IPL – “Indian Promo League” it is!

Is it worth spending so much by brands for being an advertising partner in a sporting league? Read it to find it...

The festival of T20 cricket is back! With hoax hooting, hotter locations of UAE and only home viewers, the avatar of IPL is certainly different this time. But one thing which hasn’t changed this year too is the love of brands for this mega league.

With Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali grabbing all the PR as next title sponsor of IPL season 13 after Vivo moving out of the title sponsorship amidst growing Indo-China Border tension and marquee brands saving cash for unprecedented COVID times; it was finally Dream11 which got to the rolling tongue of people with “Welcome to Dream 11 IPL”! Although, Dream11 shelled 222 Cr. for this coveted space, it was still half the value what Vivo gave for the same contract for IPL 2019.

Byju’s, Unacademy, Cred, Boat are some other startups which joined the bandwagon of being associated with IPL because of biggies giving a miss this time, but this brings us to another important question looming –

Is it worth spending so much by brands for being an advertising partner in a sporting league?

Let us understand this with a little basic math:

The viewership on TV for the entire tournament of IPL 2019 was 46.2 crore on Star Network, according to data by BARC and a 10 second spot on the network costed 10 lakhs. This means that for every rupee spent by brands, 462 viewers watched the ad! Average per match impressions were 27.3 million, according to BARC. BARC defines impressions as number of individuals of a target audience averaged across minutes.

On the digital front, brands are charged on a CPM basis. CPM, also called cost per mille (or thousand), is a marketing term used to denote the price of 1,000 advertisement impressions. In IPL 2019, Hotstar charged Rs 360 per CPM. As many as 30 crore viewers had watched season 12 of IPL on video streaming platform. Therefore,for every rupee spent by a brand, 834 viewers watched the ad on digital platforms! That’s phenomenal as compared to the conventional market returns.

So, next obvious question comes, Why only IPL?

One might argue that cricket is a popular sport in India, but why is that only IPL garners all the advertising revenues, even in the presence of various bilateral international series that are held through the year. Well, in the defence of IPL, a series that generally doesn’t last more than three to five matches should not be compared with a tournament spanning almost two months. Secondly, with male and female cricket viewers increasing every year, IPL serves as a single platform for gender neutral brands to cater to different audiences via single platform.

A grand reach is also one the reasons that IPL is the hotbed for new product launches. Vivo had strategically launched new models Vivo V15 just a few weeks before IPL 2019 and V9 just before IPL 2018. Tata Motors used the tournament to promote its recently launched SUV, Harrier in IPL 2019. The tournament had earlier proven to be a game changer for Tata Nexon. For IPL 2020, company announced Tata Altroz as the official partner for the season.

For relatively new brands, like Phonepe, IPL platform provides a head start for gaining acceptance in the markets. In IPL 2019, Phonepe increased its brand awareness in both rural and urban areas, with a 10% gain in market share during the tournament itself! This year, an e-pharmacy platform PharmEasy hopes to get similar benefits from the season. Hence, IPL emerges as a perfect growth launchpad for new as well as established brands.

With all that said, it is important to understand here that IPL is not just a sporting tournament but also a huge advertising base. Considering factors like the long wait that fans went through, reduced sources of entertainment (especially sports) during pandemic times & restriction to homes will definitely cause a surge in the viewership of IPL, giving a better ROI to the brands investing in it.

No wonder, the spot rate by Star network for IPL ads has been raised by 20% to Rs 12-13 lakhs for a 10 second spot from the previous year! Interestingly, for IPL 2020, Star had sold more than 80% of its ad inventory in March itself.

Do you still think IPL advertising is overpriced? Or rather underpriced?

Let us know before next Marketing Monday!!

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By: Anmol Gupta | Isha Garg