India is a complicated country. With people from multiple religions, ethnicities and backgrounds. But one thing unites all of India. And that is the love for cricket. Cricket is a religion here. That's why there's no surprise that the Indian Premier League (IPL) is the biggest cricket platform with a 700 million viewer base. That's bigger than the size of two Americas put together.

The format comprises of 8 teams representing 8 cities that fight for one title. And has garnered the reputation from cricket fans all over the world as the Super Bowl of Cricket, attracting around 300 sponsorships. But the 8 team, 8 city format has remained the same over the last 10 years, alienating most of the country's cricket fans to just watching the IPL, but not actively supporting a team in it.

A TEAM FOR 3992 CITIES

For the first time in the history of sports, we gave 3992 cities that no one cared about - a team to support and cheer for.

And we didn't just choose to sponsor any team, but the only one that could garner support from the entire nation – The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Because RCB’s captain was India’s captain – Virat Kohli, the only man who could unite the 3992 cities.

As IPL hit the stadiums, every other captain only asked his city to cheer, but Virat Kohli called out the rest of the nation to get on his side.

And just like that, RCB’s new found support started pouring in from every corner of the country. We then went a step ahead and turned the fans’ cheers into televised content, giving these teamless fans a platform to demonstrate their support.

Through data we discovered a mammoth problem:

71% of interest in IPL comes from a handful of top cities.

Based on Google trends, we realized that though the rest of India love cricket and the IPL, they don't participate in the conversations. We wanted to change this.

Despite being a young Cookie Cake brand, we decided to take a Leadership stance: to represent the nation - by giving 3992 cities and millions of fans a team to support. Because India is a market of leader brands. Either you lead or you bleed.

We made strategic choices when it came to selecting the team we would sponsor – RCB, whose captain is also the Indian Cricket Team’s captain Virat Kohli – a leader that India already believed in.

While fans from 3992 cities got representation, RCB got millions of supporters and Pillsbury Cookie Cake became a household name across the country.

We introduced our idea of "A Team For 3992 Cities" during the opening weekend of the IPL. The campaign was launched on all the sports channels, and channels airing IPL matches.

We used RCB and India's team captain, Virat Kohli to bring the nation together in one TVC. And once these cheers poured in from every corner of India, we created televised fan content for our new RCB supporters along with our brand.

With YouTube and Facebook sponsored ads, our TVCs was aired 6 times during every game, and will soon hit over a thousand advertising spots by the end of the IPL 2019 campaign.

The spots were regionally distributed, unlike any other brand. While every other giant sponsor spoke about themselves, we focused on building a fanbase in 3992 cities not playing the IPL.

We led our way to victory.

NO 1. Recalled brand amongst cookie cakes

200% Increase in cookie cake awareness

51% Increase in purchase intent

8 Million Cookie Cakes sold in 1 month

While every other sponsor of the IPL focused on its own brand, Pillsbury Cookie Cake was all about the fans.

With a 77% increase in RCB mentions.

Campaign Reach - 25 MILLION

With ‘A Team for 3992 Cities’, we put ‘INDIA’ in the Indian Premier League.

That’s a pretty big bite for a small cookie cake!