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While the betting controversies have not taken away from the IPL's reach, crucial in the holiday season, the elections have delayed advertisers from getting on board the juggernaut. Elections have not only edged out the event out of the country, but has dictated its relevance for advertisers so far. With many of them staying away till now, the official broadcaster, Multi Screen Media (MSM) would now have to bank on the fence-sitters going for costly spot buys.
Media buyers expect the tournament to clock around Rs 600 crore (much less than last year's Rs 800 crore), while MSM expects to make Rs 900 crore. While title sponsor, Pepsi's deal is for five years (worth Rs 400 crore), presenting sponsors Karbonn Mobiles and Vodafone are said to have sunk in around Rs 100 crore between the two of them. The six associate sponsors, Havells, Perfetti Van Melle, Amazon, Cadbury, TVS and Marico would put in around Rs 25-30 crore each.
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High octane poll campaigning has ensured that almost every brand, from corporate players, media houses to even saree brands are urging the public to vote using election-themed creatives. As a result, the IPL would see very little cricket-themed campaigns this year.
Twenty matches would take place in the United Arab Emirates and 40 in India. As a result, the IPL is yet to have all of its earlier advertisers on-board, raising the relevance of spot buys. The change in venue has seen some of the top advertisers shy away such as Godrej Group, Panasonic, Samsung, Tata DoCoMo and Idea.
Though, T Gangadhar, MD of GroupM media agency MEC says, "The two events are disparate, serve different purposes. Advertising during an election is a tactical, opportunistic decision. IPL advertising is more strategic in nature, requiring a much bigger monetary commitment." Gangadhar says that the venue-change would affect on-ground activations: "The ramifications are more for the on-ground sponsors than the on-air advertisers". The uptick, if any, will be in on-ground activities after May 2, when the event returns to India.
Spot rates (for 10 seconds) are hovering between Rs 4.75 - 5 lakh. As the season progresses, the rates may climb up. Last year, spot rates for the finals and elimination matches scaled to Rs 15 lakh. While the advertising rates have stayed at par with last year's, on-ground deals have crashed substantially (with some pegged as low as Rs 1 crore). It has brought on board a fresh haul of sponsors, mostly, small: From grooming partners (Kamasutra Deodorants for Delhi Daredevils), convenience store chains (WHSmith for SunRisers Hyderabad), premium clothing brands (Ed Hardy trousers for Royal Challengers Bangalore / US Polo jersey of Kolkata Knight Riders) to consumer durables brands (Usha International for Mumbai Indians).
However, there is one major trend that is evident - e-commerce players' growing appetite for mass media reach. Two of the players have IPL-centric campaigns, apart from sponsors such as Pepsi and Vodafone.
Shashank Mehrotra, general manager, BigRock, a domain registrar and first-time IPL advertiser, is one of the few to have launched an IPL-centric media plan, after debating for a few years whether or not to align with the event. "While chalking out the media plan we did discuss all the permutations and combinations, keeping in mind the two events. But decided to go with IPL simply because of a better target audience match. There really isn't any other property like IPL," says Mehrotra. One of the associate sponsors is Internet major, Amazon that has launched its first ever TVC, featuring a couple betting on products to order, while keeping up with an IPL match. Amazon's arch rival, Flipkart is also heavily investing in IPL to push its mobile app.
Media planners say that IPL would remain relevant because it promises reach in a fragmented environment (cumulative reach of around 20 million viewers last year). The churn in team composition and reduction in number of matches (60; down from 74 in 2013) have only improved the prime-time to non-prime-time ratio (with fewer weekday afternoon matches).
Sponsors have usually contributed 50 per cent to IPL's ad revenues, the rest being spot buys. But the Lok Sabha elections could tip the balance in favour of spot buys, even though each may cost a lakh more than the same unit of sponsored air-time.
