The cricketing fervour is back with a bang as the much anticipated IPL season of 2024 is well underway, with fans across the country eagerly glued to their phones and television sets waiting for the epic battles on the cricket field. Are you also tuned in to the joys of victory or the misery of defeat? With such a grand exhibition of talent and drama, it is no surprise that as IPL and sports continue to soar high in popularity, it is also climbing the preferred rankings for marketers and brands. These captivating events, drawing in audiences and fans from around the world, present a unique opportunity that blends the best of both traditional and digital marketing channels to engage with vast audiences. As per the Mint report, the Indian Sports Industry is projected to reach a value of $100 billion by 2027; sports marketing has emerged as a pivotal arena, compelling marketers and streamers to leverage and embrace this method strategically. One of the finest examples of this trend is JioCinema, the official streaming partner for Tata IPL which has registered 113 million viewers on the opening day itself. Brands are seizing the opportunity to connect with their target audience like never before, and one such popular method is the rise of Connected TV (CTV) in sports advertising - a game-changer, allowing brands to engage with their audience in a more intimate and impactful way. 

Game Changer: The Rise of Connected TV Advertising in IPL 2024

Connected TV has firmly established its presence in the Indian market, captivating over 30 million households in 2023 alone. Projections indicate a promising doubling of this figure by 2025. On top of that, over 90% of TVs sold in India are Smart TVs, showcasing that there is a real shift towards streaming platforms and interactive viewing. Advertisers are aware of the importance of CTV, allowing viewers to easily stream their favourite sporting events. That is where the huge influence of IPL comes into the picture, and in the 2024 season, there has been a surge of advertiser interest.  The reason why brands are looking to shift to CTV advertising is due to the flexibility to target specific matches or moments within matches to showcase their contextual ads. The IPL is also one of the biggest sporting events in India and would offer advertisers plenty of unique opportunities to garner huge brand recall from the targeted audience. 

2024 IPL Spark: Fuelling India’s Sports Marketing Evolution

In India, sports marketing has undergone notable growth and evolution, representing a specialised sector that concentrates on promoting sports events, teams, athletes, and associated products to specific audiences. The IPL not only drew in global cricketing icons but also garnered significant investments from corporate giants and advertisers. The resounding success of this season's IPL has not only elevated cricket to a highly marketable entity but has also reaffirmed and brought to light the power of sporting events and the role they can play in branding. Let’s take a closer look at some of them-

• Celebrity Level Influence

Nowadays, athletes have ascended to celebrity status, captivating fans with their on-field prowess and off-field lives. High-profile matches between teams and renowned players bring with them higher viewership which amplifies this phenomenon by merging the allure of sports with the glamour associated with teams or players. For instance, Shah Rukh Khan’s ownership of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has boosted the team’s profile, drawing greater audiences with his active promotion. This season, KKR partnered with playR, offering fans exclusive access to a range of merchandise, from team jerseys and cricket gear to lifestyle products, all endorsed by the team. Additionally, during the matches, there are continuous ads displayed, such as Dream 11 featuring cricket celebrities like Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya. This retains the attention of the viewers and generates a buzz, dictating consumer behaviour. Such partnerships not only enhance the brand value of sports teams but also open avenues for brands in sports, lifestyle, and related sectors to connect with cricket enthusiasts through the credibility and popularity of the team.

• Diversified Reach through Content Creators 

In addition to traditional celebrities, the rise of influencers has added another layer to the marketing strategies of major sporting events like the IPL. The reach of micro to mega influencers is helping with the reach and relatability to the audience and is a valuable asset for CTV advertising offering brands an excellent platform to amplify their presence. For instance, this IPL season, Star Sport’s “Star Creator's Network” has become an exciting platform where they will be inviting cricketing experts to delve into the nitty-gritty of the matches, engaging fans through multiple social media platforms. The emergence of diverse platforms beyond traditional subscriptions offers new paths for audience engagement. Brands, for instance, can capitalise on partnerships with influencer-led series such as 'Cheeky Singles' by CarryMinati, who will be leveraging his comedic talent to interact with the audience and talk about IPL match highlights.

• Localised Marketing Strategies

Fans and enthusiasts are always considered the heart of any sport. Local Team support and the strong fan bond not only fosters loyalty but also represents a significant opportunity for deeper engagement. Marketing campaigns can target this regional enthusiasm in order to strengthen connections with the fans through their brands. Take, for instance, the Chennai Super Kings, who have embraced Tamil-language content and collaborated with micro-influencers to create viral memes that resonate profoundly with their regional fanbase. Streaming services like JioCinema have also included 12 language options for live commentary, making it more accessible.

