Market Situation prior to the Cricket SponsorshipOrange was a very small player in a fiercely competitive mobile market with significant competitors such as Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone. It’s value proposition was not well recognised and the phones were not amongst the market leading handsets. Objectives - Leverage maximum value for Orange’s sponsorship of the Australian Cricket team.

- Create very high brand awareness and promote the two key selling points (value proposition and the handset) The media strategy of sponsoring the Cricket effectively excluded all competitors from Cricket during the summer low ratings period. The fact that Orange was also the sponsor of the Australian team made communications even more compelling. The use of cricket as the creative theme completed the process of totally integrating the marketing, media and creative strategies to produce a powerful and seamless communications stream that took Orange awareness virtually level with the market leader.Media executionMitchells negotiated an integrated sponsorship campaign of Cricket on the 9 television network. The sponsorship included Internal Billboards, pull throughs, on-ground signage, sponsorship of the Ninemsn “Baggy GreenEwebsite, the Classic Catches competition and the Allan Border Medal telecast. The negotiated sponsorship achieved an exclusive presence in the “Orange Test SeriesE the ING Cup, and VB One day series.Orange had ownership of the highest profile TV event over the three month summer period November 2001 to February 2002.Creative Executions The team sponsorship and the television sponsorships were totally integrated with the creative executions. Several members of the Australian cricket team promoted the brand offer in the ads while simultaneously creating a familiar and consistent product message.Clever use of the well established and successful creative cricket device in future campaigns, including the two men in the bar watching the Orange ad, the Formula One TVC, and the current Happy Hour and Girl at the Bar TVC’sBuilding the brand and retail messageE8 cents per 30 secEand “a great looking phoneEwere the two key standout messages.

Due to exceptionally high frequency over three continuous months, the phone which was previously just one amongst many phones, gained great credibility and is now referred to as the “cricket phoneE by potential customers!Results Sweeney Sports Report 2001 Recorded highest ever increase in awareness (from 1% to 22%), amongst all brands that have sponsored any sporting telecast.

Client Feedback - Quote from Scott Taylor, Head of Marketing “The Australian test team cricket sponsorship has been an outstanding success for the Orange mobile business and a great example of our how to leverage sponsorship to achieve business objectives.Through a very simple, focused and integrated media campaign we have seen Orange sales lift 35% during the sponsorship period. Total brand awareness increased to 96%, spontaneous brand awareness to 50% and advertising awareness to 72% which was ahead of our much larger competitors.E Mitchell Media led the communications solution which turned Orange’s pre-committed sponsorship of the Australian Cricket Team into a powerful advertising campaign that integrated the sponsorship, the media solution and the creative solution into one seamless communications stream.

The strategy recommended by Mitchells was to sponsor the live and exclusive television coverage of the “Summer of CricketEyielding the following strategic benefits: Take the high ground over the competition by achieving a dominant presence in the most watched programme over summer Disadvantage the competition by negotiating category exclusivity which effectively excluded them from any presence whatsoever within cricket.

Ensure that maximum benefit was gained from Orange’s sponsorship of the Australian Cricket Team. To provide maximum creative synergy Mitchells and the client agency team agreed that cricket should become the theme of the TV ads and that the players be utilised in the television commercials. The creative agency met the challenge by providing a highly memorable and entertaining series of ads that ran through the cricket season of 2001-02.TV commercials were scheduled by Mitchells in a carefully measured sequence that took into account the creative content of each ad to optimise communication effectiveness and brand awareness. Powerful strategic solution Take the high ground in summer sport on television. Disadvantage the competition, by sponsoring the highest rating summer programme. Orange’s TV sponsorship deal gave them category exclusivity in the telecasts effectively blocking the competition and limiting their potential TV exposure. The sponsorship of the Australian team made it even more compelling for Orange (and not a competitor) to be the telecast sponsor.Seamless integration of marketing, media and creative Enhanced the impact and recall of the advertising by creating a totally integrated communications stream on all levels of communication:- PR extensions across all media Evia the team sponsorship- dominance on-ground and in-game Evia perimeter signage, in-ground brand ID and team apparel branding, - on-air - via the 9 network TV test coverage with the full sponsorship package of sponsor ID and bonus activity. - in-commercial Ecreative was able to exploit the high level frequency of exposure generated from the first execution, throughout the following 3 creative phases.Outstanding results.It worked magnificently. Orange achieved almost equal brand awareness with the market leader in less than 6 months with a fraction of their spend, recording the highest ever increase in brand awareness via a sporting sponsorship.

Mitchell Media led the communications solution which turned Orange’s pre-committed sponsorship of the Australian Cricket Team into a powerful advertising campaign that integrated the sponsorship, the media solution and the creative solution into one seamless communications stream.

The strategy recommended by Mitchells was to sponsor the live and exclusive television coverage of the “Summer of CricketEyielding the following strategic benefits: Take the high ground over the competition by achieving a dominant presence in the most watched programme over summer Disadvantage the competition by negotiating category exclusivity which effectively excluded them from any presence whatsoever within cricket.

Ensure that maximum benefit was gained from Orange’s sponsorship of the Australian Cricket Team. To provide maximum creative synergy Mitchells and the client agency team agreed that cricket should become the theme of the TV ads and that the players be utilised in the television commercials. The creative agency met the challenge by providing a highly memorable and entertaining series of ads that ran through the cricket season of 2001-02.TV commercials were scheduled by Mitchells in a carefully measured sequence that took into account the creative content of each ad to optimise communication effectiveness and brand awareness.