On paper the launch of Fox Cricket was the perfect brief.

We were tasked with promoting a new channel dedicated to the single sport that unites every Aussie fan. Cricket has a unique place in our culture, it’s the soundtrack to every summer and source of our greatest sporting heroes.

But here’s the catch: for the first time in history Australians would have to pay to watch every play.

After 60 years of free cricket, Foxtel was now asking them to pay $60 every month. To make matters worse, Australia’s complex sport license laws meant that many matches would be broadcast free by our greatest competitor.

Put simply, Foxtel had to make Aussies pay for something they already get for free.

Commercial pressure compounded the cultural issue. After spending AUD$600M (US$430M) to secure the broadcast rights, our business objectives were clear: acquire new subscribers, reduce cost per acquisition (CPA) by 40%, steal share of free-to-air viewing, and make Fox Cricket the number one channel on Foxtel.

With such aggressive targets and an unforgiving value equation we had to position Fox Cricket as not just a broadcast – but a genuinely better experience for fans.

To hit our targets we had to create an entirely new consideration set. We wouldn’t compete with free cricket, we’d create a new sport experience worth paying for.

To understand what fans value most – and what they’d be willing to pay for – we analysed the cricket viewing experience with granular viewing data and good old-fashioned audience immersion.

We built a detailed map of major matches where we could trace fan attention and engagement for each play, overlaid with social conversation data, revealing what mattered and when.

The results were striking.

Despite millions of Australians following the game every summer, few ever saw the best plays on the pitch. The fan’s favourite play – taking a wicket – accounts for only 20 seconds of the average 30-hour game. The majority only saw it through replays.

If we could guarantee fans would see the big plays live every time, for the first time ever, we’d be in a consideration set of our own.

This was our breakthrough: position Fox Cricket as $60 to never miss a wicket.

A new way to watch the national sport was more than a tagline. Our strategy led to a radical new use of technology.

Introducing the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) predictive cricket commentator: ‘Monty’.

He tells you when a wicket is about to fall and makes sure you’re watching when it does. We nicknamed him after the first wicket he correctly predicted in training – Monty Panesar of England.

Monty watched every single ball from last year’s season and tracks 83 variables (pitch condition, weather, speed of delivery, etc) in live games, every time the bowler begins his run up.

With our creative idea coming to life through cutting edge tech, our media strategy was to turn every impression into a prediction: investing 3:1 into historical and live cricket data from Opta, against standard media.

Once fully operational, we created an API output to trigger time sensitive adverts across video, digital outdoor and display alerting Foxtel subscribers to tune in for the next wicket. Non-subscribers could sign-up to ensure they caught the action.

• Acquire new subscribers: Average weekly sales increased by 18% after Monty began predicting wickets.

• Reduce CPA by 40%: CPA was 61% below average (i.e. 53% above target)

• Steal share from free-to-air viewing: Channel CH7 share dropped from 49.9% to 20.8%.

• Become number-one Foxtel channel: We became number one for share, beating the full-year performance of every other channel in just three months.

• Despite an Australia team playing far below potential, viewership was 25% above target.

• Monty correctly predicted over 1,867 wickets during the campaign with a personal best of 87% accuracy during India’s tour of Australia

• Monty is being turned into a standalone subscription product for News Corp’s Supercoach fantasy platform.

• He is now expanding his predictive talents to Aussie Rules Football.

• Monty has become the most effective, efficient marketing communication during Foxtel’s largest product launch in five years.

Cricket is the soundtrack to the Australian summer. Not only do Australians adore cricket but because it had always been free to watch, they regard a summer of live cricket on TV almost as a natural resource - in the same category as sun, sand or surf. So, there were huge cultural barriers to overcome when asking them to pay a subscription for something that they had always had for free.

Not only this, but as the games often take days and are played during the summer, the average Aussie has lots of distractions due to their beautiful climate! So, we had to change how they watched cricket too, transforming it from a passive activity often running in the background to lean-in, action packed experience for fans with Monty’s predictions available on demand.