<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/46850234.cms" /> 
 Kolkata is not called the City of Joy for nothing, and the <keyword id="587833" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="IPL-opening-ceremony">IPL opening ceremony</keyword> that took place last night was a testament of this. 
 
Studded with the who’s who of Indian cricket and elite social circles, the event started a bit late, thanks to the generous water pour in the evening. However, even though the arrangements suffered because of the rain, but it couldn’t dampen performers’ and spectators’ spirit. 
 
Held at the Salt Lake stadium in the city, the event begun with a performance by music composer Pritam. He presented Rabindra Sangeet rendition of Anand Loke. The flavour of Kolkata was seen in the song, with ladies clad in traditional white and red sarees performing what looked like a traditional dance. 
 
The night was hosted by actor Saif Ali Khan, who shares a deep connection with the sport as his late father and grandfather have represented the country in the past. Clad in a plain white Kurta Payjama and a blue Nehru jacket, the actor looked dapper as he called on stage the team captains. 
 
As Saif Ali Khan asked the audience to give a cheer for their favourite cricketer, it didn’t come as a surprise when the loudest cheer came for Gautam Gambhir, captain of the home team Kolkata Knight Riders and the defending champion of the IPL trophy. Through out the ceremony, Saif was seen fumbling, much different from when he used to host award shows with Shah Rukh Khan. The tension of hosting a live show could not be withheld by the Humshakals actor, and a few big mistakes like calling up Shikhar Dhawan at Rohit Sharma’s entry proved to be some irritating moments. 
 
The performance by actor Shahid Kapoor, one of the finest dancers in the industry, looked promising to kick-start the event, as he interacted well with the fans all through his performance. He managed to give an enjoyable act even after a shaky performance, once because of his bike ramming into a platform and once when he almost slipped on the stage. 
 
Next in line was a stunning performance by Anushka Sharma, as she grooved to some of her famous songs. As was expected, the camera zoomed to Virat Kohli, Anushka’s love interest and the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore. For once, he shied away but was later seen enjoying his lady love’s moves. 
 
Following her performance, came the multitalented Farhan Akhtar with his band, and gave the night the much-needed boost. He performed on songs from his movies, and his band complemented him well enough even though he sounded out of breath at times, making way for what would be remembered as the performance of the day. 
 
Towards the end was the sizzling performance given by Bollywood’s very own Greek God Hrithik Roshan, who didn’t only groove to some of his best dance numbers but also electrified the whole night, thus giving the not-so-perfect evening a perfect ending. 
 
Later, all the performers thanked the audience for bearing up with the messy weather and making it an evening to remember. 
 
The first match of the tournament would be played today at 8 PM in Kolkata, between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians. 
 
Picture by Indiatimes

IPL 8 Opening: Rain hampers the ceremony, not the spirit

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/44960254.cms" /> The Indian Super League (<keyword id="244888" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Isl">ISL</keyword>), which is touted to be a game changer for <keyword id="64" type="SPORT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Football">football</keyword>, has had quite a successful opening. The league scored a record reach of 74.7 million on its first day and the cumulative reach for the first week was a whopping 170.6 million. These reach figures are the second highest for any sports league, after the twenty-twenty cricket league, <keyword id="6354312" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="IPL">IPL</keyword>. 
 Now these numbers speak volumes about the encouraging response the league has got from the viewers. Interestingly, <keyword id="6354632" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Social-media">social media</keyword> has played a key role in creating buzz around the league. Zafar Rais, CEO of MindShift Interactive says, “The digital era has put forward a platform for every property to reach a wider audience with an advantage of instant feedback. Indian Super League has strategically focused its campaign via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, garnering just about 70,000 mentions of the ISL on social media (majority of them on Twitter) in the last 15 days.” 
 
Social Media Presence Of ISL 
The league has quite a strong presence on key social media platforms including Facebook, twitter, youtube besides others. The leagues’ total fan likes on Facebook were a whopping 1,078,081. Twitter followers were 54,284 and YouTube had 2,298,298 views and 3,772 subscribers (As of October 26, 2014). Compared to the 20-20 cricket league IPL, these numbers look miniscule, yet they are quite encouraging, considering this being the first year of the league. Moreover, these numbers are much ahead of India’s domestic football league, the I-League. 
 
