In India cricket isn’t just any sport, it is ‘the sport’ for generations young and old. The excitement levels were through the roof as the 16th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 started off on 31st March 2023. The opening match between the defending champion Gujarat Titans, and Chennai Super Kings marked the beginning of another epic IPL season.
According to Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), 36.9 crore viewers tuned in to Disney Star’s live coverage of the first 19 matches, which was the highest ever in IPL history. With viewers from all over the world zoning in on the event, the audience base is ever-growing for IPL.
For brands, it is the ideal time to promote new and existing products and services. In a country where cricketers are celebrated as icons and heroes, brands can potentially reap a lot of benefits with effective marketing campaigns, and celebrity endorsements.
This blog explores how brands use innovative marketing campaigns to leverage IPL’s audience reach, and why it’s an opportunity to increase brand awareness and leave a lasting impression.
Why is IPL an ideal time for heavy campaigning?
The Indian Premier League (IPL) was founded in 2007 by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). IPL was established as a professional Twenty20 cricket league in India, with the goal of revolutionizing the cricketing landscape and providing a platform for high-quality cricket.
It offers a unique blend of cricket, entertainment, and commercial opportunities. The commercial value of the game is obviously quite huge, and brands capitalize on it in a lot of ways.
Firstly, it is a huge opportunity to leverage the audience reach of the event and advertise products and services to the masses. Brands can specifically target audiences belonging to a particular demographic, such as the youth, and promote products or services that align with their interests.
Secondly, it is a unique opportunity for brands to connect with people through their sentiments about the sport. Advertisements and marketing campaigns rely heavily on cricketing icons to bring attention to their products, thus instilling trust in the brand.
Brands also carry out engagement campaigns through contests, giveaways, and fun activities centering around the game. This evokes positive sentiments towards the brand and creates a bond with the consumers.
A Look into the Past
The Indian Premier League 2022 proved to be a highly profitable event for various brands.
The league's brand value rose by 77 percent to $8.4 billion in 2022.
Some brands that experienced a significant boost in traffic and profits during IPL 2022 were RuPay and CEAT. Their logos appearing on screens and at stadiums during matches significantly aided this.
The profitability potential of the IPL season is quite immense for brands and Tata IPL 2023 is no different.
Let’s take a look at some of the brand campaigns that stood out in Men’s IPL 2023.
1. bOAt
bOAt is a homegrown consumer electronics brand that came up with a very interesting and innovative campaign this IPL season. It partnered with three Indian Premiere League teams - Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Titans, and Kolkata Knight Riders this year as the official audio partner.
The campaign featured the following:
A 360-degree campaign called ‘Wear Your Smart’. The campaign captured high-intensity moments in the game to determine who wins or loses, placing emphasis on the true mindset and attitude of ‘The Champions’. What worked for the brand is the strong tagline of the campaign, ‘Wear Your Smart’, which is a play on words that is both memorable and effective.
Inspired by the style, design, and color combinations of the IPL teams they had partnered with, boAt launched a limited edition of earwear, with colors ranging from ‘Thunder Purple’ of Kolkata Knight Riders to ‘Lion Red’ of Punjab Kings.
A strong presence on social media, namely Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The fun posts garnered a lot of attention from social media users and created a positive outlook for the brand in association with IPL 2023. The campaign featured a number of videos and social media posts that highlight the benefits of boAt smartwatches.
The campaign featured a number of cricket stars, including Hardik Pandya, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, and KL Rahul, who were all wearing boAt smartwatches in the social media posts. When these cricketing icons are seen promoting the products, it creates trust in the brand’s products.
bOAt’s brand recall campaign
They also went one step further this season and made use of Augmented reality to give RCB fans a special treat. They managed to create an immersive experience during RCB’s home matches, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. bOAt Lifestyle partnered with Meta to pull this off.
The main features of the campaign include
QR codes placed around the stadium which when scanned with smartphones would take fans to an Augmented reality boAt + RCB filter. The filter integrated with the stadium to give them a gamified experience.
AR-enabled boAt kiosk, where fans could also get virtual pictures clicked with their favorite cricketers.
This brand recall effort was quite eye-catching and took IPL brand campaigning to another level.
2. JioCinema
JioCinema, the official digital partner for Tata IPL 2023 started off the IPL season with the ‘Digital India ka TATA IPL’ campaign.
As a part of the campaign, the platform launched additional viewing features on OTT to make the experience more enjoyable for IPL fans. To display these new features to the viewers, an Ad featuring Swetha Tripathi, Abhishek Banerjee, cricketers MS Dhoni and Suryakumar Yadav was released by JioCinema.
