It is a tournament that has raked in advertising revenues to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore in its eighth season, and may see that figure cross Rs 1200 crore this year, in its ninth edition. The mother of all sporting events in India, the Indian Premier League (IPL), broadcast by Sony Pictures Networks Private Limited, has another angle to it – Star India’s streaming app Hotstar, associating with IPL for the second year now - is emerging as a parallel on-the-move match-viewing option for this mega event. Is Hotstar taking away Sony’s audience for IPL 9 and cannibalizing on the network’s loyal viewership base? Or is it in fact helping Sony, by creating more buzz around the game and driving viewers to watch it on TV? In any case, it’s carnival time for brands, which are clearly thriving on the high viewership and engagement around the ongoing IPL.
HIGH APPEAL FOR BRANDS
The IPL has always made news, not necessarily for great cricket. Be it the sacking of then IPL Chairman Lalit Modi or the spot fixing controversy which resulted in a ban on three players from the game and the suspension of two teams, the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals last year, or more recently the PILs on drought conditions in Maharashtra leading to shifting of matches out of the State, nothing has shrunk the appeal of the IPL. It remains one of the most successful platforms for brands to engage with consumers.
While IPL 9 began with a lower-than-expected turnout in stadiums, the advertiser sentiment has been rather high right from the start, with top brands and some unexpected new entrants in the industry associating themselves with the tournament. It has clearly been worthwhile for them – the Vivo IPL broadcast reached a record-breaking 218 million viewers in its first week itself, surpassing its overall viewership numbers of last year in just seven days.
In fact, Sony managed to sell out its entire ad inventory for 60 matches more than a month in advance, a feat which looked unachievable for nine years. According to figures provided by Sony, there has been a 15% increase in ad rates from last year - a 10-second spot this time is priced anywhere between Rs 5.5 to 6 lakh (for HD channels, it is Rs 1.5 lakh, exactly double the rates of IPL 8). This hike happened despite the perception that IPL ad rates would be lower this year, coming as it did close on the heels of the T20 World Cup that ended on April 3. Now, as the country gets busy taking sides with their favourite teams, it is the marketers who find themselves at a vantage point.
PEPSI’S EXIT IS VIVO’S GAIN
The buzz around IPL 9 started when PepsiCo decided to quit as title sponsor, in the wake of spot fixing allegations. PepsiCo had bagged the IPL title sponsorship rights for five years (2013-17) for Rs 396.8 crore, which was almost double the original title sponsorship deal amount signed with DLF in 2008. The company’s premature termination of the contract was seen as a big blow to IPL, but even before the dust could settle on Pepsi’s move, Vivo, until then a little known Chinese mobile phone manufacturer, swooped in to claim the vacant spot, while Pepsi’s rival Coca-Cola was roped in as the associate sponsor. Says Rajeev Shukla, Chairman, IPL, “The way Vivo grabbed the title sponsorship of IPL is commendable. They are really standing by their tagline – faster than faster - and have gone on to become the first Chinese company to invest in IPL.” Vivo, which made a rather late entry into the Indian mobile handset market, signed the IPL title sponsorship deal for 2016 and 2017 for `160 crore last November.
It then launched the Vivo V series smartphones - V3 and V3 Max - around the same time as the IPL, using cricket to build an instant connect with the Indian audience.
Talking about the brand’s association with IPL, Jerome Chen, DGM, Vivo India, says, “Through our partnership with IPL for 2016 and 2017, we look forward to becoming a brand that resonates with the young minds of the country. Value holds more importance for us in comparison to price, and the tie-up with IPL will bring us what we await. So, we have spent about 50% of our annual advertising budget on ATL and BTL activities for this Vivo IPL season.”
