Havas Media Group India has partnered with YouGov, a global research and analytics agency, for its syndicated study that helps advertisers measure the impact of their ads during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. The study helps establish the efficacy of IPL as a platform when it comes to influencing mind measures and also answers one of the most critical questions that advertisers have today: the role of premium buys on brand health.
Said Deepa Bhatia, General Manager, India, YouGov: “The Hi-Cricket research that YouGov India conducts annually in partnership with Havas Media Group India has become one of the most pivotal research exercises for us. Hi-Cricket provides an in-depth, customised look into the coveted Indian Premier League (IPL) as an advertising and sponsorship vehicle and is an invaluable tool for brands and marketers to understand how the tournament delivers on their marketing objectives. This is critical given the exponential growth in investment that’s pumped into this cricketing extravaganza by brands, which has in fact made the IPL the biggest platform to create long-term brand image and value. IPL 2022 is coming back with it’s the first season in an endemic world. This study is designed to deliver valuable insights into a post-Covid world, within Havas’ Meaningful Brands framework.”
Commenting on the study, Sanchita Roy, Head of Strategy, Havas Media Group India, added: “Hi-Cricket 2022 is in alignment with our philosophy of ‘Meaningful Media’ – fundamentally, this means media that is trusted, engaging and influential – and YouGov’s Cube philosophy (people, time and variables). The recent study tracks the impact of IPL 2022 on brand metrics in the endemic world as people have finally come out of isolation. IPL is all about community building and enjoying the sports league with family and friends, so sentiments surrounding it are undoubtedly high. Involvement with IPL goes far beyond the actual matches as there are peripheral properties including Fantasy Leagues and Gaming that ensure high engagement of viewers thereby making it the best choice for brands to connect with the audience. This makes Hi-Cricket a real time solution that consistently and accurately measures and monitors brand trends based on key indicators. It helps us identify the most Meaningful Brands and drive Meaningful Conversations with our clients as we help them understand the overall impact of their association with the IPL.”
With the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season set to witness 55 matches be held in Mumbai, five time champions Mumbai Indians have splashed huge hoardings covering the entire city to welcome the fellow nine franchises.
A dash of yellow to ‘Welcome Chennai Super Kings – Whistle Podu Dil Khol Ke,’, while Kolkata Knight Riders are welcomed to the city with their iconic ‘Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo Dil Khol Ke slogan. The #WelcomeDilKholKe billboards, customised to each of the visiting teams, have been set up across key locations in the city, uses a creative rendition to bring alive the spirit of sports, excitement and affection.
Said an unnamed Mumbai Indians spokesperson: “The billboards installed across the city capture the creative expressions of the spirit of Mumbai – the city of dreams which welcomes every individual to its land of opportunity. We, Mumbai Indians are a reflection of the city, its ethos and this campaign is a tribute to the warmth of the people of Mumbai in welcoming all the franchises of our IPL family.
“With IPL back in India and in Mumbai, Mumbai Indians look forward to welcoming its loyal blue & gold Paltan back to the stadiums. We take pride in having one of the most passionate fan army – the Paltan who have backed the team for a decade and more with their unrelenting energy and enthusiasm.”
Screengrab from Disney+Hotstar website (https://www.hotstar.com/)
By Vikas Mehta
I write this review while watching the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL). For me, the tournament and the players had lot of parallels with the ads that were on the air. Let’s dive into these.
This tournament saw a revival in fortunes of established teams like Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). As well as some old stars like Uthapa and Du Plessis. Advertisements which ran in the first edition of this IPL and were then forgotten saw a revival in this extended edition of IPL. Finolex, Phone Pe, Unacademy, Dream 11, Mutual funds….
This IPL saw a lot of established players disappoint. Rohit Sharma, the Pandya brothers, Rahul Chahar, Hazelwood, Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Rabada… all disappointed. Similarly ads from established brands like Coke, Thums Up, Ceat, Berger Paints, Sprite… disappointed. Eminently forgettable performances.
