Boost collaborated with World Cricket Championship 3 (WCC3), the world's most downloaded mobile cricket game, to launch the first-ever cricket video game featuring an all-women team.
Objective:
Boost, India's leading malt-based food drink (MFD), has always championed the belief that every kid, irrespective of their limitations, can emerge victorious. To establish and evolve this messaging, the brand has built a strong association with cricket by having legends like Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, and Virat Kohli as brand ambassadors. Stitching triumphant cricketing narratives, Boost highlights how its scientifically proven "3x stamina" formula helps the underdog beat all odds.
However, the brand narrative of "stamina beats all odds" holds less relevance for young girls and ultimately alienates them. This is due to the pre-existing gender inequality related to representation of women's cricket in the country — at all levels. For example:
Boost's objective was to establish that sporting prowess is determined by stamina, not gender, in order to build a salient and stronger brand association amongst young girls. The brand decided to spark a cultural shift around this disparate state of women's cricket in India.
Target Audience:
Boost believes in the pester power of a child (10-16 years old), unlike its competitors in the category who communicate to parents and guardians.
While cricket is the target audiences' favorite sport, they don't necessarily watch cricket on TV. Instead, they engage much more with cricket games on their phones. In fact, 67 percent of all apps downloaded by kids are games. Studies highlight that kids between seven and 14 years of age spend roughly 40 to 50 mins per day mobile gaming. The most preferred genre being sports, followed by action, and adventure.
Creative Strategy:
Male cricketers are idolized by kids (read boys) in India, with one in two kids aspiring to be a cricketer. But the neglected state of women's cricket leads to 40 percent of young girls dropping out of the sport in their teens. This situation prompted Boost to help create women role models who can inspire young girls to become equal stakeholders of the sport in the future.
Women cricketers need to be recognized, not just as "female heroes," but as equals to their male counterparts. Real on-ground cricket formats never allowed a premise where men and women could compete for the same prize, the same honor, and the same star status. Thus, Boost turned to gaming to offer a leveled playing field to make India "play" and realize that "Game Ladke Ladkiyon Ka Nahi, Stamina Ka Hota Hai" (The Game isn't About Boys or Girls, it's About Stamina).
The brand partnered with the world's most downloaded mobile cricket game, World Cricket Championship 3 (WCC3) to launch a first-ever cricket game where women teams could compete against any international men's teams.
Context:
As per studies, women's cricket in India gets 2 percent of the media coverage that men's cricket gets. Moreover, with young audiences preferring gaming over watching real sports, Boost had to find the opportune moment to change the perception of the women's game.
March 4, 2022, was the start of the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup — the only time when women's cricket finds room in headlines, primetime, and social conversations. Tapping the fervor around the World Cup, Boost launched #GameStaminaKa on WCC3 during the tournament, creating a new way to show support and create fandom for women cricketers.
Overall Campaign Execution:
India is a mobile first country, and the second largest market of mobile gamers. The ability to play-on-the-go has been enabled and scaled due to the proliferation of mobile devices. Thus, the brand allocated 100 percent of its media budget to a mobile-first strategy. The execution included:
The brand designed #GameStaminaKa as not just a Women versus Men cricket mode, but also:
Challenged status quos: While WCC3 has over 110 million downloads, its gamer base is more than 70 percent male. #GameStaminaKa disrupted their hierarchical superiority by making the India Women's Team the default team of the app.
Garner community engagement: Created a play-to-earn model within the game, which made gamers constantly challenge each other with their highest scores, and biggest win margins establishing top-of-mind recall for women players.
Create fan stakeholders: The brand inspired gamers to play as the Boost Women's Team by sharing real stories of stamina from women cricketers.
Mobile Execution:
Hijacked WCC3's most played mode: The brand hijacked 'Quick Play' mode, which records the highest number of match sessions in-app and rebranded it into the #GameStaminaKa mode to encourage gamers to play as the Boost Women's Team, challenging the bias that women cannot compete against men.
Created a unique "Stamina Meter": The meter didn't just measure a player's stamina in real-time, but it also gave gamers the special ability to boost their player's stamina. Timely usage of the Stamina Meter gave gamers the edge in crucial moments.
Altered crickets hypermasculine terminologies: Changed terms, like "Batsman" and "Man of the Match" to gender-neutral terms like "Batter" and "Stamina Star of the Match," to promote equity for women in cricket.
Owned the game's visual and sonic branding: The brand incorporated Boost branded jerseys, stamina messaging on boundary boards, and a stamina soundtrack to celebrate every high moment of the game with key lyrics being "never gonna stop."
Rewarded users with in-game currency: Boost incentivized gaming experience by rewarding gamers with "Platinum" (in-game currency) when they completed and won matches. Moreover, this impacted the leaderboard rankings of #GameStaminaKa.
Created quasi ambassadors: Over 50 gaming content creators live-streamed their gameplay sessions, encouraging live conversations for their audience on super chats and social handles. Leading women cricketers, like Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana, also joined in by sharing their "stamina stories" to show young girls that the game is not about gender but determined by stamina.
Strategically integrated in live match broadcasts: Through rich media banners placed during live broadcasts of IPL (the primetime men's cricket tournament), Boost drove downloads of #GameStaminaKa, thus raising share of voice for women's cricket fans in men's cricket spaces.
MFDs in India claim to enhance children's performance in mental and athletic activities. In this category, Boost (which along with Horlicks account for 54 percent of the market share) always championed its scientifically proven "3x Stamina" formula through cricket ambassadors, inspiring kids across the country.
However, for over four decades Boost has only used male protagonists in communications designed for traditional mediums like TV and print. This phenomenon alienates a large chunk of the brand's potential female audiences and fails to effectively engage with the youth who spend most of their time on their phones.
During the campaign, gamers not only played as the Boost Women's Team, but they also turned into new fans of the India Women's Team. Displays of stamina from women cricketers, in-game and at the World Cup, smashed gender stereotypes. The campaign results included:
By the end of the campaign, Boost sparked a conversation on how limiting cricket to just being "a gentleman's game" might actually alienate women, thus limiting the sport itself.
