Dubai: The year 2011 is a take-off for those involved with cricket.
From the cricket World Cup to the current Indian Premier League (IPL) season, marketers have been trying to cash in on the sport.
Watching the IPL is like bumping into a post modern account that ridicules the consumer. Aside from the team's crest, players sport several logos on their jerseys. The trousers also have a logo on each leg and so are the caps.
Each team has over 10 sponsors ranging from Reebok to Tag Heuer.
The umpires, on the other hand, are dressed simply, but their apparel discreetly features a brand.
The beautiful green pitch is spoilt by three to five giant logos of brands like Pepsi and Reliance. The boundary boards, sightscreens and the stumps are all inked with logos.
Watching the match on television, one may miss out on horizontal quarter, vertical quarter or both to ads. To make things worse, there are text promos at the bottom, the whole time.
Innovation
This season, the advertisers came up with a more ‘innovative' way of advertising.
The ads are featured not just between overs, but also between deliveries — sneakily zooming in and out.
The L shaped ads, which cover half of the screen and the two calculated timeouts which provide 10 minutes of pure, absolute cricket free ads. The first ever sponsored ad-break is also taking place in India. There is no longer a wicket, a six or a catch; it is CBZ extreme Six, Karbonn Kamaal catch, Maxx mobile Strategic Time Out, Kingfisher fairplay, DLF Maximum, Citi Moment of Success.
According to media reports, the total amount spent on cricket this year has seen a 34 per cent rise as compared to last year. Vodafone and Videocon, the joint presenting sponsors have allotted up to Rs600 million (Dh48 million) in each media for 180 seconds of ad per match. And a record of 11 associate sponsors have put in Rs400 million each for 120 seconds of commercial time this year.
IPL has certainly grown bigger since its inception.
While the format developed during the first season, IPL-2 in South Africa generated ad revenues to the tune of Rs4 billion, which increased to Rs 6.5-Rs 7 billion in IPL-3.
With India stealing the thunder in the ICC World Cup, IPL-4 now is proving to be a blockbuster with projected revenues of over Rs10 billion.
The main reason IPL attracts advertisers is because of the diverse viewership as opposed to the male dominated demographic of the World Cup.
The key reason for this magnetism is easily the heady combination of showbiz, cricket and drama — in that order.