This fun Ad, conceptualized by Ogilvy is an ironic take on appointment viewing. The campaign presented itself as an endeavor to give viewers control over how, when, and where they watch their favorite teams in action this IPL season through the OTT platform.
Jio also partnered with Sachin Tendulkar and released a promotional Ad to reach more viewers.
They also ran a campaign named 'Jeeto Dhan Dhana Dhan' which involved a fantasy game that users could participate in and win rewards. All they had to do was guess the answers to questions based on the particular day's match. The rewards ranged from simply earning coins to winning a brand-new car. The Ad for this campaign featured Alia Bhatt, informing viewers of the contest.
JioCinema’s social media accounts have also been quite active with posts about IPL, mainly promotional reels, and posts featuring popular cricketers. They also posted the latest news and IPL highlights to keep followers updated on the developments in Tata IPL 2023.
3. Star Sports
From the streets to the stadiums, cricket brings people of different ages and communities together, creating a shared experience celebrated across every corner of the country. Star Sports captured this familiar feeling of excitement in their Tata IPL 2023 Ad featuring Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, and KL Rahul spectacularly.
The Ad shows their cut-outs coming to life among a throng of people celebrating IPL. They join in and celebrate with the crowd. This campaign for the league is titled ‘Shor on, Game on!’. Its tagline ‘Har Ghar Banega Stadium’ highlights the thrill of watching IPL with family and friends.
Star Sports also partnered with Virat Kohli on another Ad film to promote the brand and IPL. It centers around the same theme.
They also made the most of their social media presence by sharing content featuring cricketers Mohammad Kaif and GK Anil Kumar with the hashtag #ShoreOn.
4. Dream 11
Dream 11 is one of India’s leading fantasy sports platforms. They came up with a fun IPL campaign titled ‘Sab Khelenge’ that ingeniously wedded India’s two biggest obsessions, Cinema and Cricket in a series of quirky brand films.
The Ads feature Amir Khan, R Madhavan, and Sharman Joshi, the iconic trio from the movie ‘Three Idiots’. The first Ad film starts off with the trio making tall claims at a press conference about playing cricket. Cricketers join in on the banter and it gets even more entertaining in 4 more follow-up Ad films.
The funny exchanges are sure to hit your tickle bone if you are a fan of Bollywood, with a lot of film references being made. Dream 11’s campaign did a good job of increasing brand visibility.
5. Zomato
Food goes hand in hand with cricket, whether it’s at the stadium or at home with friends and family. It’s part of the whole experience. There is no celebration or gathering in India without good food, which means IPL 2023 is the right time for food delivery apps to market their service through innovative campaigns.
According to the Financial Express, as mentioned in one of their articles, the first 14 days of IPL 2023 saw installs and sessions of the app increase by 112% and 54%, respectively, compared to the same period in IPL 2022.
The campaign
This IPL season, the food delivery app Zomato started off its brand campaign with a contest titled ‘Zomato Prediction League or ZPL’ for user engagement. It is an in-app contest where users can predict the outcome of IPL matches and win prizes. To participate in ZPL, users need to have a Zomato account and then predict the outcome of three IPL matches. They will have 10 seconds to answer each question. The participants will win prizes based on how accurate their predictions are.
They also onboarded the cricketer Rishabh Pant on their campaign, who is not playing this season due to an injury. He is seen saying ‘I’m still in the game boss’, in Zomato’s ZPL Ad. This campaign was aimed to reach the fans, touch their emotions and it did just that. The highlight of the campaign is that it reached users on their mobiles, in-app.
This is an example of a brand visibility and user engagement campaign that was done right.
The IPL effect after the finals
Some other campaign efforts worth mentioning are the gamification campaign titled 'Noise Premier League' by Noise, Paytm's ‘4Ka100’ gamification campaign, and Havmore ice cream geo-targeting its consumers to deliver ads at the right time to stand out amid a cluster of other ads, making use of MarTech.
With the ongoing startup funding winter, this year’s IPL brand campaign opportunities were more in favor of traditional advertisers like major FMCG, Telecommunication, and automobile brands. New-age companies held back on marketing budgets during IPL 2023 due to the current funding scenario.
Despite this, the 2023 IPL has been a huge success in terms of viewership. The tournament has attracted a large audience not just from India but from around the world. The IPL is now one of the most popular sporting events in the world due to the involvement of international players and the entertainment value of the tournament.
The popularity of the Indian Premier League is expected to grow even more in the years to come. Brands stand to make a good ROI with immense brand exposure and publicity. For fruitful campaigning, brands need to come up with brand campaigns that are different, original, and cater to the emotions of the masses. It was an exciting time indeed, for brands, marketers, and fans alike.
Which marketing campaign caught your attention in the 2023 IPL? Share your thoughts.
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