One of the interesting initiatives by Vivo after coming on board was to start the first ever IPL 2016 trophy tour, which travelled from Pune to six different cities in India, ending its journey in Mumbai, home to last year’s IPL champions. Vivo is right in the middle of the high visibility zone, simply because of its association with IPL. PepsiCo is no longer title sponsor, but continues its ties with IPL. As Vipul Prakash, Vice President - Beverage Category, PepsiCo India says, “We made it very clear that PepsiCo is just exiting the title sponsorship of the IPL. We are associated with it even today and have teams for which we are still the pouring partners. So, it was a very specific decision for a very specific association. Cricket will continue to be a big platform to connect with our consumers.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time that PepsiCo called off an IPL deal. In fact in the inaugural edition of the league in 2008, PepsiCo had signed on as one of the ground sponsors of the event, but later withdrew its sponsorship, arguing that rival Coca-Cola was getting more exposure during the league even though it had paid less. But the very next year it returned to the game and went on to become one of the strongest partners of IPL.
BRANDSCAPE AROUND IPL
IPL has always been fully loaded with sponsors, in fact more than 80 different brands are associated with the eight IPL teams this season. At a central league level, associate sponsors such as FreeCharge and Maruti Suzuki confirmed their association weeks prior to the IPL season.
For Maruti Suzuki, which has for the very first time fallen for the charm of IPL, being the ground sponsors for the league was like a match made in heaven. It is hard not to notice its latest offering, the Vitara Brezza, on display at every stadium hosting IPL matches. This is in addition to having the brand’s logo present in the perimeter boards, runner boards and scoreboards. Elaborating on the tie-up with IPL, Sanjeev Handa, VP, Marketing, Maruti Suzuki says, “We noticed that from 2008 to now, the viewership of IPL has gone up by nearly 88%. They cut across all demographics. For us, the key audience, which is about 45% of the total viewer base of IPL, is in the age group of 15 to 34. It is this audience that we are looking to connect with the brand. We recently launched Vitara Brezza, a compact urban SUV, glamorous and sporty and what better sport than IPL to connect such a positioning with.” (See chart below).
WHATEVER IPL IS TODAY IS BECAUSE OF SONY: ROHIT GUPTA
Nine years ago, when the Indian Premier League was born, signing a deal for the broadcast rights of the new property was nothing short of a gamble for Sony. While it could have bid aggressively for the World Cup renewal rights, the network decided to put its weight behind this new format cricket. Rohit Gupta, President, Sony Pictures Networks Pvt Ltd, recounts how the historic deal was signed: “In 2007, India won the inaugural Twenty20 cricket world championship. That is when we realized that there is a huge fan following for the shorter format of the game. Ratings for the eight-hour format had also dropped substantially between 2000 and 2008. We thus knew that the T20 format was the future.”
Talking about Sony’s role in building up IPL into the leading T20 tournament in India, Gupta says, “IPL today is successful only because of the money we put in the game back then. The franchises would not have come to the game if it were not for Sony. The franchises were getting assured returns from Day 1 because 80% of the revenue of Sony was to go back to the team owners, to be equally divided amongst them. So the risk was taken entirely by us and not the franchises. Had it not worked, they would have still made money, but we would have lost the game entirely. I was there in the stadium when the first IPL ball was bowled in Bangalore and Brendon McCullum made a century, giving birth to a whole new format. When the first ratings came, it beat all records.”
To recover the money they had put into the league, Sony decided to match the World Cup ad spot rates. And to bring on board advertisers, it offered them exclusivity in category. Despite the initial scepticism from advertisers, it worked. Gupta reminisces, “In the first season, we had 6-7 sponsors before we started, and we didn’t have any spot buys because brands thought we wouldn’t do well. But we stuck to our rates of Rs 2.5 lakh for a 10-second spot and after the first TV ratings came, we had a flood of advertisers for the tournament. Post that, every two or three years we changed our sales strategy to increase the advertisements.”
Nine years later, the same 10-second ad spot is available for Rs 6 lakh and sponsors have doubled. “This year, our revenues have grown by 20%,” says Gupta, “IPL is by far the largest property on Indian television from the revenue perspective; what it generates in 60 days, no other sport or event can.”
But while in the past Sony dominated all the action around IPL, for the last two years, the tournament is also getting substantial viewership on digital streaming app Hotstar, which provides the luxury of watching the match while on the move. This year, for the first time, Hotstar from Star India is doing full-fledged pre and post match programming around the IPL. On whether this is cause for concern for Sony, Gupta says, “Not at all. Hotstar doesn’t impact our numbers at all. Eventually, there is no bandwidth in India to watch a three-and-half-hour match, and whatever you have is expensive. In fact, a digital platform like Hotstar helps in increasing engagement levels because it keeps you in touch with what’s happening and eventually you come and see it on the large screen. It drives traffic towards television, thereby becoming another marketing tool of the IPL. Hotstar is aiding us, not taking away our viewership at all.”
