IPL impacts media buying cos at large

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Mumbai, Mar 27: What will be the impact of the much-hyped Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament on media buyers in India? And, how will media agencies handle additional responsibilities? According to media agency chief honchos, the media planning and buying fraternity have been hugely impacted by this whole phenomenon called IPL in the last few days. “With such huge investments involved in the event, this was bound to happen. However, the market is a bit skeptical about the kind of interest a 59 match tournament, with regional teams being involved, can generate in the form of viewer ship,” said Sudha Natrajan, joint president of Lintas Media Group. While Lintas Media is partnering with its clients to check out the best possible opportunities on the tournament, other advertising majors are beefing up their operations to handle additional work.

According to Punitha Arumugam, group CEO of Madison Media, the scale of ‘word of mouth’ and news headlines generated by IPL have been unprecedented. “This combined with continuous prime time telecast beginning April 18 to June 1 is likely to fragment prime time viewer ship. IPL is likely to make clients to upfront budgets in April-May thereby affecting the revenue stream of other channels in 2008.The tournament is expected to revive the normal dip in overall TV viewership that happens during the summer,” she added.

On the impact of IPL on media buying agencies, Chandradeep Mitra, president, Optimum Media Solutions (OMS), Mudra said: “The impact will depend on the client/category, their selling seasons, their budgets, their competitors and their target consumers. The final picture, with its impact on ratings, spot rates, and media plans and buys, will start emerging after a week of IPL’s start,” he explained. According to Pratap Bose, chief executive officer of Ogilvy & Mather India (O&M), the media and advertising fraternity are eying the IPL spectacle with bated breath and huge deal of expectancy. “Large sporting properties like IPL could be the precursor of change in the way media is bought and delivered in the future,” he added.