The Winning Play

CTV Advertising is laying down the foundations for a transformative change in the Indian marketing environment, and this season’s IPL campaign serves as a compelling testament to its transformative power. With its unique capacity to pinpoint affluent audiences, introduce interactive campaigns, and establish good brand recall, CTV advertising emerges as an alluring avenue of sports marketing, allowing brands to tap into an enormous and dedicated viewership base. As streaming and smart TVs become the norm, the trajectory of CTV ad expenditure is set to soar, further solidifying its role in India’s digital marketing sphere. So, if you’re a brand seeking to make a significant impact towards a vast audience, embracing CTV advertising might just be your game-winning six!

With the IPL now in full swing, brands across the country are pulling out all the stops in terms of marketing ideation and strategy. Leveraging sports is a fun and interactive way to connect with audiences. When exploring the realm of sports, there are ‘5Cs’ that marketers must keep in mind to maximize the impact and reach of campaigns -

• Celebrity
• Content
• Conversation
• Context
• Consumer

Below we will have a look at how each of these elements has been explored by different brands while ideating marketing campaigns revolving around the IPL -

The Power of Celebrity

Celebrity endorsements and collaboration across social media, as well as traditional advertising, is a sure-shot way of propelling your brand in the limelight. The IPL has staggering viewership rates across the country, which is why advertising your brand with the right collaborations is the way to go. Indian Fintech startup, Khatabook roped in easily one of the most iconic faces in world cricket - M.S Dhoni - for a remarkable ad. Dhoni pulls off various characters such as ‘Sharmile Sharmaji’ and ‘Techno Tawde’ - each aiming to exhibit a key feature of the brand’s offering. By leveraging a ‘story-telling’ strategy along with the ever-present MSD, Khatabook has driven brand recognition at an unprecedented rate.

The Power of Content

Virgin Mobile’s ‘Indian Panga League’ is a great depiction of leveraging digital platforms for the right mix of entertainment and fun this cricketing season. The campaign featured over 105 unique short clips - each depicting an entertaining banter-filled telephone conversation between different IPL team fans. This campaign was aimed at promoting their STD value propositions of 20p/min. By utilizing features of video content, regional connectivity, and an association with cricket, it became one of the most talked-about campaigns. It garnered over 1.5M views on Youtube and 60K mentions on Twitter.

The Power of Conversation

Bajaj Finserv launched a new #EMINetworkPowerplay campaign - an engaging and stimulating campaign offering users exciting cricket-themed contests. Prizes included electronics and Amazon vouchers.  Participants could earn more points by sharing these contest details with their friends. This referral system increased brand conversation and engagement across social media platforms as well. Conceptualized here at ARM Worldwide, the #EMINetworkPowerplay included strategies like real-time marketing and gamification. These IPL-inspired features added some thrill to Bajaj Finserv’s marketing objectives.

The Power of Context

Cricket is a key feature of nearly every Indian household. Whether it's the World Cup, IPL, or a simple bilateral India-Australia series, everyone holds fond memories of the sport in some way or the other. This is precisely why it is so easy to capture audiences using cricket as a connecting factor between brand and user. Using cricket as a contextual point facilitates brands in setting the tone of messaging and eventually delivering the right content at the right time. Based on the life of a cricketer, Paytm’s ‘Make the Right Choice’ campaign aims to inspire millions of fellow citizens to follow their dreams. The campaign also displays the company’s goal of promoting fantasy sports in the country and inspires budding players to explore the brand’s games. Dream11 hit the jackpot a few months back after securing title sponsor rights for this year’s edition after the Vivo fiasco, however, that was just the start. The #YehApnaGameHai ad campaign stars icons of Indian cricket such as MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, and Shikhar Dhawan, amongst others. These icons are seen enjoying ‘gully’ cricket - a street adaptation of the sport many of us ourselves indulged in during our youth. This ad depicts these stars as ordinary youngsters just having fun, which leaves a lasting impact on viewers.

The Power of Consumer Insights

With the help of new-age data processing and analytic features, studying consumer insights is a must. In campaigns which encourage participation and interaction, it is vital to know the results of your efforts. Analyzing consumer behavior helps you set the tone and messaging of your communication & enables you to deliver your message at the right place and at the right time. Data-driven insights also align audience perceptions with your goals, using behavioral data to communicate the brand’s message. This cricketing season is a great time to explore these innovative tools and platforms to help drive ROI and efficiency. Running a digital campaign is just the first step, the major work comes after that with analyzing the impact of your activity. With consumer insights, marketers can mathematically evaluate the most profitable platforms to allocate marketing budgets. This will help in refining a company’s target audience to groups of consumers statistically more likely to make a purchase. With such laser-like precision, marketing professionals raise the ROI for a business, by both lowering digital ad spends and elevating the success of digital marketing efforts. There are typically 4 key elements to have in place in terms of consumer insights -

• Full access to reliable & complete data
• The right tools to analyze the data
• The skills to understand and interpret results
• The ability to act on the insights