In the league stage, Delhi Capitals dominated the tournament by winning 10 out of their 14 games. Similarly edtech as a category dominated the ad scene. Byju’s, Byju’s Adarsh, Byju’s Whitehat Jr, Lido small group tuitions, Unacademy, UpGrad, Great Learning etc showed the potential and dominance of the category.
For M S Dhoni there was double success. While his contribution to CSK lifting the trophy was not all that significant, his single-handed contribution of appearing in most number of ads was unmatched. Homelane, Dream 11, ITC Yipee, Mutual Funds sahi hai, Indigo paints all benefitted with the free time he has since his retirement. I won’t be surprised to see him soon in some ed tech ad too.
The last few matches of the tournament saw a new campaign by Dream 11. Captioned Dream Big, the campaign I thought was a standout. Using different players, they used a different narrative for each under the Dream Big Umbrella. It’s interesting storytelling and flexible format was excellent. I liked almost all the ads, with Hardik Pandya, Dhawan and Bumrah being my favourites. A standout performance almost like the performance of K Rahul and Harshal Patel who stood tall amongst the batsmen and bowlers respectively.
Venkatesh Iyer was the star new kid on the block. He played aggressively and even had a good differentiation because he can roll over his arm effectively. The Oven Story ad was a good parallel here. A seemingly new entrant, at least as an IPL advertiser, the brand had interesting differentiation in the Pizza category and created a good enough impact for my daughter to order for it.
While the performer of the tournament was a difficult choice between Gaikwad, Iyer and Patel, for me the best ad performance came from Neeraj Chopra in the Cred ad. He blended well into the narrative and looked as natural as he does on the athletic field. But the new Cred ad featuring Kapil Dev on the last day was a total disappointment. It did not have the energy and joie de vivre that all the other Cred ads have had. It looked like the opening ceremony of most IPL tournaments. Too much pomp. Very little narrative.
But overall the ads were very tepid. The use of celebrities dominated the scene. Dhoni, Ranveer Singh, Kohli, Bumrah etc were omnipresent. The narrative though was predictable and in most cases just relying on star power. Frankly, the second half of IPL was similar. With just two-three games going to the wire, the one-sided final was a reflection of how most of the games panned out.
The parallels continued right till the end. There was a lot of speculation about Dhoni’s retirement from IPL as a player. And the suspense continued even in the post-match interview. Will he retire or continue? Exactly the same thing happened with the Kamla Pasand surrogate ad of Amitabh Bachchan. With a holier-than-thou attitude, he made a grand statement of withdrawing from the ad and returning money for the ad as he did not know it was a surrogate ad. He obviously does not live on earth. But like Dhoni, the ad was not retired, even five days after AB’s statement. It was there in the finals too. What did disappear, albeit briefly were SRK Byju’s ads. But blink and they were back. All the twitter brouhaha lasted for just a few days.
There was one area where the parallels ended. CSK proved that old is gold. A team led by a 40-year-old with many players above 30 and retired from all other types of cricket, the team did well to win the tournament. The same, of course, cannot be said of the old traditional brands which have ceded ground to new category and brands and have been totally eclipsed. Let’s hope these new categories and brands do create new benchmarks in their advertising too. The next edition of IPL will tell us if that comes true. Till then au revoir, sayonara, alvida, tata.
An unusual season of the Indian Premier League, held over two parts separated by six months, is concluding next Friday. Despite being held overseas, and hence no home stadia and home fans coming into play, it has been a fairly successful season, with the primetime matches ratings consistently well, with those featuring Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings or Royal Challengers Bangalore being a notch higher than those featuring the other teams. Add the streaming numbers to the TV viewership and IPL looks stronger than ever.
But by now, that’s a known thing. The success of IPL, now in its 14th year, is not exactly breaking news. I remember how the 2011 season, coming on the heels of India’s Cricket World Cup victory, had performed below par. So much so that it created reasonable doubt in the minds of stakeholders if the IPL is losing its sheen.
