In the ever-evolving marketing landscape, digital as a medium and digital marketing have played pivotal roles in reshaping the traditional IPL experience for both fans and brands.
To delve into this evolving dynamic, MediaBrief engaged in an exclusive conversation with Aparna Thakur, Senior Vice President, Client Success at HiveMinds; Darshil Shah, Director at ChtrSocial; Himanshu Arora, Co-Founder of Social Panga; Keith Braganza, Lead Sports at TheSmallBigIdea; and Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO of Grapes.
They emphasize the significant level of interactivity it brings and analyze how digital marketing enhances engagement and revenue generation for brands during the IPL.
They also discuss the emerging and popular trends in digital marketing for this IPL season and delve into how the rise of streaming platforms and OTT services has influenced the marketing landscape. Read on.
In recent years, Digital as a medium and Digital Marketing has helped both fans and brands to redefine the traditional IPL experience. Elaborating on this and outlining the unique opportunities it has unlocked, Aparna Thakur, Senior Vice President, Client Success, HiveMinds, said, “JioCinema (the Indian Premier League’s official streaming platform) has introduced numerous technological enhancements to redefine the IPL viewing experience.
Match viewing options, such as tech-rich streaming that enables users to access match statistics while watching live content, multi-cam angles, and 360-degree VR experience, have led to higher user engagement on the platform.
Expounding on how the platform has facilitated a significant level of interactivity and engagement, Thakur stated, “There is also a high degree of interactivity and engagement that properties such as the ‘play along’ feature on JioCinema bring to the viewers, while also offering them a chance to win goodies from participating brands – a win-win situation for both fans and brands.”
Sharing a similar perspective, Keith Braganza, Lead Sports at TheSmallBigIdea, highlighted, “Digital marketing during the IPL season offers a mutually beneficial scenario for both fans and brands. Fans enjoy a more personalized and interactive experience, while brands seize this opportunity to engage with their audience and deliver tailored experiences.”
Himanshu Arora, Co-Founder of Social Panga, said, “The IPL’s format supports the overall commercial and advertising ecosystem. Its three-hour format maintains viewer engagement without any significant attention drops, ensuring that ad breaks are watched with decent attention and keeping brands top of mind. With matches played daily, brand recall is higher compared to spaced-out matches. The prime-time slot from 8 PM to 11 PM, ideal for TV series, attracts a family audience and enjoys broad acceptability.
“Brands like Dream11 and Cred capitalize on this prime advertising opportunity during the IPL, achieving high recall throughout the year. The IPL’s massive viewership and low advertising costs democratize advertising, enabling emerging brands to grow without spending exorbitantly on conventional marketing formats.
“The IPL fanbase now spends more time on mobile devices than ever before, with the target segment averaging four hours daily on smartphones last year. With a younger demographic, screen time is expected to increase, providing companies with significant opportunities to capture their target users’ attention,” Arora said.
Speaking on this, Darshil Shah, Director at ChtrSocial, commented, “With more and more viewership shifting to OTT platforms to watch the IPL, especially from mobile devices, there are multiple avenues opened up for brands to include in their digital marketing mix. While brands enjoy the benefits of better targeting, more captivated audiences, more integrated campaigns, and better campaign tracking; it also provides fans with a more hyper-personalized experience.”
Sharing her insights on how Digital Marketing has helped both fans and brands redefine the traditional IPL experience, Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO of Grapes, stated, “The commencement of IPL has always been marked with significant enthusiasm and high viewership in the country. Therefore, leveraging the vast fan following in the tech-savvy era, brands are continually utilizing digital marketing to redefine the entire IPL experience for fans. Simultaneously, considering the wide range of advantages digital marketing offers, it provides the capability to create unique opportunities for both fans and brands.
“Where it enhances the overall experience for the fans with the help of real-time interaction across social media platforms, it creates opportunities for engaging with the players. Likewise, conducting activities such as polls and live conversation drives active participation of fans rather than just being passive consumers of content.
“Along with this, leveraging the data deluge, brands can take a personalized approach to effectively reach out to a large audience base deeply interested in the game.
“Here, digital marketing gives the brands the flexibility to incessantly customize the content to resonate with the audience they are targeting. Depending on the specific social media platform such as Instagram, YouTube, gaming apps, etc., brands are being very particular about their approach to the effective reception of messaging,” Agarwal added.
Speaking about the advantages and impact that digital marketing has during the IPL season, Thakur said, “In terms of brands, having access to over 100 targeting cohorts enables them to identify and target users who match the brand’s core target group effectively. There are multiple language feeds, creative options, ad formats, and property associations that a brand can leverage to connect with its target audience.”
Thakur also applauds the introduction of new ad units like video mastheads, social banners, scorecard branding, and upgrades of existing mid-roll formats to mid-roll ads with companion banners and auto-fill ads which, according to her, not only help brands to reach a broader audience but also enable users to explore more on the brand’s website while still streaming the content.
Describing how digital marketing enhances engagement and revenue generation for brands during the IPL, Shah remarked, “Digital marketing is a game-changer for brand engagement and revenue during the IPL because it enables brands to laser-focus their targeting. It could be based on the viewer’s location, favorite team, or even past online behavior. Ad inventories on the OTT platform have also given birth to innovative ad formats that capture viewers’ attention easily. All of this enables faster conversion funnels and easier e-commerce integrations, resulting in higher revenues.”
“Brands have enhanced engagement via targeted advertising, Influencer Partnerships, Sponsorship Activations, E-commerce Integration and Real-Time Marketing. All these together have created an experience that keeps the audience glued to brands which in turn generates revenue,” Braganza added.
