IPL to Radhika Merchant’s ‘Krishna Lage Che,’ Starcom's March 2024 trends report unveils trending conversations

Delhi: Starcom has unveiled the Trend Report for March 2024. This report offers a deep dive into various realms, from sports and entertainment to the world of reels and beyond, aimed at capturing the essence of modern culture. The Culture report is powered by BUZ AI. 

The report covers trends across 4 major platforms –

1. Google and X (formerly called Twitter)

1. Cricket 
2. Movies, Music and Entertainment
3. General 

2. Spotify

3. Instagram

1. Reels
2. Memes

1. Google and X (formerly called Twitter)

The IPL which started on March 22, dominated conversations even as the WPL which ended earlier in the month continued to make news. Apart from the IPL, football continued to create chatter. It was a slow month for entertainment with no big banner releases, though the Oscars and top nominee Oppenheimer did garner attention. 

It was a month of multiple celebrations and netizens made sure to mark occasions like Women’s Day, Holi, and Easter with equal fervour. The elections were also constantly in the news, and hence in the conversations of netizens throughout the month. 

The tournament itself was mentioned heavily, but the SRH-MI match that saw an excess of 500 runs being scored was the top topic within the IPL. Traditional rivalries like CSk and RCB also gathered chatter, while matches like DC -CSK which saw unexpected upsets also were hot topics for online conversation. 

Google’s doodle around the Flat White coffee drink resulted in a lot of searches and conversations, making it a significantly talked about term in the month. Apart from this, there were personalities in politics that attracted attention, as did the results of 10th board exams in Bihar. 

Apart from the IPL, the world of sports saw chatter around the first edition of the WPL, which was won by the RCB women's team. The last test match between India and England was also heavily discussed, as were matches in the FA Cup. 

Within celebrations as a theme, Women’s Day created maximum buzz followed by Nowruz (Persian new year). The festival of colours – Holi of course resulted in online banter, as did Good Friday and Easter at the end of the month. 

For major platforms- Google and Twitter, the trends could be divided into 3 major buckets:

IPL

Topic modelling for IPL

While the IPL kicked off towards the end of March, the first half of the month saw the first ever edition of WPL take place which led to a lot of chatter. Australian cricket Ellyse Perry who played for the women’s RCB team was among the top topics of discussion as her team took home the first WPL trophy. Also among the top topics was the inaugural IPL match between RCB and CSK with both star players – Virat Kohli for RCB, and MS Dhoni for CSK also being talked about a lot. 

Top trigrams for IPL

Apart from celebrating the RCB women team’s victory in the maiden WPL tournament, netizens encouraged the men’s RCB team to stake its claim on the title as well. RCB is yet to win an IPL title. Words like “RCB champion RCB” were among the most common combinations used by netizens to talk about the matter. Chennai Super Kings led by MS Dhoni has won the trophy on multiple occasions and was also among the most mentioned topics along with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Among the players, Smriti Mandhana, Travis Head (SRH), Abhishek Sharma (SRH), Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni were mentioned. Dhoni’s innings against DC where he smashed sixes all over the stadium resulted in fans using phrases like “fan vintage Dhoni” to talk about his exploits on the field. 

Top bigrams for IPL 

The top two word combination to discuss the IPL was Virat Kohli, followed by Rohit Sharma. Smriti Mandhana who was part of the WPL trophy winning RCB women team also figured on the list as did her teammate Ellyse Perry. Ruturaj Gaikwad, who took over the CSK captaincy from Dhoni was also mentioned significantly. 

The word cloud for IPL reflects a similar pattern as the trigrams and bigrams with players like Dhoni, Kohli, Gaikwad, and Rohit Sharma making the list. Women cricketers Mandhana and Perry also show up prominently as to words like “women”, “winning”, “finally” (in reference to RCB finally winning a title, albeit the WPL). Given the change in captaincy in CSK, the word captain features prominently, while monikers like ‘king’ for Kohli, and ‘mahi’ for MS Dhoni also can be seen. 

Movies, Music, and Entertainment: Blockbusters and bombs 

The top newsmaker within entertainment was Youtuber Elvish Yadav who was arrested in a case related to drugs and snake venom. While there were not many releases in the month owing to the exam period in schools and colleges, netizens did discuss the Oscars that took place in March and the movie Oppenheimer which took home 7 statuettes. The clash of the monsters – Godzilla x Kong was also heavily searched. Among personalities, late rapper Siddhu Moosewala was also in the news after his parents welcomed a newborn son in their midst. 

Others: Elections, celebrations, and IPOs

After Valentine’s Day in February, March saw multiple festivals and occasions which led to a lot of chatter. The month began with commemorating International Women’s Day, the month also saw festivals like Holi, and Easter/Good Friday. The month saw the start of the fasting month of Ramadam/Ramazan. Apart from festivals, the run up to the general elections gathered steam with the Election Commission of India releasing the schedule for the elections, and the parties getting in the campaigning mode. 

With festivals like Holi and Easter in the month, netizens engaged in celebrating these instances through wishes online. The International Women’s Day on March 8 was also a widely celebrated occasion online, with many individuals and brands posting about it and celebrating women around them. 

Financial regulator SEBI released a cautionary note on mid-caps which led to the index crashing and also resulted in a lot of discussion online. In other financial events, the IPO of Bharti Hexacon was widely discussed. 

2. Spotify

The soundtrack from the Ranbir Kapoor starrer Animal continued its hold on listeners with 5 of the top 10 played songs on Spotify coming from the film’s album. "Pehle Bhi Main” retained the top spot with the highest number of plays followed. Husn took second spot  while Dunki’s “O Mahi” retained its place in the top ten list. Other songs in the top ten included One Love, Chaleya, Ankhiya Gulaab and Heeriye. 

Local hits were heard in cities of Punjab (Chandigarh and Ludhiana) and Delhi, though the popular songs in the two markets differed greatly. In cities like Mumbai. Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, top local hits constituted a mix of film, and non-film music. Songs from the Telugu version of Animal were popular in Hyderabad, as were those from Salaar, in addition to songs from films like Ghost and Kaatera.