The 2019 ICC World Cup has spawned a chart full of official tracks, sponsor songs and musical marketing ambushes. We play some the tournament’s greatest hits.
Once upon a time rights-owners regularly recorded official songs for major tournament: typically they were cheesy, out of tune player singalongs aimed at team bonding and pre-event promotion.
We may have tried hard to forget them, but remember England and Lonnie Donegan’s ‘World Cup Willie’ in 1966,
and Roberto do Nascimento’s nightmare official ‘Fútbol México 70’ mashup,
Then a tuneful touch of musical semi seriousness crept in around 1990 with Luciano Pavarotti’s exquisite version of Nessun Dorma for the BBC Italia ’90 trailer
coupled with England’s official New Order’s ‘World In Motion’ anthem.
Today, now that the separate silos of culture and entertainment have blended and fused, no sports event is held without a chart full of musical marketing.
Sports ad anthems and sponsor campaign chants are a popular approach to activating rights, building fan unity, creating a sense of belonging through shared choruses, generating exciting and extending reach beyond core sports fans into the wider world of culture and entertainment.
Musical content creation can also drive memorability and higher perceived values.
The trend is so prevalent that England team sponsor Lucozade Sport even re-wrote and re-recorded the classic 1996 ‘Three Lions’ official England anthem by The Lightening Seeds and comedians Badiel and Skinner to create ‘Three Lionesses’ to support England at the 2019 Women’s World Cup (see case study).
But nowhere is the sports marketing musical mayhem more popular than in India as brands leverage the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
Fuelled by cricket fever, a startling cross-section of brands in India have jumped on the musical bandwagon and released musical themed campaigns that stretch from the serious to the ear-bleedingly ridiculous.
Some of the more notable include Puma’s duet with India skipper and global brand ambassador Virat Kohli and rapper Divine called #SockThem (Chakravyuh Mein), American Tourister’s #ChampionsAnthem with Indian women’s team skipper Mithali Raj, a ‘Way-O’ rallying chant from Uber, TikTok and Sony Music’s ambush ‘Jeetega Saara India‘ track, plus F&B company Kamla Pasand’s heartland effort, Oppo’s ‘Billion Beats’ and the hard to describe, bonkers spoof Raj-era dance off number from broadcaster and Indian national team sponsor Star Sports, and their bonkers spoof-Raj-era dance-off.
And that’s all without even mentioning the official ICC Cricket World Cup song ‘Stand By’: an original by breakout artist LORYN in collaboration with influential UK bass band Rudimental.
Click to view our Top 5 Musical Marketing Campaigns From the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup.
2: Tik Tok ‘Jeetega Saara India’
4: American Tourister ‘Champions Anthem’
5: Star Sports ‘Cricket Ka Crown’
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