On sponsors roped in by Hotstar, Gupta says, “Look at the value of the sponsorship we are talking about… here we get sponsorship of Rs 60 crore and there it would be around Rs 3 crore. They will do a total revenue of Rs 40- 45 crore this year. So, there is no comparison.”
Sony’s IPL broadcast rights contract will come to an end in 2017, after IPL 10. Later this year, Sony will find itself competing with Star India for IPL rights. Talking of Sony’s plans, Gupta says, “IPL is our property. Whatever it is today is only because of Sony. Had you put this property on a sports channel, it would have never become this big. It worked on Max because it was a mass channel. Without Sony, IPL would not have been as successful because we marketed it, sold it, put it on the right channels, did everything to make it a mass property without an elitist tag to it. All the top brands in each category have been associated with IPL at some point of time. Our ‘Extraa Innings’ has three times the rating of a pre and post show of our competitor, because we have made sure that one doesn’t have to be the purest form of cricket lover to watch IPL. That’s what has made the big difference.”
MORE THAN JUST CRICKET
Over the years, IPL has moved from being just a cricketing event to being a brand in itself. It is visible in the changing communication for the league over the years, from ‘Manoranjan ka Baap’ in 2008 to ‘Ek Desh. Ek Junoon’ in 2009 to ‘India Ka Tyohaar’ in 2015 and now ‘Ek India Happywala’ created by DDB Mudra. The last one indicates that IPL has begun to stand for more than just cricket.
Rahul Mathew, Creative Head, DDB Mudra West, who worked on the campaign says, “Until 2014, the stress was on bringing alive the entertainment quotient of the tournament. Last year, we looked to project the larger role IPL plays in our lives, and ‘India ka Tyohaar’ was born. For the next campaign, all we had to do was strengthen that emotional bond. It was a challenge. We knew our conversation needed to get bigger than the game and the tournament, and thus decided to use this forum to talk about the kind of India that we desire. The kind of India we see during IPL, and wish we would see and hear the year round.”
To make the campaign resonate in every household, DDB Mudra first took an anthem composed by Salim Merchant. While the communication has a more soulful version with kids singing it, Merchant scored a peppier version for in-programming and channel promos. A three-ad campaign further brought the thought to life, through beautiful stories. DDB Mudra also put together some short films which had kids speaking about the Happy India they desire. Apart from radio and outdoor, the team also created some interesting online properties around happiness like ‘Happy Headline’ where they encouraged sharing and posting of optimistic news from around the country, ‘Happiness Meter’, etc. They also encouraged viewers to post happiness selfies on the ‘Ek India Happywala’ site.
TRENDS IN IPL 9
By VINIT KARNIK
Business Head, ESP Properties The sports industry is burgeoning and IPL has a lion’s share in the growth. From selling tickets to selling an experience, IPL has altered the way cricket is consumed.
Franchises have started monetizing their digital and social assets. Digital is also becoming an integral part of the sponsorship offering now Rise in demand for behind-the-scene content in relation to IPL teams, opening up avenues for greater monetization in future
Smartphone as a category fighting tooth and nail for greater share of voice in IPL 22 new brands testing ground with the IPL teams this year
Meanwhile, FreeCharge is spending over Rs 100 crore in the sponsorship, promotions, and alliances to connect with young and techsavvy consumers through IPL. Says Govind Rajan, COO, FreeCharge, “FreeCharge is the on-ground partner for Vivo IPL, 2016 and on-air partner with Sony Max. Our ‘Lo Do Khatam Karo’ campaign will run throughout the Vivo IPL 2016 season focusing on metros and Tier I cities. The best fielding highlights are being presented as ‘FreeCharge Bolt’ moments, something unique we introduced during this Vivo IPL.