That’s unimaginable today. Even a choppy IPL season would be immune to that level of dip in viewership. It is now easy to predict what an IPL match will rate, if you know the teams involved and the time slot. The audience is not ‘testing’ IPL as an idea anymore. They have embraced it already. And some years ago.
IPL is an annual fixture that has different kinds of importance for different people and businesses. It is a career opportunity for aspiring cricketers, a solid marketing platform for brands, and the ‘known devil’ for GECs, who no longer fret about what their content strategy during IPL should be. They simply replicate what they did the previous year, and for good reason too. There is no mystery left to unravel after all.
And that brings me to a question that’s been bothering me for a while now: Are we satisfied with just one blockbuster sporting property in this huge country? A host of sporting leagues have been launched over the last decade, and none of them have achieved even a fraction of IPL’s success. Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) is the best of the lot, having resurrected a dying sport from a viewership perspective. But the numbers are not exactly ‘mass’, and it remains to be seen how the league performs when it is back later this year (or early next year) after a two-year hiatus.
Indian Super League, an attempt at cashing in on the growth popularity of football among India’s urban teenage and youth population, has not grown stronger with time. And the other leagues have barely managed to survive. I suspect some of them may have died a silent death during the pandemic, and may never come back at all.
Cricket itself, outside IPL, is not growing in viewership. The Olympics had great media visibility because of India’s best-ever performance, but very little numbers to show. I fear that we may have reached a point where except the IPL (and the Cricket World Cups, which are not annual fixtures anyway), we have a big hole in our sports viewership story.
India does not have a strong sporting culture, and it is that much harder to build that in a one-sport nation. The broadcasters, especially Star, have done a fair bit, such as to bring up Kabaddi as a prominent option. But the road ahead remains a tough one even there.
In 2025, will IPL still be the only sporting story India has to offer? Or is the next big idea round the corner, and we just don’t know it yet?
Pristyn Care, a surgery-focused healthcare brand, announced the first phase of its ‘Surgery Matlab Pristyn Care’ TV and digital campaign which is launched with the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) season. The ad film titled ‘Surgery Mein Care’ features Hrithik Roshan.
It is conceptualised by BBDO, directed by Siddharth Anand, and shot by Anil Mehta, with music by Clinton Cerejo.
Commenting on the launch, Harsimarbir (Harsh) Singh, Co-founder, Pristyn Care, said: “Since our inception in 2018, we have grown tremendously with presence across multiple cities of India. Our objective as a patient-first organization has stayed at the core during this growth and with our new campaign, ‘Surgery Matlab Pristyn Care’, starring Hrithik Roshan, we are intending to take this ethos and core-belief to people across the country. This campaign on IPL aims to make Pristyn Care the preferred choice of minimally-invasive surgery in India”.
The Indian Premier League is the biggest marketing and entertainment extravaganza that has had everyone hooked on to it for almost a decade-and-a-half.
That the 2021 edition will happen or no was a question raised by many, who were only shooting their thoughts, while BCCI and all the franchise owners were very sure and positive for the show to go on. With so much at stake and all the possible arrangements, it was only safe to assume that IPL would set an example in keeping live events alive in these unforeseen and testing times.
Come May 4, 2021, IPL was suspended and then postponed, to a date that’s not been decided yet.
There were many quarters constantly voicing concerns about three key things happening – the Assembly Elections, the Kumbh Mela and the IPL in these pandemic times. To me, IPL was the safest bet and the BCCI took the right step in putting a pause to the event.
In the past, IPL has shown it’s as much a festival as Diwali, as many category purchases have significant spike during these two festivals in India. Marketers will now be scratching their brains already to think of a Plan B.
Will the impact of this be felt? It’s a no-brainer, the question should be where all, will the impact be felt?
For IPL/ BCCI
IPL is not going to see a significant loss of revenue from the central sponsors or the broadcasters for sure as the agreements ensure that. IPL valuation may also undergo a correction, which may reflect on the teams too.
A key aspect that will be at the centre of sports discussions will be from the global market perspective. Will this lead to concerns around many other cricket events, and other sports to be held in India?