Customer insight is vital for the optimization of customer experiences and to understand their behaviour. Therefore, it is imperative for marketers to not only generate insights but to turn it into readable and accessible intelligence to make data-driven decisions. This cricketing season is the ideal platform to drive real-time, contextual, and engaging marketing campaigns. By leveraging a combination of any of these 5Cs, you can surely elevate brand presence with the help of sports. Download the PDF version

The strongest brands create emotional bonds with their users. Sport is one such avenue that has unique emotional power. In no other walk of life do our hearts and brains become so invested in the activities of people we do not personally know, but who we admire with a burning passion. Not many things can engage, entertain, and captivate large audiences like a sport. From a marketer’s perspective - sports for the longest time simply meant big-name sponsorship deals and maybe television sports ads. However, in recent times, with the proliferation of new channels, fresh opportunities are arising for brands to cultivate deeper relationships with their audiences. The annual cricket festival of India - the IPL - has already dawned upon us. If you throw in the festive season as well, brands surely must be licking their lips at the myriad of marketing opportunities up for grabs. On that note, let’s have a look at how brands across the globe have leveraged sports marketing campaigns to connect with audiences with

Ready For Sport

The pandemic has brought a huge amount of disruptions to all facets of life, including sports. All major competitions across all sports were put on hold, leaving athletes in the dark about the way forward. The ‘Ready For Sport’ campaign by Adidas aimed at inspiring both professional and amateur athletes for whenever they returned to the field. Starring over 2,500 Adidas athletes such as Lionel Messi, James Harden, and Rohit Sharma - it aimed to unify the spirit of sport to motivate the world. This campaign connected the sporting world and spurred emotions of belief and positivity amid the tough times when all sports were halted. In the pandemic world, multiple brands have edged towards empathetic and emotionally-touching communication in order to leave lasting impressions on their audiences.

Made For Football Watching

On a similar note, Pepsi too strived to throw light on the plights faced by the sporting world as the pandemic rocked our lives. While Adidas’s target audience was professional and budding athletes, Pepsi’s campaign catered to the next most important segment of sport - the audience. This campaign celebrates and elevates the weekly ritual of tuning into games from the comfort of your homes. The campaign had various elements including social media shoutouts, regional initiatives and activities for fans across 16 partner NFL teams, as well as gift hampers.

Touching campaigns like these leave a positive impact on audiences and promote positivity and a sense of belonging.

You Can’t Stop Us While Adidas launched an emotional and inspiring campaign, Nike too would have something up its sleeve. The ad debuted during the NBA’s return in Orlando, Florida, and has garnered over 20 million views on Twitter and Facebook since. The kinetic, blink-and-you-miss compilation features 50+ Nike-sponsored athletes from 24 sports such as global superstars LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafael Nadal, and even the Indian women’s cricket team. Keeping with the theme of society and shared commonalities, the video is a nod to professionals, amateurs, and ordinary sport-lovers. Unconventional sports such as surfing, skateboarding and BMX are also included. The prominent themes include athletes’ relationship with social justice, specifically the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the long shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This campaign goes on to show how brands can drive powerful social statements for the betterment of society.

ZPL (Zomato Premier League)

Everyone’s favourite app got even more exciting during last year's IPL, and after a roaring success, ZPL is back this year for more fun. Banking big on in-app gamification, ZPL’s fundamental focus is satisfying users with the one thing they crave the most along with their food - a discount. ZPL, along with offering an eye-catching discount on prominent restaurants, also allows consumers to predict who will win the matches allocated for the given day. If the prediction is right, users can avail an additional discount on their upcoming orders, making the cycle of ordering food nearly impossible to break. Not only does this increase the number of orders during the duration of the IPL, but it also adds some spice and intrigue to the ordering process. It also increases brand recall and identity since users’ predictions are always in the back of their mind while the game is on.

Stevenage Challenge

Back in 2019, Burger King caused waves with a marketing campaign which made use of a popular football video game - FIFA 20. While we all know of Chelsea, Manchester United, and Liverpool, not many were aware of ‘Stevenage’ - a lower league club sponsored by Burger King. Burger King began sponsoring the fourth-tier team as the 2019/20 season kicked off. In a bid to raise the awareness and popularity of Stevenage,  the fast-food giants challenged FIFA players around the world to select them when playing online or in Career Mode. Once they had done so, they were motivated to share video clips of their goals online and in return, receive rewards from Burger King. As per a video posted online revealing statistics of the campaign, more than 25,000 goals scored with Stevenage were posted online, and as a result of the campaign, the club sold out their home shirt for the first time in its history. Below is a visual representation of the different strategies used by these brands - There are countless more examples to prove how sports can be leveraged as the ideal way to build connections with your audience by driving engagement or making powerful statements. As the IPL progresses, we are sure to see more innovative campaigns and activities carried out by prominent brands in the coming few weeks - stay tuned here for all the hottest shots! Download the PDF version