Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh - 8 ideas for your business!

How is your business gearing up for the greatest cricketing event of the world when it kicks off in Dhaka on February 17^th? As the cricket lovers from all around the world will either get glued to their TVs, computers and phones to get latest updates from the grounds of the sub-continent and while many of them will arrive in person to root for their favourite teams – how as a Bangladeshi business, you are preparing yourself not only to cash in on the opportunity but also to play some role whatsoever in upholding the local norms, cultures and traditions to the world media, to visitors in Bangladesh and to viewers abroad?

Might be a good idea to steer clear of the controversies and chaos ahead of the big event next month. Already quite a lot of chaos has been reported in relation to clashes for tickets, regarding the event managers of the opening ceremony and their involving Indian celebrities and the more serious concerns about adequate accommodation facilities for the foreign visitors. We can’t talk about all these in this post and neither we are in any position to provide solutions for them. Rather lets stay focused on opportunities. Not in any particular order or preference, some thoughts are as following –

1. Reengineer, rename and revamp your menu

If you are in the business of food, takeaways, fast-food or restaurants, how about renaming some key popular dishes in your menu according to the cricketing themes, teams or even players? We already have seen our love for opponent-named dish items when we had beaten Australia and New Zealand in form of kangaroo curry and kiwi bhorta special! So be innovative and go ahead rename your cocktails as ‘Captain Courageous-Shakib Special’, burgers as ‘Tornado Tamim’ or spicy items as ‘Mashrafee Masala’. Possibilities are endless.

2. Eat, sip and cheer

Again this goes out to those in food businesses, make sure you have TV screens, large and small, installed and supported by UPS to show matches as they are being played. Quite a great opportunity to lock in your customers to enjoy the match in your restaurants with specially discounted food prices for the duration of the match may be, or for an innings only or even for the first fifteen overs only!

3. A win for Bangladesh, a win for the food-lovers, shoppers and mobile users

Don’t wait for the politicians and governments to flood our players with accolades and awards incase we steal some thunder during this world cup, you can do it yourself from your business perspective, you can do it early on and by rewarding not the players but their numerous supporters and fan from around the country. Announce early on through your websites, social media pages, or put up a banner and print in your menus that you will offer free meals or free drinks all throughout the following day of a historic home win! This might be your gesture to show gratitude to Tamims and Shakibs incase they bring some much needed glory for the nation form the cricket war fields.

In the same tune, if you are a retailer, the world cup offers you a great external hook to offer discounts for a day, week or based on a match by match basis to your customers. Its just a matter of how you show your brand to be completely drenched in the world cup rain and how passionately you want to share this spirit with your customers.

Finally, the mobile phone companies can always offer their subscribers free minutes or free SMSes incase Bangladesh wins, so that the good news can be shared faster and wider among friends and families at home and abroad.

4. Freebies with every wicket, freebies with every six

Again this idea might work on a match by match basis and can be limited to the day of the match only. You can announce beforehand that every time Bangladesh is playing a match, every time an opponent wicket falls or everytime a Bangladeshi batsman scores a six, you offer a free coke to all who are present in your restaurant at that moment.

5. The glorious cricketing moments in DVD

We’ve talked about this before in an earlier post. No occasion will be as great as this to finally showcase in the form of a DVD/CD the historic winning moments of Bangladeshi cricket and make them available for purchase or as prize items competitions in your points of sales, business premises.

6. Patriotic marketing and patriotism merchandising

A great occasion yet again to print out t-shirts, mugs, key-rings, wrist-bands, stickers, photoframes etc. with the Bengal tigers on it. Even better that if you are a charity or as part of your corporate generosity towards the development of the sport in Bangladesh, you can decide to donate either the full or a certain percentage of sales to skills searching, developing initiatives for Bangladesh cricket.

