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Cricket’s Advertising Blitz: Boundaries Beyond the Game!

The holiday season is almost approaching. The ICC World Cup, which is going on at the moment, making this year’s displays exceptionally dazzling. After this, all eyes are on the advertising industry. 

Upcoming events in the world of Sports and Cricket

Marketers are eager to leverage the cricket’s immense popularity, leading to increased competition on digital advertising platforms. Recent developments, including free streaming, innovative ad formats, and precise targeting options, have raised the bar for brand advertising during the tournaments, leaving many curious about the creative campaigns to come.

The Indian sports events market and the Cricket World Cup

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The Indian Sports Events Market is anticipated to expand quickly. It is anticipated to have nearly doubled from 2021 to US $1 billion in 2023. Additionally, the market saw a 10% increase in sales in 2023, and a 4.04% CAGR is predicted through 2027. Cricket, a game that Indians love, dominates this sector. The Cricket World Cup is slated to present an unmissable opportunity for advertisers, providing front-and-center exposure to a sizable, engaged, and intensely devoted audience that exhibits a willingness to make purchases. 

Cricket and Sports Marketing in India

India’s sports marketing has experienced a spectacular metamorphosis as a result of cricket’s enormous popularity. The most popular sport in the country, cricket, has significantly shaped the sports marketing scene. 

The Advent of Digital Media in Sports Marketing

Digital media and streaming services have expanded sports marketing’s reach and engagement opportunities, enticing brands to invest in this lucrative field. Businesses are exploring endorsement deals, sponsorships, and innovative marketing tactics to tap into the passionate sports fanbase. Social media, streaming platforms, and fantasy sports apps offer targeted marketing options, enabling brands to reach specific demographics and boost visibility in the sports arena.

Brands can reach the appropriate audiences, at the right time, and in the right environment using programmatic advertising. Brand recall and brand visibility are two advertising KPIs that marketers can more easily attain than through more conventional media like TV and radio

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Rise of Digital Advertising in Sports

As India’s digitization progresses, Indians are increasingly turning to digital channels for watching the game, such as connected TV, cricket portals, and streaming platforms. As a result, marketers have been able to connect with millions of cricket fans online via various channels, giving them access to new digital advertising opportunities. It is fantastic for advertising, but there is a problem. These digital platforms attract a variety of demographics. They may not be relevant to the target market.

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The Power of Cricket

For Indian TV viewers, cricket is no less than a daily soap opera. It is complete with drama, predictable results, humorous anecdotes, and even some heartbreaking scenes. How can the advertising industry avoid becoming involved when one sports genre has more viewers than the majority of other sports combined? The ad firms see more and more opportunities to be linked with the game as it develops, whether it is putting the brand’s logo on a player’s bat or creating a full-fledged commercial centered on cricket.

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Why Scoring Big on Your Branding During Cricket Matches is a Game Changer

Let’s take a brief look at how advertisers profit from running ads during the busiest time of the cricket season and in between games.

• Brand Awareness: Live streaming contributes to the expansion of the audience and the brand’s personality. Streaming sporting events aids in attracting a sizable audience.
• Interact with the brand: By using live streaming, brands may create a lasting connection with their audience. It encourages an authentic relationship that viewers can reach from their homes or anyplace else.
• Emotional connection: During any cricket match, people’s passion and emotions are at their peak. It has a significant and enduring psychological effect on the audience.
• Massive Viewership: Advertising during a cricket match provides a huge viewership pool, providing firms unrestricted ad mileage.
• ROI without interruptions: Cricket commercials give advertisers a way to support their companies’ ongoing ROI.
• Engagement: Advertising during live cricket matches provides outstanding engagement with related material, including highlights from pre- and post-live shows.
  

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The Money Game

Making campaigns, especially for a competition, and focusing more of their promotion on the game while putting their products on hold is truly a major risk that firms take. Do they succeed, though? Brands truly began investing in cricket during the 1996 World Cup. The International Cricket Council (ICC) received 900 crores (9 billion) in advertising revenue. Additionally, during the 2011 World Cup, it grew to nearly 15 billion. The BCCI started charging 2 crores every match for title sponsorship, which has since increased to 3.8 crores per match due to the massive amount of money coming in from ads. Imagine that the BCCI will charge INR 11.4 Cr for a tri-series (3 matches), only from title sponsors, plus other sponsorships for television, goods, drinks, and more. 

IPL- The advertising haven

With millions of supporters, cricket occupies a special place in Indian sports culture. The Indian Premier League (IPL) has transformed cricket and sports marketing in India. The fast-paced and exciting format enthralled the Indian audience. Since then, it has developed into a marketing phenomenon that has drawn significant investment from powerful corporations and advertisers.

According to statistics, the IPL 2022 produced over 

• USD 520 million in advertising revenue.
• Over 300 million people watched the games.

In contrast, IPL 2023 received 

• 1.47 billion video views on its first weekend. 
• 32 million people watched the last match live on Jio Cinema.
• More than 550 million spectators.
• 61% of IPL watchers used smartphones.

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Making advertising more effective with hand-selected audiences and measurable results

There are two different types of brands when it comes to cricket advertising-

1. Includes people who think that brands are based on cricket.
2. Those who believe the price is too high. 

Cricket advertising provides a chance for brand recall as well as a way to assess the immediate effects on enterprises. Technology and cricket have been combined to provide data-driven insights that enable marketers to assess the immediate effects of their advertising initiatives. Advertisers can determine whether cricket has a real impact on a brand’s financial line by examining website traffic, concurrency, and conversions during certain cricket tournaments. Cricket serves as a catalyst for company success as well as a platform for brand building.

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