Other than this, there are Facebook &amp; Twitter accounts of the 8 teams that are part of the Indian Super League, namely – Mumbai City FC, Atletico De Kolkata, Delhi Dynamos, Kerala Blasters, Chennaiyin FC, FC Goa, FC Pune and Northeast United FC. 
 
The Buzz Created So Far 
There have been just about 70,000 mentions of the ISL on social media (majority of them on Twitter) in the last 15 days. The league’s follower count on Twitter is 1/29th of the fans of the EPL (English Premier League), and 1/14th of the fans of the IPL (Indian Premier League). So, it hasn’t really kicked off in India on the social media front as it would have expected. 
 
#LetsFootball is the most popular hashtag that is trending around the league. With the general sentiment around the league being positive, males between the age group of 21-30 are the most who have used this hashtag. In terms of popularity, the hashtag is discussed more on Twitter than Facebook (source: Mindshift Interactive report). It is also more popular than the I-League, the traditional top division football league of India. 
 
Stats around the hashtag #LetsFootball 
Now, let us just look at some interesting statistics around the hashtag #LetsFootball. 
● According to the Mindshift Interactive report, there were about 113,178 tweets, 1.06 billion impressions and 68,483 mentions of the hashtag on the day of ISL launch. 
● These mentions of the hashtag have dropped considerably post launch day. 
● On the opening day of the league, 5 of the 7 trending topics in India were related to ISL. These are: #LetsFootball, #IndianSuperLeague, #atleticodekolkata, #MumbaiCityFC and Luis Garcia. 
● The Indian Super League is talked about in 50+ countries, including the likes of USA, UK, Indonesia and Brazil. 
 
Celebrity Promotions On Twitter 
 
The celebrity glitz has also helped the ISL generate buzz on social media platforms. Cricketers and film personalities like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Salman Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and John Abraham co-own franchises in the ISL. These celebrities and a few others have added to the ISL social media zing by mentioning it in their tweets. During October 7th-14, 2014, the ISL got 1100 twitter mentions by Priyanka Chopra, 900 mentions by Sachin Tendulkar, 840 mentions by Hrithik Roshan, 635 mentions by Sourav Ganguly, 440 mentions by Ranbir Kapoor, 400 mentions by Abhishek Bachchan and 130 mentions by John Abraham. 
 
Looking at these numbers, one can say that social media has helped create a good initial buzz for the league. Though there is a need for a lot more to be done, not just this season but in the forthcoming seasons, to take the ISL to the heights of other popular leagues like the IPL and EPL.