ICC T20 World Cup isn’t too far and there are already talks of “if it moves to Dubai, BCCI will still hold the rights”. While this is great for cricket, for sponsors of the ICC event, they would be merely exposed as brands on broadcast and would run a campaign that will not have the same flavour as the event being hosted in India.
If it happens, the movement of the T20 World Cup will put tremendous pressure on holding a bi-lateral series and other sporting action in India, leading to opportunity and revenue loss to the board, fans as well as marketers.
Commercial stakeholders:
All the commercial stakeholders across would have to plan for a situation probably as unique as someone hitting a six off every ball in every over for 10 overs!
Disney – Star India:
As probably the single largest commercial stakeholder of IPL, Star India, has an uphill task on multiple fronts to realign its business and financial plans for the year. With a major part of the plan being IPL for Star Network as well as for Disney Hotstar, it’s going to be impossible in the near-term for Star to:
:: Find quality and engaging content to fill the programming gap on television as well as HotStar.
With OTT growing significantly in India, Disney-Star will have to scramble to get some very attractive programming to be on the growth path.
:: Build advertising revenue and plan for longer deals.
:: Push for subscription on OTT as well as television platforms. IPL being a key property to push subscriptions, a new plan will be in play to achieve objectives or even probably revise targets.
:: Revenue loss for now from all the syndication of rights globally, will also be a revenue gap that will not be filled by any other means.
All the above may leave an option open for competition to plan and execution some bold and radical moves to woo the audience.
A Brand’s Biggest Vehicle – The IPL
Brands and businesses plan their launches and campaigns specifically with IPL in mind. For them, the current situation will be a massive letdown, while some sponsors/ advertisers will be fine with the shift if IPL (whenever it happens), many will have to take a deep hard look at their half yearly plans if not annual.
Very clearly, new age brands like Cred and Dream11 had massive plans, so did the beverage companies – especially soft drinks in their prime season. For these three categories, the opportunity to exploit is suddenly missing, and they’ll have to think hard and formulate new plans, with revised targets, in shortest possible time!
In fact their existing efforts (ad film, media plan, activation, etc) and investments would have to be redeployed, scrapped or modified, as necessary.
Let’s think about Kotak – that was targeting topical credit card sales, with seven team associations Or Upstox, who apart from growth, would have also had valuation gains in their radar by the end of IPL 2021!
Areas of concern for marketers that would crop up :
Timing & Seasonality: Season time for some and in the first part of the business year for others, all calculations would go haywire and would need some extraordinary thinking, planning and execution to see through the year as planned.
Growth plans : The planned growth on the back of IPL campaign, will get a deep hard look-in for the scenario would change significantly. The impact of IPL is visible on any of the plans.
Reeling with uncertainty : Even if the brands are happy waiting for IPL, in the current scenario Uncertainty is the only Certainty. A third and probably a fourth wave might hit us, and no exact idea when. In such situation, everything is going to be fluid! And it will constantly keep the marketers on their toes for the plans they want to prepare and execute.
IPL Teams:
All the franchisees have secured reasonably good revenues from sponsorships. And with no more franchise fee, they are sitting pretty on top dollar earnings from the central pool, in addition to their own sponsorships.
Almost all teams had made significant plans to leverage and build digital platforms and engagement, with the current development event those plans would find it a challenge to meet the set objectives. A good chance of engaging with their fans will diminish fast, now that the IPL has been postponed. Moreover, with the uncertainties, teams and their plans for to rest of the year will be fluid.
BCCI had announced and wanted to auction two more teams to be brought into the fold of IPL making it a 10-team affair from 2022. With the current scenario – pandemic and economic, and uncertainty for now, BCCI may find it challenging to unlock the value as per earlier estimates. It could lead to rescheduling the auction and inclusion of two more teams in IPL by a year or so.
Non Sponsor Brands – competing brands
With the leading or newer brands going big on IPL, one thing is for sure, each of them hoped to gain handsome returns.