On how digital marketing enhances engagement and revenue for brands during IPL, Agarwal said, “Digital marketing enables brands to exercise accurate demographic targeting with the help of consumer data collected from various interactions. This, consequently, allows for targeted marketing, immensely contributing to amplifying the relevance and efficacy of the content.
Ensuring the effective reception of the message by the audience paves the way for strengthening the connection with the fans. In addition to this, by deciphering fan behavior on account of the insightful data collected, brands are leaving no stone unturned in employing data-driven decision-making for the entire process. This, in turn, opens the gateway for optimizing the marketing plan based on changing consumer behavior, empowers the brands to maximize their earnings and likewise, exercise cost-effectiveness that harnesses higher ROI on less expense,” Agarwal added.
Outlining how digital marketing enhances engagement and revenue generated for brands during the IPL, Thakur said, “IPL has emerged as one of the most impactful media properties and sees a high degree of viewer stickiness that can help build recall for brands. Focusing on the most lucrative geographies and audience segments can help brands maximize the ROI for their IPL investments. Brands can even test or deploy different creative messaging for different audience cohorts and geographies, thus identifying the most effective combinations for ROI maximization.
Expanding on this, she remarked, “For several FMCG brands thriving on impulse consumption, IPL is an unmatched opportunity to create a strong association and precipitate action. For several new or relatively unknown brands, IPL can offer quick reach and frequency build-up and help expand the top and mid funnel. The interactive ad formats coupled with sharper targeting options can help brands build engagement with their core audiences. Lead generation and community building are other important brand goals that can be achieved with these new ad formats.”
Discussing the emerging or most popular trends in digital marketing for this season of the IPL, Braganza said, “The standout trend of this IPL season is the widespread adoption of highly localized short-form video content. From influencer collaborations to e-commerce partnerships, every team has customized their content to appeal to audiences in their respective regions. Integrating foreign players into local team languages, music, and culture has seen a significant surge in popularity during this season.”
Delving into the current trends shaping digital marketing strategies during this IPL season, Shah highlighted, “The streaming OTT platform JioCinema is offering Brand Spotlight and engaging formats like vertical highlights. On social media, many brands are adopting digital innovations by using interactive content formats like augmented reality and gamification to create memorable moments. Various IPL teams are also redefining fan engagement through influencer marketing.”
According to Agarwal, the emerging and most popular trends in digital marketing for this IPL season would be being proactive on social media platforms for the latest updates on the IPL match. “It is the need of the hour to innovate to get a competitive edge over others. With the market evolving at a rapid rate, collaboration with nano and micro-influencers can be the flavor of the season, significantly helping in drawing high engagement from the audience, especially in niche segments.”
Commenting on the shifting dynamics within the IPL advertising sphere, Thakur noted, “There has been an increased focus on bringing onboard several small and medium advertisers to IPL and it will be interesting to see the experience of these brands.
“CTV inventory has been selling very well and we can expect many more brands to be prolifically present on the same. The enhanced focus on 4K feed will something to watch out for as many premium brands are likely to opt for it.”
Reflecting on the impact of streaming platforms and OTT services on the digital marketing landscape surrounding the IPL, Thakur observed, “Streaming platforms and OTT services have widened the reach of IPL matches beyond traditional television, allowing viewers to watch games on their handheld devices and connected TVs. Additionally, introducing free IPL match streaming on Jio Cinema has significantly contributed to the overall viewership with Jio Cinema expecting the tournament to reach 600 Mn viewers this season.
“The ability to sharply target audiences and geographies has helped bring on board several small and medium advertisers for whom the entry cost and the spillover on TV would be too high. Brands also have the option to be present only on select matches featuring a specific team. This, coupled with geo-targeting, can be a powerful strategy for a regional brand to strengthen itself. More than 300 small and medium businesses are likely to experience IPL this year with investments that are a small fraction of IPL budgets of large brands.
“User profiling based on demographics, interests, and behaviors also enables brands to deliver personalized and targeted ads to viewers. Interactive ad formats that can ‘click to Whatsapp’, showcase product range through carousels, etc. are also being deployed, making it a richer experience for viewers.
“CTV is emerging as a preferred mode for brands targeting premium audiences and family viewers. It gives brands a ‘large screen’ platform while allowing them to minimise geographical spill,” Thakur added.
Considering the influence of streaming platforms and OTT services on the digital marketing landscape surrounding the IPL, Braganza remarked, “Streaming platforms and OTT services provide valuable data and analytics insights on viewer behavior, including metrics such as impressions, clicks, engagement rates, and completion rates. Brands can leverage these insights to optimize their digital marketing strategies and refine their targeting and messaging during the IPL season.”
Himanshu Arora, Co-Founder of Social Panga, remarked, “The emergence of Jio Cinema and other free streaming services has transformed the IPL into a phenomenon accessible to a much larger audience. This presents an excellent opportunity for advertisers to launch targeted advertising campaigns, with various options available to reach their desired audience effectively. These platforms have enabled a wider audience reach, interactive ads that engage the audience, hyper-local content with commentary available in numerous languages, and data analysis capabilities.”
Speaking on this, Agarwal said, “Understanding that a large number of people watch matches on streaming platforms has increased the accessibility of brands to a wide range of audiences that transcends the geographical barrier. Reaching out to a diverse audience base, brands can innovatively place targeted ads based on demographics, location, and history of the consumers. It provides an immense opportunity for integrating brand partnership on the platform by coming up with in-game challenges or sponsoring virtual tournaments to capitalize on the audience present on the platform.
“With OTT, the access to live viewers increased to the nooks and crannies of India. This gives brands not just a wider reach, but also a chance to target specific demographics, like fans of a particular region, with higher efficiency. Streaming platforms provide valuable data on viewership patterns and ad effectiveness,” said Shah.
