IPL Advertising: All You Need to Know About The Game Of Revenue

The Indian Premier League is the country’s biggest cricket carnival. But the action isn’t just limited to the cricket field. The promotional events, social media interactions, IPL advertising, fan parks, cheerleaders and much more are as much a part of the IPL as the players and the matches.

Ever since it’s onset, IPL has become India’s most celebrated and viewed annual sporting event and advertisements play a huge part in it. Accompanying the high-intensity cricketing action and power-packed entertainment are some of the most impressive IPL advertisements, that manage to make a mark in the minds of viewers across the country.

Also Read: The Blockbuster Growth of Sports Industry in India

Just like any other film or TV show, IPL season starts off with a proper trailer. Over the last decade, the cricket league has proved to be a ‘game-changer’ not only for cricket but also for the entire Indian advertising industry. Let’s see how.

How the IPL advertising business works

• IPL slates to host almost 56 matches and each match have around 2,300 seconds of ad inventory. The charge is for 10-second openings.
• Normally, a title sponsor will purchase at least 300 seconds every match, paying nearly Rs 5 lakh for every second. Small sponsors hack up close to Rs 5.75 lakh at equal intervals, while spot purchases of advertisements cost Rs 6 lakh at regular intervals.
• This year, the premium global smartphone manufacturer, VIVO, bid Rs 2199 crores, which is a 554 per cent increase over the previous contract. In the upcoming five IPL seasons (2018 – 2022), Vivo and IPL will have extensive cooperation in terms of sports events, on-ground activations and marketing campaigns.

Favoured platforms for IPL advertising

Star Network’s multi-lingual strategy in the year 2018 paid it off very well as the broadcasting network saw a boost of around 22 per cent in the regional viewership. The bi-lingual sports feed in India is seeing contemptuous days as broadcasters are going full throttle to exploit the regional markets by telecasting multi-lingual broadcast of matches.

Last year, the broadcast of IPL happened in six languages including Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bangla, across 10 network channels.

IPL advertising in 2019

Star India is set to rake in over Rs 2,200 crore in advertising revenues from this season which means, a 20 per cent jump over the previous season when it had netted Rs 1,750 crore across TV and digital platforms.

Looking closely at some of the advertiser data shared by BARC India – IPL 10 had 9,651 ad spots in the first eight matches while IPL 11 sold 19,899 ad spots in the first eight matches. Last year, among the top five advertisers (on basis of the number of ad supplements), Vivo was at the top in IPL 11’s first eight matches, followed by Jio, Coca Cola, Vishnu Packaging and Parle Biscuits.

Against this, the top five advertisers on the same basis were Oppo, Vivo, Jio, Havells and Vodafone in the same order.

In each season, the makers ensure a theme for the ads and they’ve proven to be catchy all the time. This time, Star Sports have gone with the idea of ‘Game Banayega Name’.

Also Read: The Game of Sports Advertising You Need To Know

• According to reports the IPL 2019, in addition to title-holders, Vivo has also boarded Harrier, fashion brand FBB and Hotstar Specials as official partners.
• Paytm and Ceat continue to be the Umpire Partner and Official Strategic Time Out partners.
• On the broadcast front, Star Sports so far has 12 brands onboard across three sponsorship categories. PhonePe joins Coca-Cola Company’s brand Thums Up in the co-presenting category.
• The broadcast associate sponsors list includes Asian Paints, Maruti Suzuki, Swiggy, Big Bazar, Polycab wires, Dream11, MakeMyTrip, Voltas, MRF, and Samsung QLED television.
• The network has roped in 18 sponsors for the league on TV and eight for Hotstar, the OTT platform from Star India Estimates peg Star India’s revenue from this season of the IPL at nearly Rs 2,200- 2,200 crore. The broadcaster has sold almost 95 per cent of the ad inventory for the season.

Best IPL advertising videos of all time

Vodafone ZooZoo

These dolls made each one of you crazy. Didn’t they? The most energetic part of IPL season is the Vodafone’s ZooZoo ads. These little ones were included in IPL’s ads since the second edition of the league in 2009.

Directed by Prakash Verma, the ads were shot by Bengaluru based Nirvana Films in Cape Town, South Africa.  It was absolutely a hit among the Indians who absolutely loved the cuteness and alien language that was used in the ads.

Come on bulaava aaya hai

IPL is famous for its jingles. 2014 saw one of the famous jingle named ‘Come on bulaava aaya hai’. While In 2014, Hotstar trended the ‘Kanna keep calm’ ads, Sony started the ‘Come on bulaava aaya hai’ ad campaign. People from all walks of life drop everything they are doing immediately and making their way back home to watch the Indian Premier League.

This catchy advertisement was created by DDB Mudra, Mumbai. The tune got so popular that many cricket fans kept this music as their ringtone.

Ek India happywala

This list would remain incomplete without this emotional advertisement. This ad came into the 9th season of IPL (2016). The league came up with a wish and an emotional message. ‘Ek India Happy Wala’ that reflected the mood of the country, pushing for happiness, unity and harmony between all.

Kanna keep calm

How many of you tapped your feet on this tune? One of the best IPL ads to take on the screen came during the seventh season in 2014. Taking motivation from the ‘keep calm and…’ trend, it was theorised by Lowe Lintas & Partners’ two agencies – Lowe Lintas and LinTeractive based from Mumbai.

The post-match presentations of that season also included a ‘Kanna keep calm’ award to the player who remained calm during tense situations in the matches.

Amazon’s Chonkpur Cheetahs

In 2018, Amazon and Ogilvy created a property ‘Chonkpur Cheetahs’ during IPL. The brainiac behind this was Azazul Haque, CCO, Ogilvy, Ogilvy South.  It was one the evening last year when Azazul Haque packed his bag and was about to leave for home. He turned back and told his team, what if they had a team called Chonkpur Cheetahs who wanted to play the IPL.

Thus was born the idea of Chonkpur Cheetahs in Haque’s head and since then the Cheetahs have been showing how Amazon.in helped them build a pseudo cricket team in the last IPL.

IPL advertising: A Pool of Opportunities

IPL is a platform of humongous associations, where there is ample opportunity to associate with the IPL teams. An advertiser can stay away from advertising on TV yet be present, by partnering with teams, explore options like logos on the team jersey, on ground associations and partnership, cheerleader sponsorships, thus creating the best marketing opportunities for the brands in the country.

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