Challenge

To attract a younger, diverse audience to a new short format of the century-old sport, without excluding existing fans or diluting the essence of the game. We needed to drive our newly identified audience to start attending cricket matches, to drive sales and secure the future of the sport.

Solution

Through extensive Gen Z research, we learnt that our target audience had low awareness and poor understanding of the game - seeing it as complex and long-winded. There was no emotional connection to the sport.

The behaviour change specialism within our strategy team developed our proposition: remould cricket as a brand akin to an entertainment property, worthy of new audiences’ attention. We needed to propel cricket beyond a sport, elevating The Hundred as a thrilling entertainment spectacle made for today’s fast-paced, excitement-seeking crowd.

We developed a brand platform - “Every.Ball.Counts.” - flipping pre-conceptions of cricket on its head by merging the emotional need for jeopardy identified amongst our audience and the rational reassurance felt from the shorter game format. Its simplicity was designed to be flexible enough to withstand the test of time.