Also, contest winners will get a prize digitally, post the match, from the fielder of the day, via FreeCharge.” Vodafone, which has been associated with the league since the time of its inception nine years ago, has continued its tradition of launching a new campaign with every season of the IPL. But the brand, which has released iconic ads with mascots like Cheeka- the pug and ZooZoos, has limited their role to outside of TV during the campaign. For example while Cheeka was back announcing the arrival of Vodafone Supernet 4G just before the IPL, the pug will not make an appearance in any of the brand’s activities during the matches. Similarly, ZooZoos will remain a part of the brand’s activation programme during the league, but won’t find a place in the TVCs.
According to Sandeep Kataria, Director – Commercial, Vodafone India, the newly launched #BeSuperThisIPL campaign will take forward the older properties Vodafone Super Fan and Fan Army. “We are promoting two more contests - one is Super Album, where we invite customers to click pictures with ZooZoos at any of our outlets and stadium kiosks, and become part of a Guinness World Record for the largest photo album with a mascot. For the second contest ‘Super Cheer’, we have created a hummable song, almost like an anthem for the IPL, and asked viewers to upload their dubsmash videos with the Super Cheer song on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to be a part of a music video with the stars. We have dedicated about 35% of our annual marketing spends to IPL, a substantial increase from last year,” he says.
Meanwhile, other brands like Amazon, Volini, Raymond, etc., continue their rock solid partnership with the IPL. Several of these brands, Volini for example, are very relevant to sports. Says Subodh Marwah, Business Head - Sun Pharma Global Consumer Healthcare, “IPL has become a contact sport, with people running all over the place, fielders colliding with the batsman, etc. The players have intensely strenuous activity, and need to recover from their injuries real fast. That’s why the association with Volini spray becomes important.”
WHAT THE TEAM SPONSORS SAY
According to a report by sponsorship marketplace Onspon, brands are showing an increased interest at the team level too, with team sponsorships getting closed faster. Commercials for team level sponsorships were expected to take a dip due to the betting fiasco surrounding IPL, but that did not happen, with sponsorship rights ranging from Rs 1 crore to Rs 20 crore. Most sponsors have, in fact, continued their association with the respective teams. Talking about the association with Kolkata Knight Riders for three long years, Amitabh Tiwari, COO, Sansui says, “Our partnership with KKR is very strong in the minds of people, because Sansui and KKR both stand for entertainment. Given an opportunity, we would like to partner the same team even next year.” Talking about the brand’s choice of platforms to advertise, Tiwari says, “This year we are active on ground and have chosen not to take any spots on television because our product launch has got slightly delayed. Otherwise, we end up dedicating about 17-18% of our spends to IPL; this year it is around 12%.” The two new IPL teams – Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions - have managed to clinch lucrative sponsorship deals, roping in about 10 sponsors each.
Talking about sponsoring a new IPL team, Gujarat Lions, P Vijayaraghavan, Director, TVS Srichakra Limited, says, “This is our first association with the IPL. We are extremely happy to be the principal sponsor of Gujarat Lions. This association is an exclusive and engaging platform to reach out to more customers and we are confident of elevating our brand recall to a much larger audience.”
Decoding why advertisers increasingly turn to sports to leverage their brands, a report by ESP Properties calls India ‘a sporting nation in the making’. It has pegged the overall sports sponsorship at Rs 51,854 million in 2015, a substantial increase from Rs 46,165 million in 2014. With overall ad spends in India touching Rs 4,97,580 million in 2015, sports sponsorship accounts for 10.4% of the advertising pie. Within that, cricket and especially IPL, continue to enjoy a significant chunk of the spends. Acer is another brand that has continued its association with the Royal Challengers Bangalore this year. Says S Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Acer, “IPL is the biggest entertainer in the country, and an obvious choice for Acer. Cricket being the most powerful medium in India, and IPL its most spectacular vehicle, this will certainly help Acer India connect with young sports lovers, not just in India but also in other parts of the world.”
