Birmingham: The idea to partner with International Cricket Council (ICC) as the official sponsor of the 12th Cricket World Cup 2019 has been a phenomenal decision, a top executive of Internet names and registrations management major GoDaddy Inc has said.
The web-hosting provider has on-ground presence that includes the perimeter of the ground, side-screen and LEDs at the stadiums under the partnership.
According to Nikhil Arora, Managing Director and Vice-President, GoDaddy India, cricket is a favourite sport which is viewed in every nook and corner of the country.
“Sports as a platform has been a great avenue for us to connect with the masses. The presence of brand visibility to 750 million fans in India and beyond at the ICC World Cup has been a great experience so far,” Arora told IANS.
“In smaller towns, everyone is watching cricket on smartphones. Our organic reach has been phenomenal, especially the India-Pakistan game that happened to be a great experience for us,” Arora added.
This is the company’s first sponsorship deal with the global sports event. “It’s one of the largest for us. We have done sponsorship deals before with American auto-car racing company Nascar and other deals in badminton, table tennis and soccer. But the ICC one is first of its scale.
“Two-thirds of the world, including India, watch cricket and through this collaboration, we are receiving a huge visibility,” Arora noted.
GoDaddy, which started its operations in India in 2012, offers an integrated suite of products for small business owners and entrepreneurs that range from domain names, hosting, website building, email marketing, security and e-commerce.
“Our goal is to give the tools and services and use sports more as a marketing and connectivity tool while we keep enabling sports platforms,” said the executive. GoDaddy has signed MS Dhoni who portrays a supreme mentor and guide as the “Bijness Bhai” (business mentor) for the small and medium businesses in the country.
The company’s new Internet solution for small business owners and entrepreneurs called “Online Starter Bundle”, comes with a choice of domain extensions between .in and co.in for businesses.
“It’s been a good start. What we realise is that people buy domains but they never get activated. The ‘Online Starter Bundle’ solution promises a seamless experience across phone and desktop offers a starter one-page website, along with an email account, enabling people to easily bring their ventures online,” explained Arora.
“Our aim is to help ensure more online adoption among Indian businesses, by giving them easy-to-use and affordable products to turn their dreams into reality online,” he added.