These brands end up simplifying as well as amplifying the category (Upstox, Dream11, Unacademy) and also expand the market.
The other brands in these categories would have plans basis the market familiarity and growth because of the larger spending brands; trying to take a small part of the pie.
With the expansion of the market limited, each competitor would have to create new plans to further their growth.
Ancillary Businesses
All the constituents – ground management, display boards, bio-bubble, travel and stay, production and other equipment , manpower etc. that are working with IPL directly or indirectly, will now have to look for opportunities, especially freelancers, temporary hires or contracted resources. IPL runs its own ecosystem and this time the ecosystem has been halted. There is a definite challenge in the market with respect to deployment of the resources.
Opportunity for BCCI / IPL
With the current situation and mood in the country, IPL could generate decent amount goodwill, by creating a movement towards support and help for the victims or sufferers of Covid19. Each IPL team and state board can take up a support role, helping patients with Oxygen, to organise medical supplies.
While the easiest way to help is to donate money towards the treatment of Covid-19 patients, they would serve themselves and the community well by creating a path breaking idea, involving all cricket fans similar of the one that Sport Club do Recife did in 2014 in Brazil.
Mahesh Ranka is among the early specialists in the business of sports in India and is Founder and CEO, GamerChangerZ and Founder, Indus Sports. His views here are personal.
Digital banking fintech Niyo has launched two ad communications to introduce, Niyox, a savings and wealth account aimed at millennials and Generation Z. The ad communications was launched on Hotstar website and mobile app at the just-suspended Indian Premier League (IPL). The campaign has been conceptualised by Sideways Consulting and executed by Picturewali, featuring OTT stars Ayush Mehra and Radhika Mehrotra.
Said Niyo Chief Marketing Officer Vineet Sethi: “We launched NiyoX, a full-suite banking app, to transform the way the Millennials and GenZ bank. With digital innovation at the heart of everything we do at Niyo, we decided to empower them further and boost their banking experience. We know this generation #JustCantWait to get their hands on things they desire and for experiences they want to live. They don’t just want everything in an instant, they also #WantMore out of everything! So we teamed up with our creative partners, Sideways Consulting, and launched these cool, quirky films to encapsulate the essence of Niyo.”
Added Abhijit Avasthi, Founder, Sideways Consulting: “Niyo is setting the ground for neobanking in India. We believe NiyoX’s offerings are going to delight the youngsters and so all we need to do is to bring them alive in a charming manner. Hence, the creative idea was to pick moments from one such relatable, endearing couple’s life and link them to the product offerings. While Niyo is an efficient, tech-enabled finance offering, we don’t want to behave like a stodgy old-school bank. Instead, we want to build a cool and confident brand.”
Said Sharmista Nag, Director and founder, Picturewali: “Shooting during the pandemic especially at a time when the cases were rising was risky. Hence, I asked myself, is it worth the risk? The interesting scripts and an agency with whom I always wanted to collaborate with tempted me. However, when you run a company, one can’t just think about oneself, one has to think about the whole team. Keeping safety our top priority, myself and my producer decided to take the challenge. We ensured that the entire cast and crew followed all safety measures. With a responsible team, a supportive agency and client it was a risk worth taking.”
The rapid escalation of the Covid-19 crisis in India has dominated headlines over the last week in particular. The ‘second wave’ has pushed the health infrastructure to its limits, and beyond. Mixed messaging from the governments, both at the Centre and in the various states, is not helping the cause. Instead of talking about vaccination and masking, our leaders are busy managing elections and overseeing religious events. It doesn’t make any sense. But that’s how it is.
A medical emergency, when combined with political apathy, can make for a grim picture. And lockdowns and economic disruptions don’t help either. In this atmosphere, a very unlikely candidate that emerged as a mood-uplifter: The Indian Premier League!
IPL has been ridden with endless controversies over the years. The league has been badgered, often justifiably so, for being obscenely commercial. Fixing, corruption, legal battles… IPL has seen it all. It’s hugely popular, but not unblemished by any stretch of anyone’s imagination.