The Social Media Push For ISL

<ul><li>The <keyword id="36208" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="festive-season" source="Orion">festive season</keyword> has always been important to brands, especially to e-commerce players who line up big bumper discounts, look for more retail brands to partner and ramp up their product offerings.</li><li>This festive season, e-commerce platforms are focusing on bringing more personalisation and curation to customers shopping online through greater tech and marketing integration.</li><li>More and more e-commerce platforms are also exploring social commerce, turning their apps into super apps by bringing content, products and trends under one roof for consumers to watch and shop at once.</li><li>With increasing internet penetration, e-commerce players are expecting new growth from Tier II, III and beyond this festive, which will cumulatively contribute to $150 billion of e-commerce as per RedSeer Consulting’s report.</li><li>We speak to India’s leading e-commerce players to find out more about their festive plans and revival expectations.</li></ul>The year 2020 accelerated e-commerce industry, perhaps by a decade, revolutionising the way brands operate, run, and grow their businesses, as well as how consumers choose to shop and pay. In the initial months of the lockdown, businesses witnessed a clear shift in consumer behaviour. Historically offline shoppers also came online due to convenience and safety. Consumers are still hesitant to return to in-store shopping completely and audiences from Tier II and Tier III are also preferring to shop online. The pandemic has evidently caused an inflection point for e-commerce in the country. With the second-largest internet user base, India has emerged as one of the most prominent markets globally. Around 480 million people in India have access to the internet out of which 90 million are online shoppers, according to estimates from management consultancy RedSeer. Shoppers from India’s small towns and cities will cumulatively contribute to $150 billion of e-commerce GMV in the coming decade, until 2030, revealed RedSeer. <div type="image" title="redseer - ecomm report" msid="85901903" hostid="261"></div> After spending a glum year and a half, consumers are excited to celebrate the festive season with upcoming shopping sales for Diwali, Dussehra and Christmas. IPL and ICC T-20 World Cup will further improve consumer sentiment this year. According to a survey conducted by The Trade Desk and YouGov, 82% of consumers shopped online at least once a month in the past six months, and nearly one in four made online purchases several times a week or more often. Titled ‘<a href="https://pages.thetradedesk.com/rs/527-INM-364/images/TheFestiveSeasonPulse2021.pdf">The Festive Season Pulse 2021</a>,’ it further said that 91% of Indian consumers are planning a purchase during the upcoming festive season and six in 10 are interested in learning about new brands during festive season sales. To leverage this uptick in consumer sentiment, the e-commerce category is all set to begin its festive marketing blitz and is preparing to line up big discounts for the season in a few weeks. For this 30-day period leading up to the festive season, leading fashion e-commerce platform <keyword id="319719" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="myntra" source="Orion">Myntra</keyword> has planned ‘Big Fashion Festival,’ which will be followed up with Myntra Diwali Sale, with a focus on ethnic wear. It will also be focusing on emerging categories like Beauty and Personal care, kidswear and categories such as innerwear and essentials which have experienced tailwinds post-Covid. Myntra’s Chief Business Officer, Ayyappan Rajagopal said, “We are expecting this festive season to be bigger than last year with more customers using online channels to make their purchases. Demand usually peaks in the 30 days leading to Diwali and we expect this year to be no different. In fact, the demand in the 2 months leading to the festive season is expected to be far more than last time (because people have learnt with time to adapt to a pandemic world). We expect high demand from across geographies and markets - metros, Tier 1, Tier 2, T3 cities and beyond. To cater to that, we have built the right ethnic wear, beauty, and home selection, and have partnered with brands on best deals. Hence, to leverage this demand and provide best value to our customers, we are organizing Big Fashion Festival and Myntra Diwali Sale to make this season a resounding success.” Right on the heels of the festive season, Myntra ramped up its marketing game by onboarding Hrithik Roshan, Vijay Deverakonda and Dulquer Salmaan as its newest brand ambassadors, alongside the existing celebrity ambassadors Kiara Advani, and Samantha Akkineni. Now, it is hoping to double its customer base and cater to Gen-Z shoppers with its high-decibel marketing. “With the optimism coming from recovery from Covid and revival in shopping sentiments along with the habitualisation of digital foray across all customer segments, we see a lot of new customers shopping during this festive season. We have also seen trends in Metro/T1 markets where Myntra has been traditionally strong, pointing towards such a revival. With a positive overall sentiment, we will be looking at doubling our customer base during this period. There will also be an added focus towards expanding our footprint in southern markets, deeper penetration into Tier 2 / 3 towns and exploring customer addition through emerging categories like Kids wear, Inner wear, fashion accessories, Beauty and persona care, etc. The greatest focus will be on Gen-Z cohort of shoppers,” shared Rajagopal. E-commerce platforms are also focusing on bringing more personalisation and curation to customers shopping online through greater tech and marketing integration. More and more e-retailers are exploring social commerce, turning their apps into super apps by bringing content, products and trends under one roof for consumers to watch and shop at once. D2C fashion platform Bewakoof.com that recently raised Rs 60 crore in an investment round led by InvestCorp, IvyCap and Spring Marketing Capital, is expecting to Rs 120 crore in brand sales this