Sony’s IPL vs Star’s IPL — who understands brand IPL better?
Take a look at how IPL has been marketed, why do 2 stark versions of its perception exists and, why does it even need to be advertised?
From DLF, to Pepsi, to VIVO and now Dream11, as the title sponsor, Indian Premier League, started in 2008, truly redefined cricket as a spectator sport, as if it needed any further redefining and eyeballs.
It got India’s two most celebrated professions, cricket and Bollywood together. It introduced cheerleaders as if there was not enough cheer in cricket in India already. The cricketing terminology soon became familiar with strategic timeouts, DLF maximums making it India’s very own Super Bowl.
The first edition of IPL was also legendary because it gave us some of the most legendary brand mascots in the form of Zoozoos, post which IPL as the property has become an advertising haven for brands, year after year.
IPL’s brand value from US$3.2bn in 2009 has grown to US$6.8bn in 2019 and it continues to grow in stature despite the country it has originated from is among the worst-hit nations from the global pandemic.
IPL in 2020
This year’s IPL, like everything else this year, is a bit different. It’s not happening in India, it’s happening in empty stadiums with fake crowd noises, it’s happening in the month of September instead of April.
RCB might still not win the IPL but Namma Bengaluru’s homegrown startups sure have. Even as the nation was stunned, the global pandemic did not manage to dent IPL’s revenues as we saw a completely new flurry of startups backing it.
Star India is likely to rake in around ~INR 2100 crores in ad revenue, an increase of 15–20% compared to last year as startups like Dream11, Unacademy, Cred, Swiggy, PhonePe and more take the front seat replacing the traditional FMCG and smartphone players.
A 10-second ad slot during the IPL is roughly being sold for around ~INR 12L compared to ~INR 10L last year.
IPL the product
What makes brand IPL so tempting for brands? Like all other brands, the answer lies in the product, and IPL is as good a product can get. Even if we ignore the cricket void that India has seen in the last 6 months, like any good product, IPL sells for itself. Every year the sceptics, debate in their living rooms about the match-fixing concerns and controversies, the purists question the sanctity of the sport being ruined and the viewer questions the fatigue. However, every year, IPL redefines TRP records, brand endorsements, entertainment quotient, and like any good product, it keeps growing. It will be safe to say that IPL has found it’s “product-market” fit.
In fact, IPL is more a service brand than a product and for any other service brand in any other category the one true key thing for success is “predictable consistent wow experience”
IPL the brand — 2008 — Cricket’s IPL
IPL in 2008 was a concept on paper. Nobody knew what it would become. The only product attributes were the coming together of business, Bollywood, and cricket. The affinity of fans arose either from the city of origin or their favourite cricketers and stars. Cricket love always stemmed from nation love, foundation of which was laid by 1983 World Cup win followed by Sachin Tendulkar’s brand of cricket. Twenty20 as an international cricket format was also only a couple of years old however a necessary impetus was India’s 2007 world cup win led by unknown names and a new household celebrity MS Dhoni.
In this scenario, pitching IPL as the “Cricket ka Karmayudh” was the best introduction it could have got. The goosebumpy anthem pitched IPL as Cricket’s ultimate war field and encouraged the audience to look beyond the nation and look into the love and excitement of the sport itself.
Nobody knew what aspects of IPL would resonate, will people develop loyalty towards individual city named teams. A lot of the charisma was also added on by individual team anthems. It was also the first time a traditional entertainment broadcaster like Sony was involved in telecasting sports which was historically only seen on channels like Ten Sports, ESPN and, Star Sports.
A lot happened in 2008 IPL, people spoke about cheerleaders, underdogs Rajasthan Royals were triumphant. Dhoni further established his leadership skills in the first edition and became an icon in Tamil Nadu. It was clear, IPL was no longer just about cricket and superstars coming together, there had to be an emotional angle to it.
Sony realized that emotion that connected IPL to Indians — ENTERTAINMENT, ENTERTAINMENT, ENTERTAINMENT
IPL the brand — 2009 to 2017 — Sony’s IPL
All of Sony’s future introductions of IPLs were focussed on pitching it as the biggest entertainment platform that India has ever seen. It pitched it akin to the biggest festival India has. A tournament that brings people together. This is obviously different than other tournaments where interests spike only when India plays. IPL couldn’t afford to be that regional. It can’t bank on just x vs y.
