Speaking on day four of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Rob Johnson, managing director - audiences, ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board), stated how the board had a problem: younger audiences were not consuming cricket for three reasons - it was too slow, too complicated, and felt too exclusive. 

And that's how the story of the Hundred began. Joining Johnson on stage was Adam Bullock, co-founder, The Multiple Agency.

The agency worked on the tournament's brand thinking.

The solution wasn't to tweak the sport. It was to rebuild it.

"It wasn't just a new cricket format," said Bullock. "We wanted to blow it up and start again with radical simplicity."

That meant questioning almost every convention surrounding the sport. Bullock explained that his agency abandoned traditional agency structures and brought broadcasters, marketers and stakeholders together to rethink the experience from scratch.

"We broke every agency model we knew and collaboration was the key," said Bullock.

The resistance was immediate.

"People called it the worst cricket thing ever invented," Johnson said.

Yet the ECB believed standing still was a bigger risk than change.

"We needed reach, revenue and relevance," Johnson said.

The organisation recognised that cricket was no longer competing with other forms of cricket. It was competing with streaming platforms, music, cinema and every other entertainment option fighting for consumers' attention.

"We had to stop competing in our category and create a new industry," Johnson said. 

The result was an entertainment property rather than simply a sporting competition.

The visual identity was completely different. The broadcast was redesigned. Music became part of the experience. Artist Jax Jones created music around the launch, while performers including Zara Larsson brought energy to matchdays.

Even the scoreboard was simplified.

"We only showed runs and balls remaining," said Bullock. "The campaign tagline was 'Every Ball Counts' and that ran through everything."

Gender balance

The Hundred was built around a simple model: one team, two squads. The women's and men's teams would represent the same brand and play on the same day, under the same ticket.

"No other sport in the UK was doing that," Johnson said.

The women's match would take place first, followed by live entertainment before the men's game. There were concerns that stadiums would only fill up towards the second game of the day. 

But that didn't happen. 

For Johnson, the lesson was simple: "Equality is equity."

The impact on the women's game has been significant. More than 15 lakh fans have attended women's matches through the competition's history, while 3,49,401 spectators attended women's games in a single season, a record for women's cricket. Player earnings have also risen dramatically, with leading female players now earning close to £200,000 for the competition.

Commercially, the numbers tell an equally compelling story.

The Hundred has attracted 2.5 million fans through the gates, generated a brand value approaching USD 1 billion, delivered record attendances across venues and increased television audiences. The competition has also succeeded in bringing entirely new audiences into cricket.

Among attendees, 41% are families, 30% are female ticket buyers and 23% are juniors. More than 530,000 junior tickets have been sold, while 203,000 attendees were first-time cricket fans.

"We wanted people who didn't know about the sport," Bullock said.

As The Hundred prepares for its sixth season, Johnson believes the biggest achievement wasn't creating a new format. It was proving that one of the world's oldest sports could still reinvent itself.

"We changed 200 years of tradition," he said, telling brands how 'innovation is sometimes crucial for survival.

Bullock echoed his point of view and concluded, "Don't be afraid to change brands."