quarter. It recently rolled out celebrity-led digital campaigns with Rajkummar Rao, Sanya Malhotra and Farhan Akhtar. It plans to further build its market presence by signing more A-list celebrities to its roster and launch a 360-degree campaign by October. On the technology side, the company intends to launch a gamification-led loyalty program as it upgrades its Bewakoof Tribe with new and exclusive launches for the club members. Sharing the platform’s festive plans further, Prabhkiran Singh, Founder CEO, Bewakoof.com said, “Post pandemic, we saw a strong recovery and growth in certain categories like casual wear and leisurewear because of customers staying at home and with the pandemic slowing down, we expect a strong recovery in categories like ethnic wear, bags, accessories, etc in the festive season ahead. We’re also looking to capitalise on winter wear more this year than usual with winter around the corner and have put in investments accordingly. We expect our brand sales to be Rs 120 crore for the festive quarter.” For Bewakoof, the northern and western markets see the highest demand, followed by West Bengal and Assam because of Durga Puja. Currently, over 6 million customers visit Bewakoof.com every month. Singh told us that the festive season serves as a crucial window in the year for new customer acquisition and bringing back customers that haven’t shopped again for a while. The platform is also planning on increasing its marketing spends this festive. “For this year, 15% of our total marketing budget will be spent for the upcoming festive season.” We’re in the process of rebranding Bewakoof in the next 1-2 months and we’ll have a new look, logo, tagline along with a new set of celebrities that will endorse Bewakoof so we’re excited to roll this out and create buzz around it along with backing it up with top-funnel marketing investments. We plan to go heavy on top-funnel marketing investments starting October,” said Singh. E-retail platform OLX has upped its UI to woo its customers, digitising the entire process of online retailing, including verification of all its premium items. OLX Autos launched a verified inventory of cars with a new interface, which provides a detailed history of the car right from the ownership period all the way up to the service history of the car, and access to a host of financing options and after-sales products like insurance and warranty. As a result, OLX has witnessed a surge in demand for pre-owned cars. Sapna Arora, CMO, OLX India said, “Green shoots are already visible in the used car retail segment. The demand for pre-owned cars has been 25% higher than the pre-Covid levels while there has been an 82% plus growth in demand for pre-owned smartphones. Our goods category has also witnessed a strong rebound, as demand and supply have gone up by an average of 68% and 25%, respectively, compared to pre-Covid levels. The upcoming festival season is important for us as we expect the gap to be narrowing down between pre and post-Covid levels. There has been a strong uptake of e-commerce across regions, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, with consumers there making the greatest shift to online shopping. We will continue to focus on the pre-owned auto segment and are expecting to surpass the demand this festive season.” At an industry level, Arora told us that e-commerce players are leveraging on hyper-personalisation to create individualised experiences on the platform and AI-powered chatbots are being implemented by the online retailers to bring customers close to an offline retail experience with a high engagement rate. Sharing OLX’s plan, Arora added, “This festive season we plan to use innovative solutions via relevant messaging at different levels of the retail journey. Our consumer base is growing organically. During this year’s lockdown, a lot of people moved online and we saw growth, about 30% more daily active users (DAUs) from our previous pre-Covid peak. In the festive season, our huge inventories across segments will contribute to increasing the DAU’s on the platform.” As per Nielsen India’s E-commerce Consumer Panel (E-Analytics Solution), there was a double-digit increase in average spend of online shoppers for electronics and accessories (39%), mobile and accessories (12%), and fashion, including apparel, footwear, and accessories (10%) after the pandemic. Appliances (e.g.TV, WM, refrigerators, etc.) also saw notable shopper spending increase at 9%. E-commerce giant Amazon is also ramping up its product range for the festive season. “Together with thousands of small &amp; medium business and brand partners, we continue to offer our customers the widest selection, convenience, and fast delivery. We are humbled by how millions of Indian customers have made us a part of their daily lives. Also, customers continue to believe that online shopping is the safest way to shop which has been reflecting in all the recent events of Amazon like Prime Day 2021, Great Freedom Festival, Rakhi Store, Onam store and so on. This festive season is not a normal one for reasons we all know and our success metric would be focused on how we can make our sellers successful. Customers can look forward to shopping from a wide selection of products across categories like Home &amp; Kitchen, Fashion &amp; Beauty, Appliances and Smartphones, Grocery essentials and more from the comfort and safety of their homes," said an Amazon India spokesperson. This growth trajectory of e-commerce platforms in India testifies how customers are increasingly recognising the importance of comfort shopping within closed doors, and after seeing their businesses take a plunge in the first three months of the lockdown, more and more sellers are also coming online.

This festive season, e-commerce platforms are betting big on Tier II and III markets, which are likely to contribute $150 million to e-commerce growth this year

You Searched For "Hrithik Roshan IPL" and got 3 results

IPL 8 Opening: Rain hampers the ceremony, not the spirit

Nandini Sharma

The Social Media Push For ISL

BI India Bureau

This festive season, e-commerce platforms are betting big on Tier II and III markets, which are likely to contribute $150 million to e-commerce growth this year

Karuna Sharma