the end
Controversy marketing works on a few key characteristics – it is short term, usually a week or 10 days. It involved a so-called 'battle', followed by diplomatic / conciliatory manoeuvres, followed by 'victory' declarations, and then of course, business as usual, but with significantly higher eyeballs, viewers, or customers, as the case may be, than would have happened otherwise.

Of course, not everyone knows how to drive the car downhill without brakes. No wonder that, in the first case, the mighty IPL managed to get on the wrong side of the international news agencies, while in the second, the controversy came to its logical end: ashes to ashes.

Which was a stage-managed campaign, and which was a genuine controversy that was well managed, I leave for you to decide. But make no mistake, there will be more, from where these came from.