The world over twitter is rising as the tool which can be tracked to gauge response and feedback and any conversations around one’s brand. Social media monitoring as its called is on the rise. So when Cricinfo – the most popular cricket websites in India rebranded itself as ESPNCricinfo and also revamped the look of the site we decided to check out twitter for what they felt about the revamp.
Here are some of the results:
You can check more feedback here, here and here. One can also check the comments on their own site here. As you can see the feedback is largely negative.
Here is why we feel that besides of the revamp why Cricinfo or rather ESPN which owns cricinfo messed up by rebranding the site:
1) Dilution of Brand – The main reason given by ESPN is that they wanted to cross leverage the brand popularity of both ESPN and cricinfo in markets where one of them is popular i.e. where espn is popular cricinfo would benefit and where cricinfo is popular people would know that now ESPN owns cricinfo. While in theory this premise seems sensible in reality its nothing but a sureshot way to dilute a strong brand that cricinfo is.
2) South Asian Markets – Cricinfo as a brand and as a site is most popular in south asian markets like india, pakistan, sri lanka and bangladesh. It ranks among the top 20 websites in all these countries as per alexa. Now if espn cared about its audience it would have cared enough to continue strengthening the brand rather make unnecessary changes to it.
3) Creating the wrong impression – Adding Espn cant be said to be a bad ploy as ESPN itself is a well known brand but cricinfo was always known as a non affiliated neutral website and many didn’t even know that it was owned by espn. By claiming the ownership it has given the audience the impression that only those tournaments which are shown on espn shall be covered on cricinfo.com! Now thats called giving a wrong impression!
All in all we give a big thumbs down to the rebranding. As far as the revamp is concerned cricinfo seems to have taken a leaf out of blog themes and netvibes with fixed boxed look rather than a clean borderless layout. Not too impressive to us. Whats your take?
come on Rajiv.. ur analysis is very very kiddish.. did not expect this from u.
@SS do share as to what you found kiddish? I feel its my opinion that espn didnt need to rebrand cricinfo.. whats your take and why?
Rajiv dude,
This post is what you call a total bouncer – If u would have ever played gulli cricket , you would know the connotations of a bouncer. This is no way a brand dilution for Cricinfo. People go to cricinfo for the content and reporting standards. With ESPN coming in, it further adds to the brand .
And btw if u get ur facts straight ,hope you would know Cricinfo is with ESPN and not ESPN STAR. Why dont you google and find out how is ESPN star different from ESPN.
@growupboy – I guess you missed my point.. Im stressing on the fact that besides for the ownership change there was no need to add espn to cricinfo name. It doesnt add any value… Cricinfo has a strong enough online brand in anycase.
PS: I guess you need to start using your real identity before asking others to grow up
follow up comment,
I do agree with you the new design isnt impressive enough, but I guess it was more to the fact that we were so used to the previous design.
Rajiv,
There is such bias in that post, I can only wonder why? In the mean time some words of advice : Tis’ better be silent and thought a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
@Yash – Thanks for your advice.. shall keep it in mind. In the meanwhile I would like you to elaborate why you think im biased (and a fool). Its easy to call others a fool its tougher to debate with them and prove they are a fool. Id like you to do the later
Rajiv,
Don’t take it to ur heart boy. Revealing my identity wouldnt make u change ur stand on the post, will it. The issue here is Cricinfo and not me.
ESPN and Cricinfo combined brings together two strong brands and a significant amount of overlap. Don’t you think this is the first step towards getting Cricinfo somekind of TV footprint.
You know something, watblog posts r very good when it comes to plain reporting but it doesnt cut much ice when you start putting up analysis and opinions.
@grow up boy – You are right wont make me change my stand. Id agree with you on the tv footprint but again thats a marginal benefit via rebranding.. To me personally as a user I dont see any significant value add. Infact I get confused as to whether the new website is cricinfo.com or espncricinfo.com.
Im of the firm opinion that online and tv are different games and brands built online shudn’t be tinkered with unless there is more than marginal returns coz of the change. Cricinfo could have been marketed as cricinfo on TV and it would have got the same reception as it would as espncricinfo.
PS: No one takes it to heart here.. We take your feedback really seriously.. Even if you are a nameless creature
As a company, it will be much easier for ESPN to approach a client and provide services whether tv, web or web+tv; as all of these now fall under a single umbrella. There is now, no ambiguity between ESPN’s web and tv verticals; and it’s much simpler to sell to advertisers.
For the general public, I doubt they would even care about the rebranding exercise. All they are worried about is good content.
Yes, the new UI will take some getting used to; but the older one was so Web 1.0
My 2 cents.
Hi Rajiv,
OOooooow, Good one
First : why the question? Is there any truth to the ‘biased’ remark? is there something we should know?
Clarifying the ‘biased fool’
When a site such as yours, takes a week to respond to a major development (I consider Cricinfo revamp to be a major development) and have very tame points to make (like the ones you have) and when all of those points are negative, questions of a biased view should have been expected.
