By Siddharth Dabhade
IPL is one of the most valuable sporting events in the world, rivaling the likes of the English Premier League and the NBA. The league’s popularity has been fueled by the high-octane cricket matches, star-studded teams, and festive atmosphere of the event. With an estimated reach of over 500 million, it is a spectacle of sport. And in 2023, this spectacle will become even bigger on digital, when viewers get to stream IPL in 4K for free on Jio Cinema and WPL delivering the highest viewership seen on any women’s event globally.
While IPL offers many opportunities for brands to associate with the franchises, there is a common myth that only brands with huge marketing budgets advertise during IPL. While a tentpole event can cause a big dent in the marketing budget, there are ways to get into IPL marketing without investing in IPL.
Let’s have a look at the strategies for brands to drive impact during the IPL.
- Find advertising & brand integration opportunities in digital – there are many brand integration opportunities for brands with Jio bragging digital to find and engage with your target audience on digital (mobile, tablets and connected TV) – we estimate that digital is 50% more efficient than linear TV.
- Use data to find your customers and activate your campaign across channels – growth of digital platforms has enabled better planning, targeting, and measurement capabilities for advertisers. With the target ability to track audience engagement and measure the effectiveness of campaigns across devices, advertisers can optimize their marketing strategies to maximize impact. It is also important to think omnichannel, as attention is split across devices. Data-driven brands connect their first/second party data with third party audience signals to find, target and engage customers across goes and channels.
- Use the targeting & measurement capabilities of CTV for contextual targeting (with signals like keywords, demographics, interests etc), competitor conquesting and frequency capping to improve reach, reduce over targeting and optimize ad spends.
- Reach your target audience beyond IPL matches – you can find your audience among cricket fans beyond Jio or Hotstar, in cricket video ecosystem covering YouTube, OTT platforms and apps like Dream11, ESPNcricinfo and cricktracker etc.
- Use social media and moment marketing- be quirky with your content and use the moments in the game to activate your message and creatives, MiQ delivers dynamic creatives synced in real-time with IPL matches to drive engagement among your audience with player, team and league specific moments. For example – if a batting partnership reaches 50, a brand can activate Rs. 50 off coupon on their orders.
Over the years, we’ve seen new age digital brands like Cred, Groww, Upstox, Dream 11 and Baazi Games have advertised in the IPL. With Jio disrupting this space, we expect a lot of advertising innovation to happen in 2023 and beyond.
The author is the managing director, MiQ India, China and SAARC.