7. Tourism and sightseeing – if a festival doesn’t exist – invent it and have fun!

There is no doubt that travel agencies and the tourism board of Bangladesh are gearing up to woo the foreign sports tourists to various scenic locations of Bangladesh. Many among this group might actually arrive in the sub-continent with a view to not only enjoy great games of cricket but also to make a touristic discovery of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the same breathe, which is certainly a good idea. It might not be the best idea to compare tourist attractions of Bangladesh with other countries as we have what we have and we can change things overnights, merely can try to improve them over time. Something we can certainly do is to innovate rituals or activities at or surrounding our tourist locations and relate them to cricket in such a way that even after the world cup finishes, we can continue with the trend and festivities years after years.

For example, how about a beach cricket tournament in Cox’s Bazar? The format of the game, rules, prizes etc. might require a whole different post but the key idea here is to innovate something unique which doesn’t exist as a tourist attraction related to cricket anywhere in the world- or certainly not in the Indian sub-continent. We have the longest unbroken sea beach in the whole world stretching 120 kilometres. A fun to watch 20-20 cricket match at every 5 kilometer of the stretch over a period of 2-3 days might draw enough participants and tourists alike to visit each location for the fun of it, and thus discover the unique beauties of the coastal Bangladesh in a different sporting way.

8. The cricket bat of best wishes

Although a bit late for this may or I am not entirely aware if anything similar have already taken place- but it would be nice if a massive cricket bat could have travelled to all district towns of Bangladesh where the fans could have signed in their support for the home team. If travelling to each corner of the country sounds improbable within a month then atleast visiting the divisional headquarters would be nice. In the end of the day, the world cup in Bangladesh will be more about the fans and lovers of cricket than about the players themselves. So the common public have every right to be a part of this festivity from outside the stadiums too.

So just some random thoughts here, let me know how you are preparing for the fun with the bat and ball next month.

Happy birthday dear customer!

No wonder we have become a ‘like’ generation whereby we limit our interactions and expressions to our friends and families through Facebook’s ‘like’ buttons only. Too busy we are sometimes even to post a comment, or a message in the inbox, let alone picking up the phone and chatting for nothing for a while. That is how some friendship has become, while the number of 'friends' in your Facebook list keeps growing, what an irony. So I knew that way that my friend Harun is busy with his life and work in Finland and we never communicated for more than a couple of years now. Everybody is busy. So when he finally decided to show up (on Facebook that is) with a wish on my birthday, all this bitter and void feeling of ‘not being in touch’ disappeared. I was wondering if its true to some extent that people in general are more sensitive, or vulnerable or receptive to attention, or atleast they expect to be remembered on their birthdays. I don’t know if its true for all ages or all gender or for all consumer in all countries or not, may be it’s a human thing that exists sub-consciously even if we consciously deny it. What do you think about it?


In the same note if you notice that your date of birth is one of the most sensitive information companies can collect while you subscribe to their products or services. How many of those companies actually do something with that piece of very personal and unique information of yours when the day actually arrives? Other than letting the data lie dormant in the company’s member database, wouldn’t it be nice if the company could do something to make your day more special to you? Say for example, you get a text from your mobile operator on your birthday exactly when the clock strikes 12 AM saying, “Happy Birthday Asif, you are given 100 taka of free talk time to enjoy on your special day as a gift from Grameen Phone and its staff. Enjoy!’. How would you feel if the brands you love return the same on a day which is very special to you? Similarly the restaurants you visit, the food malls you go to, if at any time they have collected your date of birth, they have all the more reasons to try to connect to you on a personal basis, so that they can send you some gifts in the form of freebies, vouchers to spend or any special discounts for you only valid for that day. The companies should remember however that they should not take this day as another opportunity to push sell or promote a new product, rather the focus should be more on celebrating the customer, his/her loyalty to the brand all through out. One might argue that what happens if birthdays of 10000 customers fall on one day? Or you might argue that this is extra cost for the company in terms of customer service. In that case, its always a good idea may be to either randomise this birthday special treatment within a limit of customers which don’t dent the company’s budgets. But the fact is, its better to communicate to atleast some chosen customers on their birthdays rather than not communicating to anyone at all.


