Glance looks to attract brands with IPL 2023

Smart lock screen platform Glance’s AI-backed lock screen gives a personalised experience to users, who were getting real time updates throughout the IPL season. Cricket fans got ball by ball updates of IPL matches on their lock screens. 

Glance partnered with JioCinema for the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) season. With this partnership, Glance consumers will get a “lock screen to app” viewing experience. The Glance software comes pre-installed on Android smartphones, such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, etc., in India.   

In an exclusive interaction with afaqs!, Vasuta Agarwal, chief business officer – consumer platform advertising, InMobi (parent company of Glance), shares that there’s been a 35% increase in Indians consuming lock screen content. There’s also been a 75% increase in daily engaging users.

The company is also looking to increase advertiser interest in Glance, with the IPL.

Agarwal mentions that Glance provides an innovative approach to experiential marketing for brands. It helps them to connect better with their target audience, while fostering brand love and interest. 

“Harnessing the smart lock screen for brand communication, can generate a profound impact on raising awareness. By utilising full screen imagery, brands can capture the attention of their audience, even before they unlock their phones. This provides an excellent opportunity to promote new products, services, or campaigns in a highly effective manner.”

“Mobile is the preferred second screen for watching sports. As the true second screen for users, Glance will continue to deliver one-click integrated experience of sports content to users at scale. We’re constantly looking to offer differential and experiential solutions to brands to reach out to their customers.”

Agarwal mentions some of Glance’s successes in the previous IPL seasons, when brands like Sprite, Swiggy, and upGrad, leveraged the smart lock screens to launch, and run their campaigns.

Sprite gamified the experience on the smart lock screen, by conceptualising the Sprite Cricket Premier League (CPL) – a virtual cricket tournament. The brand brought in the cricket stadium experience on the lock screen via a custom developed gaming creative. 

“The Sprite CPL helped to achieve 66 million impressions and recorded over two million gaming sessions, while reaching 15 million unique users,” Agarwal informs.

Online food delivery company Swiggy also utilised Glance’s platform during previous IPL seasons. “The Swiggy Matchday Mania was a native storytelling initiative, where vivid visuals were delivered seamlessly on the millions of lock screens. The ‘one-click install’ feature on the platform, enabled frictionless app installs when the creatives were clicked on,” states Agarwal.

Edtech company upGrad combined smart influencer marketing and data science to promote specialised course offerings, Agarwal says. It enlisted the support of Vikram Sathaye, a well-known cricket presenter, analyst and stand-up comedian, who assumed the role of the witty ‘Data Scientwist’ to endorse the campaign. 

Agarwal also elaborates on how Glance is able to drive app adoption with seamless one-click installations. “Brands can effortlessly promote their apps through one-click installs, providing a streamlined process that boosts app downloads and drives significant traffic to their website. For IPL 2022, Disney+ Hotstar leveraged the live score API integration feature and drove engagement with the cricket fans.” 

By tapping on Glance’s content, fans will be led to live IPL coverage on JioCinema, if it’s already installed on their smartphone. If one doesn’t have the JioCinema app on their smartphone, they will be directed to download the app.

Agarwal says that sports is one of the key business verticals for Glance.  Glance was also the official digital partner for Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia recently.  “Mobile is the preferred second screen while watching sports. As the true second screen for users, Glance will continue to deliver one-click integrated experience of sports content to users at scale. ​The Smart Lock Screen has immense potential to drive customer engagement and help brand awareness in the country,” she asserts.