Last year, BCCI managed to pull off a season in the UAE about six months after the scheduled season was canceled, which led us to a unique scenario of two IPL seasons within six months. Earlier this year, when England toured India and the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad was inaugurated with much fanfare, spectators were allowed in. Images of 65,000 spectators packed in that stadium in a T20 International, with no social distancing at all, became a huge talking point on social media, even at a time when our Covid situation didn’t seem like a crisis.
The decision to hold matches to empty stadia may have come in too late in that series, but there has been no such indiscretion with IPL 2021. Well before the current Covid wave came in, BCCI was clear that this IPL season will be held without in-stadia spectators, and with minimal team travel.
Absence of in-stadia spectators makes the IPL come across as highly Covid-appropriate. Coming from a league not always known to be mature and sensible in the past, this has turned out a mightily wise move. Home stadia and gate money are key components of the sports franchise model, and any compromise on them is hard on the league and the franchise owners. Thankfully, such commercial temptations have not coloured sound judgment this time.
So, we are in the middle of the most controversy-free IPL season of all time, it seems. With more people at home and the possibility of disruption in prime-time content on GECs because of shooting restrictions, it is likely to be one of the most-watched seasons too. Now let’s hope BCCI does not do something silly between now and the end of the IPL.
CoinSwitch Kuber, India’s largest cryptocurrency investment platform for retail investors, has announced the launch of its new ad campaign, Trade Kar, Befikar. With this, CoinSwitch Kuber becomes the first player in the Indian cryptocurrency space to launch a campaign to evangelise cryptocurrencies as an alternate asset class and build equity amongst Indian investors. The company is also the Associate Sponsor with Disney+ Hotstar for the Indian Premier League.
Created by Nihilent, the campaign consists of three interconnected ad films. Actor Kunaal Roy Kapur has been roped in to play all the roles in the ad films. The campaign will be aired on Disney+ Hotstar throughout the Indian Premier League and will also be amplified using social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Said Ashish Singhal, CEO and Co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber: “Millennials and GenZ are emerging as the biggest backers of cryptocurrencies in India. With our new ad campaign we aim to showcase how it is a smart move to invest early in cryptocurrencies. Crypto has been the fastest growing asset class of the last decade and the momentum is only growing stronger now. Through our partnership with Disney+ Hotstar, we aim to amplify this message to millions of young and upwardly mobile Indians. It is time to join the crypto revolution by investing in cryptocurrencies through CoinSwitch Kuber – the safest and most friendly platform for crypto investments.”
Added KV ‘Pops’ Sridhar, Global Chief Creative Officer, Nihilent: “The CoinSwitch Kuber ad films are special for us as they give us an opportunity to involve our audience into experiencing a completely new investment category that most of them may not be familiar with. We therefore decided to go for stories which not only highlight the utility of this new asset class but also place it firmly within the Indian family context as something that everyone can invest in and which is not a domain of the elite.”
Home interiors and renovation platform Livspace has launched a campaign titled “Don’t try this at home” to raise awareness about the importance of living in a well-designed home with great interior design. To market the campaign, Livspace has partnered with Disney+ Hotstar, as an associate sponsor for the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Said Kartikeya Bhandari, Chief Marketing Officer at Livspace: “As market leaders, Livspace is focused on creating the organised interiors category in all its launched cities and countries. It’s our constant endeavour to introduce more and more homeowners to a professional way of getting home interiors done. This time, we have taken our brand promise of high quality and efficient design and presented it through the “Don’t try this at home” campaign. The narrative is also timely as many people have spent months cooped up at home and have started noticing the inconveniences caused by poor design. IPL has always been a great platform for brands to present their narrative and with this season having kicked off, we at Livspace believe this is a great opportunity to reach a large audience and inspire them to improve their daily lives at home with interiors from Livspace.”