It does not require any market research to predict that consumptions tend to be higher right after monthly pay days. Similarly it’s a general assumption that consumers as a community might be more prone to buying your product during community events such as Eid, Puja, National festivals etc. but if you intend to get connected to users on a more individual level, its worthwhile to plan your activities surrounding their birthdays. Every customer feels like a king for atleast that one day, and your brand can certainly make an impression by showing up with a nice little gift of thanks or appreciation. And finally for those Bangladeshi consumers who are celebrating their birthday today and reading this post, wishing you a very happy birthday and happy consumer experience with Bangladeshi brands!

With love from St. Valentine

Dear Lovesumers in Bangladesh,

Hope you are all set to celebrate the global day of love. The more you share it, the more it grows, the more I become richer. Call it globalisation, call it cultural invasion, call it simple expression of love...Bangladesh is just one of the markets where I have successfully managed to own the day and date by branding it to be mine.

Although moral polices and CCTV parents, neighbours and big brothers are a threat to the spreading of love on this day and beyond, I really don't see any problem if some money is made in the process of expressing, sharing and preaching love with your beloved ones especially today. Other than making sure that some flowers are sold today, ensuring that restaurants do good business on this date, pushing up the sales of greeting cards and related merchandize, more importantly I make sure that you don't fall short of saying 'I love you'. There was a time when I wanted you to say it to your lover only, but now I would like you to say this magic three words to your parents, siblings, friends too. That way love will go in different directions, and sales related to my stuff will go only in one direction - up. There is no denying of the fact that festival marketing is nothing new and many non-sales events are also arranged around university campuses like debates on love-before-marriage or love-after-marriage etc. I appreciate all this you do to celebrate the spirit of pure love.

May I also take this opportunity to remind you that this very month also hosts two of your own festivals about which I am very curious about. One is the first day of spring, pahela falgun as you say, and the other is the 21 February, Shaheed Dibosh, also celebrated as the International Mother Language day, supposed to be celebrated all around the world...but I have my doubts. Just wondering if you ever thought of any things special or global related to festivals or days which are truly yours. Have you ever thought if anything exists in these festivals which you can claim to be so truly unique and so viral that you can export this across your borders too? Can you brand the principles of 21 February, the day we celebrate what we speak, how we speak...our language...so that foreigners all around the world also find a good enough reason to have fun on this day? Can you make businesses in Jordan showcase and sell merchandize related to Arabic alphabets, literature, calligraphy, language on this day so that Arabs rejoice the fact that their mother-tongue is Arabic? You atleast need language to express love...I have no problem accepting that from a business sense, your 21 February holds more appeal than the day I own..14 February. Also, I am told that you are the only nation that has laid down supreme sacrifices for your language, I doubt how many outside your small borders know this fact. May be your brand ambassadors and businesses have a responsibility to uphold your heritage. I argue that there is no harm if they make some money out of the process, as long as they are doing it in the spirit of 'accessorizing Bangladeshi patriotism'.

I tell you what...don't listen to what Imam Shaheb is saying, there is nothing Christian about me anymore...I am everybody's. Last time I went to Malaysia and Indonesia during this time of the year and found out that I am everywhere there...from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta...I could see signs of my love and colors of my spirit..red everywhere. I don't think their Muslim-ness was so weak that it would be challenged by this one day. Actually they were doing it strictly from a business sales and social festival perspective, rather than any religious one. Businesses were happy, so were the lovers of Indonesia. So you better not worry. But just imagine, your 21 February doesn't carry any background which can be solely tagged to any religion or any controversy. So may be if you put your heads together, you can make non-Bangla speakers around the world celebrate this day, exchange expressions (in writing, saying..through languages) of gratitude, love, thanks etc. So go ahead, brand the day, own the day, accessorize the day. Globalization is supposed to be from your end too, but you need to target the globe for that. Love.

St. Valentine.