BRANDS BANK ON IPL VIEWERSHIP
Talking about the response from brands this time, Vinit Karnik, Business Head, ESP Properties says, “IPL is a risk-free investment for advertisers, as both ratings and reach have been consistently growing year on year. The IPL connection made Vivo a household name and has fully justified the big spends involved. Also, IPL as a platform provides numerous innovative sponsorship opportunities for advertisers at the central level and a plethora of opportunities at the franchise level, including team sponsorship, licensing and merchandising and the ability to leverage multi-screen mass media experiences including broadcast, web, mobile, etc. This year, 22 new brands have invested in team sponsorships; the reasons being better bang for the buck!” IPL is a money spinner in its own right, with more and more brands lining up to get the biggest share of the visibility pie. During the broadcast of IPL this time, around 60% of the airtime is reserved for sponsors and 40% for spot buys. This season IPL is being aired in Hindi on Sony Max and Sony Six. In addition, Sony Six is carrying the Tamil, Telugu and Bengali language feeds.
The Sony ESPN cluster of channels is airing the English language feed, thereby giving viewers more choice. Talking about the expected viewership on the network, Neeraj Vyas, Senior EVP and Business Head, Sony Max, says, “Last year, according to TAM, the reach of IPL was roughly around 200 million viewers. This year, BARC has mapped a lot of rural data for the first time. So, let’s wait and watch before jumping to any figures.”
#IPL2016: THE BRAND PLAY SO FAR
By ASHOK LALLA
Cricket is religion in India. It is what gets strangers talking and friends animated as they dissect the doings and undoings of their favourite stars. It is what started bringing families together over the last eight years since IPL turned cricket from a purist’s game to a festival of entertainment in a package whose appeal cut across age, gender and location. Spotting the opportunity, brands have hopped on for the ride, using the event to reach their audiences. Over the years, we have seen several interesting brand campaigns and activations during IPL season.
Here’s my take on IPL 2016 and what brands are doing around it, as well as the advertising on air, from what I have seen after a week of IPL:
1. The response from brands seems to be tepid as compared to earlier years. This is not entirely surprising since IPL 2016 started just a week after the World T20 that took place in India. Lots of advertisers flocked to cash in on the interest as Team India played well and got to the semis, and perhaps advanced ad budgets from this financial year into the World T20 and so are currently going slow with their spends.
2. Audience fatigue after the excitement of the World T20 may have a role to play in the apparent lack of excitement around IPL 2016. As the tournament rolls on, it would be interesting to see what the viewership numbers are, both in-stadia and on television. It is quite likely that both audience and advertiser interest will spike as we get into the latter part of the tournament.
3. Except for Tata Sky, no brand seems to running a campaign focused on IPL. For other brands, IPL seems to be a spot buy in a larger media plan. In the past, Vodafone used IPL and its ZooZoos to great effect with campaigns planned for the tournament.
4. The usually active summer season advertisers, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are missing in action in this IPL. Pepsi’s absence is understandable after it pulled out of the IPL sponsorship, and Coca-Cola only has a token ad presence with Thums Up.
5. The title sponsors Vivo have been fairly uninspiring in how they have used IPL as an ad platform so far. Seeing how hypercompetitive the mobile handset market is, one would have expected to see a lot more action from the sponsors, not just on-air, but on-ground too with a high visibility 360-degree brand activation.
6. Nothing on digital has caught my eye yet. There has been the regulation trending hashtags and selfie-related stuff, but nothing inspiring that smartly connects the tournament with its audience through social platforms so far.
7. The active presence of Manforce condoms (as team sponsor and advertiser) is perhaps a first for the category on IPL. It is interesting that a condom brand is using a wide-appeal sports event to tell its story. Hopefully, its advertising presence will not turn away conservative family audiences from tuning in. The viewership numbers that come in may tell a story in that regard.
8. The action by the franchisees seems muted. No memorable team anthems are buzzing around. No visible franchisee-led activations so far. Maybe the controversies around the tournament have served to make franchisees lie low this year, and wait and watch to see how things unfold in IPL 2016. Even team-owners have been quite scarce at the games so far, or if they are there, TV cameras have been instructed to minimize focusing on them.
9. IPL-related advertising in Print and Outdoor is missing. Again, perhaps an indicator of the mellow uptake by advertisers and limited spends focused on the tournament so far.
It will be interesting to revisit these observations in the last fortnight of the tournament to see how the brand play has changed, if at all. My sense is that IPL 2016 will be one of the quieter years for the tournament, with action on the field not being matched by action by brands.
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