It would be very clear to someone, anyone, who has followed cricket on Cricinfo and ESPN, that your observations you come from position of blissful ignorance or blatant disregard of the facts.
When ESPN bought Cricinfo, what did you think they would do? Leave it as it is and not explore the business and brand synergies that may have been the primary reason for the deal in the first place?
Anyone who has ever the sportscenter, knows that ESPN reports on all cricket events, even those no aired by them or their partner channel. Having access to experts from both companies, will only enhance the experience for both the TV as well the web viewer.
You have chosen to ignore the above facts, or were not aware of the above facts, or just assumed your audience is not aware of these facts. That makes you a ‘fool’.
Behaviour on the web is habitual, any change will often result in vociferous resistance, it happens to facebook too. That does not mean all change is bad.
Since precious few have, let me support Cricinfo, I love the new site. And though I may not be used to it now. I am sure I will get there because usability aspects have been thought out. The search result recommendations for instance.
Haha.. I have no reason to be biased. We are an open blog and the very fact that your comment gets published here is because we believe are readers are smarter than us.. Even if it means that I am called a fool.
With regards to your points made I respect your opinion but still feel espn has messed up.. I stand by my point.. Cricinfo.com is a great brand adding espn to it doenst make it greater twice over infact just causes confusion to the lay man user.
Its correct that ESPN covers cricket but it also covers other sports. So I rest my case here. I still back my view that espn screwed up by changing the brand name. It may not have any effect on their viewership/visitors as the domain remains the same but it will also not increase the visitors unless they market the site of television which if at all can be the only reason for them to do the pointless rebranding.
@ Rajiv,
The post would had been better or useful if it had dwelt on the redesign and not the name change. I think you go to Cricnfo for the content ,and I really doubt you would stop visiting Cricinfo just because they decided to append ESPN to their name. Until and unless you hate ESPN and anything associated with it.
This has been a well planned step with the idea of bringing two strong brands in their respective domains together and create a bigger identity. The question about the returns , this is way too early to comment on.
As I said , the cribs people have is about the new design ( even the tweets u have shared on the post talk the same thing.
Tch ! Tch ! u missed out the bigger byte here, doesnt augur too well for a “prolific blogger”, should i call it oversight or as @ Yash said “Biased”.
@growupboy – I wish i had a reason to be biased – With over 1300 posts on this blog – I wud have made a fortune.. Ive nothing against espn. But i found the name change unnecessary and a complete waste of time by espn given that cricinfo was a brand build over the last decade.
You may call my view oversight as you have a ‘different opinion’ to what I have. But I still stand by what i blogged and Im so glad I did.. There is nothing better than getting engaged readers contradicting your point of view. And we are glad we have readers like you
@growupboy – Part of the reason why we wanted to know your identity.. Not to beat you up but to know who are the smart readers reading us
@Rajiv,
I would still stick to what I said , I would had enjoyed reading more your views on the redesign of the site.
And also at the same time I acknowledge that all of us have the right to have an opinion and to stick to it will all conviction.
On revealing identities, I will rather let it go right now. Will talk to you if we ever meet. I have seen you at many startup events, so quite high chances of that happening. Hope to talk to you soon.
Thanks for considering the inputs ( hope there is no pun intended, I am very bad at catching them )
Cheers Boy !
@growupboy – No Pun intended at all and its a great discussion I thoroughly enjoyed it
Rajiv,
Cant blame you. There are only very few people who’ve done “business” on the web. Rest all were making sites
Looks like ESPN wants to do “Business” by bundling many other services and portals. “Cricinfo.com’ can be a great brand inside a IAMAI conference hall.But if they want to take it to the next level, it needs this ESPN tag and the next level can be attracting “sports lovers” and not just Cricket lovers
Heard of soccernet?. Its ESPNsoccernet now and attracting a lot of additional traffic from “sports lovers” . They have enough such case studies !
The site looks decent and contains very relevant information in the homepage. Check out their other sites and you’ll see a sync in the format.
Hi Rajiv
I have been a regular on Soccernet (before and after they became part of ESPN) and also on ESPN.com. I can tell you this. For all the good things that Cricinfo had, they were nowhere close to the standards of Soccernet or ESPN. They were the best cricket website amongst a host of mediocre and bad sites. Now, with the ESPN association they are ready to become a truly world-class sports website. This is what happened with Soccernet earlier.
Ask anyone who has extensively used cricinfo, and not just to check scores, but also to research stats and read the editorial articles and they will tell you how much the site has improved in the last 2 months or so.
The new sections like Page 2 ( copied from ESPN) were great and so is the new design. In fact ESPN conducted a proper survey when they moved to the new design ( a similar boxy design as you call it) to see if their regular readers liked it and the response was overwhelmingly positive. I am a sports nut and I don’t care for elegance. I care for a format which helps me find everything easily and with fewer clicks. The new Cricinfo site does that really well.
I loved to go to cricinfo.com because I thought it was owned by a small entrepreuner. But yet again the big sharks have come in. Mr. Murdoch and his sticky finger. I will stop using cricinfo for however good it is