Due to the COVID widespread, the Indian Premier League is all set to take place in Dubai. The teams have arrived, the practice session has begun, and the schedule for the matches has gone public.
However, this year the matches will be played in empty stadiums. Also, this IPL season has seen several turnarounds related to the sponsorships. Finally, everything is settled, and the matches are going to start on September 19, 2020.
It is the first world series that is happening in 2020. Even the Olympics, scheduled to be played in Tokyo, Japan this year has been postponed, till the year 2021. IPL is a series filled with excitement and enthusiasm. People who are locked down in their houses will finally have some in-house entertainment.
Though, what is there for the advertisers? How stadiums with no audience will affect the overall earnings and viewership of this premier league?
According to research conducted by Duff and Phelp, there is going to be an approximate increase of 13.5% INR in terms of value.
Ashish Bhasin, CEO APAC and Chairman India, Dentsu Aegis Network says:
“Sport used to be largely male-dominated in viewership but IPL managed to change that. The tournament made its viewership a lot more family inclusive. I can not think of any other Indian TV property which is so universal and cuts across age groups, genders, and geographies.”
However, IPL has always been a great success. In the year of 2019, the Indian premier league was worth 47,500 crores (the US $6.8 billion). Value of IPL in 2018 was 41,800 crores (the US $ 6.3 billion). Therefore, if compared in terms of evaluation, it has shown an appreciable increase in the consecutive years.
In 2019, it was reported that the official broadcaster of IPL Star India generated an approximate worth of 2,000 crores which was somewhere equivalent to the amount fetched in the year 2018(18,000-20,000 crore). However, according to Mohit Joshi, Managing Director at Havas Media Group, Star India is going to see an increase of at least 20%(29,000 – 3,000 crore). One of the major reasons for this would be the increase in the in-house viewership leading to an increase in the TRP of the channel.
In the year 2019, Advertising agencies have seen a bad phase. The reasons being the slowdown in the economy, and the introduction of New Tariff order by TRAI. Therefore, the Indian Premier League season 2020 is looking promising.
“I estimate the growth of IPL to be around 10-12% this year,” Ashish Bhasin.
Rubeena Singh, CEO, iProspect India shared her views and provided a breakdown of expenditure on advertisement in digital media and TV during this IPL season 2020. According to the breakdown provided by her, there will be an overall amount spent on the advertisement will be 3,000 – 3,300 crores.
According to the calculations by Rebecca Noronha, Senior Manager – Media, Gozoop and Rikki Agrawal, Co-founder, Chief Business & Operating Officer at Blink Digital the advertisement expenditure is going to rise on an approximate 30-40% during this IPL season.
Sujay Kar– Group Director and Lead – Commerce, VMLY&R SEA, and India are placing his bets on digital media platforms. According to him, “Digital is expected to see the highest growth as the top Media platform, as Mobile content consumption for Sports and Entertainment is on a rise”.
The Duff and Phelps report has listed IPL among the world top ten sports leagues. Numerous brands are trying to associate themselves with the Indian Premier League, either they want to be on the Jersey of the players by providing sponsorship or sponsor a team.
Even some of the biggest brands do not want to miss this golden opportunity. These brands include:
Even the new automobile industry names like Kia and MG Motors are determined to enter the race of sponsors.
According to the reports shared by BARC India, In the year 2019, Star India viewership reached 462 mn, during the IPL season. There was an approximate 12% increase in the viewership since the year 2018. The Star India aired the Indian Premier League, in eight different languages and 24 channels were on display.
Hotstar recorded a record-breaking reach of 300 mn views. The highest one-day viewership record on the platform was 18.6 mn, on the final day ( Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians).
According to Bhasin, the medium of viewing will not matter, and both digital and TV will get an equal response. He also stated: “For those 40 days, it is hard for any other programming to compete with at the same time slot as the IPL because of its impact. It has almost become a part of our culture.”
Bhasin further says, “ground activities and OOH are equally important at times like this. Depending upon the product and the category, using various media and giving a consistent message across them is going to be fruitful for brands”.
According to Mr Joshi, there is always more viewership and reach related to the television. Therefore it is best for massive brands. However, the brands with a particular niche, digital/OTT platforms like Hotstar are the best.
Noronho explains “Surprisingly, this year, new emerging ad channels like ShareChat (the Indic language-based social network) have released a Cricket-special brand integration. Advertisers who have their audience present in Tier II and Tier III cities would consider leveraging this medium.”
IPL has always been a trendsetter for the market, generating new ideas for advertisement and providing creative content for the content creators.
This year “Star Sports has launched a regional sports channel to give regional flavour to local audiences, innovation in terms of match scheduling strategy – big matches on weekends. Super Sunday matches will be telecasted on movie channels and other regional channels to reach a mass audience” an observation by Joshi.
Some of the interesting ways of advertising your products could be mini-games, Social feeds, distribution of coupons, Watch and win can provide a successful engagement ratio with the audience.
Mr. Bhasin still recalls his favorite IPL campaign to be “Har Ek friend zaroori hota hai.” The campaign helped in establishing a new market trend which made people realize the importance of telecom in bringing people together.
Further, Bhasin concludes, “Put a consistent message to the consumers, holistically. Don’t get tied up with one medium and make sure that you supplement your television and digital activity along with other activities.”