Added Adarsh Atal, Director – Creative and Content at Tilt Brand Solutions: “As a brand, Livspace strongly believes that great interior design is not just about the way things look. It’s also about function. Taking a leap forward from our previous campaign that dealt with ‘Living with design flaws’, this time around, we decided to emphatically warn people about the implications of living in a poorly designed home. ‘Don’t try this at home’ is our tongue firmly-in-cheek way of telling people not to try stunts at home and try Livpsace to discover the joy of smart design.”
Edtech firm Unacademy has released a new campaign film called ‘Cracking the Game’ to mark its first year of association with the Indian Premier League and celebrate the process of learning. Conceived by Lowe Lintas, the film draws a fun correlation between students’ desire to learn and the passionate Cricket action seen on-field during the Dream11 IPL 2020.
Speaking about the campaign, Sonal Mishra, Director, Marketing at Unacademy said: “Our efforts during this IPL have all been about how our brand proposition, which is to learn from the best, can be tied to Cricket. While brainstorming ideas for this film, the takeaway was that all of us learn everyday, from the most unlikely sources, and often unknowingly. So, we wanted to see if we could draw parallels between various moments during the matches and learning. The response to the film has been spectacular and we’re delighted that our brand message is reaching deeper with this film.”
Added Puneet Kapoor, Regional Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas said: “Unacademy’s spirit and philosophy of ‘Let’s Crack It!’ isn’t limited to students only, but inspires across. So when the marketing team came up with the challenge of cracking a great idea with IPL footage only, we thought of applying the academic gyaan in interesting, relevant, yet irrational juxtaposition. We had lots of fun in mixing and matching footage with theories and principles to come up with the gags.”
The sports arm of Reliance Industries Ltd – IMG-Reliance, has reported closing 36 deals across multiple brands and franchises for the ongoing Indian Premier League season, including the Indian cricketing board BCCI. According to its communique, IMG-Reliance, has raised a record revenue, estimated to be double of the agency’s last year’s earnings.
The marquee deal for IMG-Reliance’s growth trajectory for this year has been Dream11’s title sponsorship of INR 222 crore with IPL. The Mumbai-based firm has exclusively represented Dream11 on its BCCI and IPL-related partnerships and also assisted them in securing cricketers as part of their activation plans. This is in addition to facilitating 6 team deals with Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Kings XI Punjab, Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Said Nikhil Bardia, Head of Sponsorship Sales and Talents, IMG-Reliance: “This season, Dream11’s IPL title sponsorship was a very big win for us, along with BKT who joined the IPL wave with 6 IPL team partnerships. The brand partners have consistently appreciated our strategic insights, our knowledge around the assets and most importantly, our ability to find a fine balance between rights holders & brands, to make the partnerships impactful for all parties. It is this experience, which has helped us to grow in the sponsorship landscape with a large number of deals to become a dominant player in the region for cricket.”
IMG-Reliance is also on board with marquee brands like BKT Tires, BoAt, FanCode and Jio through a combination of licensing and sponsorship service. IMG-Reliance also exclusively represents six leading cricket talents globally – Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer, Shikhar Dhawan and Krunal and Hardik Pandya.
Havas Media Group India has partnered with YouGov, a global research and analytics agency, for its syndicated study that helps advertisers measure the impact of their ads during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. The study helps establish the efficacy of IPL as a platform when it comes to influencing mind measures and also answers one of the most critical questions that advertisers have today: the role of premium buys on brand health.
With the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season set to witness 55 matches be held in Mumbai, five time champions Mumbai Indians have splashed huge hoardings covering the entire city to welcome the fellow nine franchises.
I write this review while watching the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL). For me, the tournament and the players had lot of parallels with the ads that were on the air. Let’s dive into these.
An unusual season of the Indian Premier League, held over two parts separated by six months, is concluding next Friday. Despite being held overseas, and hence no home stadia and home fans coming into play, it has been a fairly successful season, with the primetime matches ratings consistently well, with those featuring Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings or Royal Challengers Bangalore being a notch higher than those featuring the other teams. Add the streaming numbers to the TV viewership and IPL looks stronger than ever.
