How brands with limited outlays can leverage the IPL

The IPL is just around the corner and the anticipation among everyone has constantly been on the rise. Being one of the most awaited tournaments to get back into action, this season of IPL is expected to see a humongous surge in viewership. With this context, almost all the big brands are now gearing up to use this platform to engage with their target audiences.

Being the prime sporting event of the nation, IPL has been a favorite among marketers. With numerous success stories of brand associations, IPL has undoubtedly been a pivotal point around which marketers have planned their campaign and business agendas. There is a myth that IPL is only for big spenders and small advertisers seem to get lost in this high clutter. We have examined this hypothesis based on the below-mentioned perspectives and data.

What reach can be achieved with a lower set of matches?

The above-given data suggests that even with a lesser number of matches, advertisers can reach a larger audience and at a much quicker time. This is important especially during the limited festive period, where a consumer splurge is highly anticipated.

Will brands lose spotlight amongst many advertisers?

As we see here, the quality of reach that every spot aired in an IPL environment sets up an ideal stage for consumers to get engaged with the ad. With an ad pod of less than a minute, IPL garners an effective attention index to all of its advertisers as compared to any other genre which generally has an average break duration of 5 minutes and much larger number of advertising during this duration. This outcome also supports the advertisers on IPL to bring out the desired response from their consumers.

Some examples have been set by brands like Orient last season, who have used only the initial phase of IPL. Orient being a seasonal brand, effectively used the initial stage of the tournament for an accelerated reach buildup to enable early demand. This saw them generating 3 times faster reach by the 24th day of the tournament.

In the ICC WC 2019, Zeel rainwear picked up 12 matchdays to build national brand awareness. This resulted in their search interest increasing 8x times during their campaign days. They saw their search interest peak during the India Vs Pakistan match, not only did they get optimum results during their campaign but the search interest sustained for another week even after the campaign ended.

Brands that do not want to reach the masses but want to speak to a select premium audience can focus on leveraging the HD feed alone. Post the NTO set by TRAI, India has seen steady growth in the reach and viewership for HD channels. Even during the IPL, Star Sports has witnessed a substantially higher reach for their HD channels in comparison to other genres. In the metros too, the average monthly reach growth was seen to be as high as 10.2 million in 2019. This also saw a 3.5x increase in the share of HD channels within Star Sports. Over the years, mega cricket events have been seen getting bigger on HD channels.

Urban Company which was earlier Urban Clap saw the potential in the growing numbers of HD and used a targeted campaign for their premium audiences. By leveraging this HD feed, they saw a 64% increase in app downloads, a 33% surge in daily users that resulted in a 3x increase in service orders.

With all these brands having set an example, we can sufficiently conclude that IPL has proven to be an effective platform even for those advertisers who are looking to invest partially/methodically in it. The results speaking for itself and the associated brands having achieved their marketing objectives efficiently using the variety of approaches available, it proudly showcases the potential that the tournament holds for smaller advertisers. To sum things up, it can be said that IPL has something to offer for everybody, it is up to the advertiser and agencies to get their think tanks running and plan the limited outlay such that it delivers optimum output for their brand.