2009 — Manoranjan ka Baap (Father of Entertainment)
This gave birth to an over the top Sony Max style dramatic campaign. In 2020, campaign would have been considered patriarchal and drawn a lot of ire but this was Sony’s 1st foray into pitching something like cricket almost like a high voltage soap opera drama.
2010 — Ek Desh. Ek Junoon. (One Nation. One Passion)
The next few years that followed went more from “cricket that entertains” to “entertainment that unites the nation”.
2011 — Bharath Bandh
In what would have been a sensitive topic in 2020, the idea of a “lockdown” because the entire nation would only be watching IPL was an interesting take to show the kind of cult following IPL was building.
2012 — The carnival called IPL
Taking it’s entertainment story forward, the team at Sony MAX kept finding interesting takes to launch IPL like it’s the first launch thus making it bigger and better. The below ad was undoubtedly most loved and flawlessly executed that it’s the carnival of non-stop cricketing entertainment and what makes it so entertaining is Sachin’s Master Blaster innings or Malinga’s slinga balls.
A prime example of having complete awareness of what you think works for your product versus what your audience likes about it.
2013–2017 — more of the same
Sony MAX understood the pulse and how to get people excited about a sport that people in India never get enough of anyway. The campaigns from 2013 to 2017 became more like Bollywood promotions and less like cricket and people did not mind it.
With anthems like “Jumping Jhapak” and “India ka Tyohar” and non-cricketing experts and cheerleaders in the pre-post shows with Bollywood promotion mid-innings, Sony had completely transformed cricket viewing for India. The reasoning might be the fact that Sony MAX wanted to make IPL, something that the whole family watches together but for the purists, it was reduced to being an organized circus.
Having said that, Sony MAX stuck to it because it worked. With increasing viewership and their surveys telling that the audience goes beyond the usual cricketing demographics that India has witnessed over the years, they were happy positioning and packaging it on entertainment, until they couldn’t.
IPL the brand — 2018 onwards — Star’s IPL
While the digital rights of IPL were already with Star for a few years, it won both broadcasting and digital rights for a whopping ~INR 16347.5 crores an average of ~INR 54.7 crore per match. So there goes our first doubt that IPL being IPL why does it need to be advertised and talked about because Star India needs advertisers who are willing to give the return on investment and they will only do it people of India are still excited about IPL the product.
The “means” of entertainment have only increased. Earlier a 50-over, 8-hour cricket match was viewed without blinking an eye and now in the blink of eye audiences are multitasking with second-screen viewing becoming a serious phenomenon.
Star India still stuck to basics and went repackaged IPL by keeping cricket in the forefront.
2018 — Best vs Best
The ad was endearing, acted well, focussed on the core product — almost similar to how Sony MAX launched IPL in 2008. But a lot had changed in 10 years and this nuanced sophisticated slice of life communication did not resonate too well with the fans.
Despite the lacklustre re-launch, viewership and watch-time, both increased because Star India chose a different path to grow that was largely ignored by Sony Max all these years. The power of regional and local. A lot of brands still consider India as one market and insist on adopting one unifying communication and content strategy despite the glaring diversity that you get to see on a daily basis. India is a huge country and marketers are still opening up to the idea of regionalization. Star India realized this untapped opportunity and aired IPL in as many as 6 languages and 10 channels from an earlier 4 channel distribution by Sony MAX.
So while Sony chose to make IPL a bigger and stronger property with fanfare and glamour that was never seen before in cricket, Star Sports chose to give it more wings to fly with added coverage with multi-channel exposure.
At the end of the day, it’s the content that gets the audience back be it the nail-biting finishes, super overs, underdogs springing up or record sixes. Star or Sony, IPL will continue to be a win-win proposition for everyone until it’s core product tenets are intact whether you watch it for cricket or for entertainment it is going to be watched.
Leaving you with one of my favourite ads from the IPL universe which was neither by Sony or Star but was from their digital counterpart Hotstar when they first bagged the digital rights back in 2014.
