Brand engagement soared at IPL 2017

Vivo, Vodafone, Make My Trip tops media engagement; Twitter hosted about 65% of brand-customer talks

There have been quite a few raised eyebrows over Chinese handset maker Vivo’s exorbitant bid for the rights to the Indian Premier League title sponsorship for the next five years. But, there may be some understanding of the unfathomable if one looks at a report just released by Xor Labs on brand engagement and social media metrics during the tournament. The IPL 2017 offered brands an incomparable platform to engage directly with customers and social media has been an able marketing partner, allowing brands to actively interact with customers and measure the effectiveness of their initiatives. 

Vivo topped the list of brands with the most social media presence during the IPL. It was the most active brand and the one that engaged most with its customers on social media, followed by telecom giant and long-time IPL associate Vodafone. No wonder then that Kent Cheng, CEO, Vivo India, said on retaining the title sponsorship for the annual T-20 tournament, “IPL has played a very vital role in taking the brand to the masses and this association has been fruitful. In view of our strong brand connect and our long-term approach, we pitched decisively to ensure that this partnership is only set to achieve a new level.”

While the data analysis shows how and how much brands benefited from the IPL on social media, it also throws light on the platforms consumers used to talk about brands. It tracked a total of 179.19 million engagements and 75,893 replies to find that Twitter was the preferred platform for sharing content during the IPL, commanding over 65 per cent of the total pie, followed by Facebook at close to 27 per cent. However, marketers preferred Facebook over YouTube when it came to sharing video content.

“What’s happening in the world of cricket, happens on Twitter. The conversation on cricket has been growing year on year and brands have seen positive progress in their collaboration to engage cricket fans in India during the IPL and beyond,” says Taranjeet Singh, country director of Twitter. Facebook declined comment for the story.

The report takes into account the brands’ conversations (replies/comments) with consumers during the IPL along with the digital activities undertaken at the time to arrive at a score for each advertiser. Vivo topped the charts in terms of brand engagement (combination of likes, retweets, comments, shares and favourites) followed by Vodafone and Make My Trip. Brand engagement was further broken down into three sub-categories: Applause (likes/favourites), conversation (comment/reply) and amplification (shares/retweets). 

All three sub-categories were dominated by practically the same brands with Amazon, Reliance Jio, Yes Bank, Kingfisher, apart from Vivo featuring in all three. Vivo took the first spot in brand applause, the fifth spot in brand conversation and second spot for brand amplification. Amazon topped brand conversation while Book My Show topped the brand amplification chart. 

However, when it came to sharing videos, 52.76 per cent marketers preferred to use Facebook to share videos. The remaining preferred YouTube. This year video content contributed 10 per cent to the total content posted in the IPL. Importantly, the 10 per cent video content grabbed more than 85 per cent of the engagements this season. Vivo led the charts for video engagement too this season. 

“Brands embrace innovation (that social media platforms offer) from emojis to video solutions like First View to build greater connection with their target audience, and IPL has been very supportive,” says Singh.

Breaking down the social media pie for IPL 2017