Season 8 set to cross Rs 950 crore in revenues as new age brands on board, digital and regional feeds add new zing
By Saloni Dutta
In 2011, IPL and the ICC Cricket World Cup clashed, with both tournaments being held in India. The outcome was that IPL suffered tremendous depreciation in its brand value as it dropped from $4.13 billion in 2010 to $3.67 billion. Again in 2015, when IPL was to follow the World Cup, advertisers were worried that cricket fatigue would cause a dip in viewership, but they took the risk of choosing IPL over World Cup, and in a way decided to keep IPL at the centre of their summer marketing strategies.
The reach and returns IPL offers to its team owners, players, broadcasters and advertisers has broken new ground for the sport itself, owing to many comparisons with various international leagues of the world such as NBA, MLB or NFL, which are still way ahead in terms of the ROI they deliver. But this doesn’t take away the fact that this year is turning out to be the year which has firmly established the IPL as the most effective advertising platform, not just for big fish like PepsiCo, but for many more newbie brands to reap the benefits..
Numbers that matter
Looking at the performance of IPL so far this year, the sentiments are on a high. In fact, BARC data for the third week of IPL showed that the week’s average rating was 3316 at an all India level and 2532 at an HSM level (Source: BARC, across Pepsi IPL matches, Channel: Sony MAX+SIX+SIX HD+Aath Market: All India, TG: All HHs, Period: Wk16|All Days|02:00-26:00hrs). Statistics suggest that the tournament’s viewership has grown from 160 million in 2011 to 191 million last year. TAM reports in the initial weeks of the tournament had stated a 41% increase in viewership. With each progressing year, IPL has seen a constant rise in television viewership ratings (TVR). For the first five matches this year, ratings are way ahead of any of the most watched Hindi soaps. IPL Season 8 is expected to comfortably cross over Rs 950 Crore, i.e, Rs 150 crore more than the last season’s collection in terms of total revenue.
Commenting on IPL’s performance this year NP Singh, CEO, MSM says, “From a revenue perspective and from the huge buzz that it has created, IPL Season 8 has been very successful so far. We are indeed very pleased with the large base of viewers that we have captured. MAX has always positioned Pepsi IPL as the ultimate viewing destination on television and we are happy to live up to that promise.” Unlike 2014, this year the advertisers’ response has been very strong, which reflects the confidence that they have in IPL as a property. In fact, two weeks before the two-month long IPL festival began, 100% of on-air inventory had been sold out, and IPL added three more sponsors to its kitty.
IPL’s timing is the key
From the very first season, IPL’s placement at this time of the year has allowed it to become the most suited advertising platform, ahead of any other event due to summers being the peak sale time for most cola companies, fashion brands and e-portals, as for the auto industry, to launch and update their offerings. Another reason is the timing of the matches in the Indian prime time slot for almost two months, bringing together most of India to watch the matches. There can be no other reason for PepsiCo to remain in hibernation mode during World Cup and to hit the ground at IPL. PepsiCo was more or less dormant during the initial stages of the World Cup and sparked off their ‘Pepsi Crash The IPL’ contest towards the end of the tournament as a pre-buzz to IPL. Commenting on it, Ruchira Jaitly, Senior Director Marketing – Social Beverages, PepsiCo India said, “It is clear that IPL is possibly the largest event in India’s media calendar, and for a 55-60 day period, it pretty much dominates what is happening in the lives of Indians and honestly if you look at the stadium, the media clearly has appetite for the platform.” PepsiCo’s latest campaign attracted more than 1100 ads submitted by contestants and is presumably a successful campaign this year. Besides this, PepsiCo has garnered enough out of the on-ground potential by placing a giant circular box for its winners. Their names were declared in between matches and not with the clutter of ads being played in between the overs.
According to Twitter Brand Engagement Index, Vodafone has gained a lot of momentum in the first two weeks of IPL, through a contest called #VodafoneSpeedQuiz . With tickets to matches up for grabs, the brand has been able to generate a lot of buzz through this campaign. Vodafone this year will be spending 20% of its annual advertising budget on the IPL. Ronita Mitra, Senior Vice President, Brand Communication and Consumer Insights, Vodafone India, said, “This IPL we have launched the ‘Speed is Good’, campaign that reinforces Vodafone’s network credentials in an evocative and engaging manner. Vodafone believes that IPL is the biggest sporting platform in the country designed to appeal to a wide audience with high clutter and frequency during a very compact period.”
Newbies on Board
Much more inventory, on ground activations, comparatively economical TV spots and good two months of brand visibility just at the start of the fiscal - all that make IPL the newbies’ breeding ground. IPL added three more sponsors this year to take up the count to 12 compared to last year’s eight sponsors. According to Neeraj Vyas, Senior EVP & Business Head, Sony Max, “There seems to be a very positive traction towards understanding the advantage that IPL brings to an advertiser. Advertisers want eyeballs and maximum reach. And that is what IPL guarantees as it cuts across generations, genders and geographies, like nothing else does. It is so unique that I don’t think anything on television can replace IPL.” e-commerce giant Amazon started its first campaign in India during the IPL last year and this year, the aggressively expanding Amazon has upgraded itself as presenting sponsor. Talking about the e-commerce sector and IPL, Rohit Gupta, President, MSM says, “e-commerce is not a category that has just opened up, it was born out of IPL. Last year, Amazon started its first India campaign with the IPL.”
CarDekho.com is an associate sponsor this year. Another m-commerce startup Paytm is committed to spending over Rs 50 crore during IPL8 predominantly across TV. This includes advertising time for the 60 matches during the tournament as well as inventory for action replay property. Freecharge too has joined the IPL fray and has made frequent appearances on TV during IPL matches.
Brands choose the smart way
It’s not always easy to pump in big money at one go, but at the same time, TV is a crucial aspect of advertising during IPL. So brands have found alternative branding options. For example, McDowell’s No.1 is official umpire sponsor; it has taken up inventory on-air in the form of activations such as ‘McDowell’s No.1 Fair Play Awards’. CEAT is another beneficiary in the form of the official strategic time-out partner this year in a three-year deal amounting to Rs.31.5 crore, say media reports.
Online taxi service provider OLA has tied up with five out of eight teams while its rival Uber has tied up with two teams. The brand’s logo is visible on team jerseys and if teams like CSK give value to a brand’s reputation, that is what a taxi service needs.
As another offering for short-on-budget brands, broadcasters have Extraa Innings with a rating of 1, and additional space just before and after matches to accommodate some more brands.
DIGITAL, regional feeds add zing
Sony has introduced Tamil, Telugu and Bengali regional feeds this year for IPL, and according to Vyas, “Regional feeds are a shift, we have been spotting since the last 3-4 years, and hence we also deliberately shifted the focus of making Extraa Innings as hinglish as possible three years back, kind of in anticipation of what is happening today. Also almost 70% of the ratings come from the Hindi feed.”
Also Hotstar, the online viewing partner for IPL this year, is seeing a lot of brand buzz as well as viewership surge as compared to last year. The platform recorded 7.2 million video views for the first IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders.
Over the years, IPL has evolved to be more than just a platform for advertisers. It did go through a slump by losing viewership, was hit by fixing scandals and the organizers did seem to be worried about the future of this property. However, into its eighth consecutive year, IPL has faced the challenges, learnt few lessons and now with Hindi commentary fetching more than 60% of viewership, it has successfully evolved to become a Rs 1000 crore brand, and a ‘festival’ at that, bringing together the nation to watch cricket, no matter what.
Feedback: saloni.dutta@exchange4media.com
