A lot of crowd at the party but no standouts: IPL ads miss the creativity mark this year?

Touted as the Super Bowl of India, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been as big an advertising extravagance as much as a sporting mega-event. Over the last 15 years, the league has given hundreds of advertisers space to put their creative best foot forward. And this time, the expectations were higher as the last season of IPL advertising was mired with Covid restrictions. However, the creative lot might have missed the creativity mark by a mile as the industry insiders are not much impressed with what has come out till this point.

A senior creative strategy director on the conditions of anonymity told exchange4media.com, “IPL ads seriously lack creativity this time with a very few pieces standing out amidst the crowd. You would notice that not even a single ad has managed to get an organic virality or chatter on social media platforms, which used to be a norm for a lot of IPL content. Yes, CRED ads could have got a lot of earned media attention, but the creativity quotient there is debatable.”

Brand-Nomics MD Viren Razdan feels that IPL ads may have gotten monotonous with brands latching on to old tactics of grabbing attention, “The IPL season is compared to the Superbowl. Advertisers and viewers both prepare with high pitch and planning starts much ahead. IPL has been a showcase for agencies and clients alike.  This year we are seeing some regular and new faces at the IPL ad show - Cred with its new edition of a rehash of the past, Vimal with its ‘coup’ of “oh I am sorry I am here” Akshay Kumar, Kamla Pasand duo, Dream Big. Also, Alia Bhatts is in the news and so her campaigns too. Lots of crowd at the party but no real standouts. Think the creative quotient seems to be a bit fatigued to put it mildly, much better seasons in the past.”

He added that there has been more of a muscle-flexing by big brands than actual creative efforts, “Like Tata Neu launch - using heavy media weights with mediocre creative content.”

The founder of a young creative agency agrees, “The money is being spent either on picking big brand ambassadors or buying the most of the uber-costly ad slots. In all of this, creativity takes a back seat. One major issue is the lack of spends by brands on creative aspects of advertising. If you have such a captive audience, you would like to make better of it. Give them content that they would relish rather than ambushing them with ads that don’t really resonate with them.”

Infectious Advertising Creative Director Subodh Chaubey further adds, “I think the line for Tata IPL 2022 captures it perfectly - ye ab normal hai. The new normal for IPL ads is cricketers as brand ambassadors. It's a blindspot now - a random ad featuring a random cricketer endorsing yet another product. It's almost a disservice to have such a captive audience and still drive zero brand recall. For me, I think we need to stop seeing IPL season as a direct confluence of cricketers and advertising. We need to leverage the moment as an opportunity to tell great stories that entertain our audiences, as much as the matches they’ve tuned in to watch.”

He continues, “The most refreshing IPL 2022 ads for me have been Cadbury ads. From the ads celebrating the unsung heroes like the ground staff to the 5 Star ads hailing the third umpires as heroes who do nothing - every ad is a treat. They tell us more about the brand and are real ‘breaks’ from the mania of the matches. The real letdowns (besides ads featuring crickets) have been ads featuring Bollywood celebs, like Cred and Jar, and of course the Vimal ads. They have replaced storytelling with pop culture references and star power that just doesn’t fly.”

Digital Dogs Content & Media Co-Founder & CEO Ambarish Ray concludes that IPL, as a media property, needs to be reanalyzed by the marketers to drive the value out of it. “The IPL, in its 15th year, is reaching the end of its teens. And like in humans, 15 is a great age to begin forming clarity and knowledge guided decisions about who we are. There are three factors that are always at play, in the life of the IPL - from its birth. In no particular order, apparently: cricket, entertainment, and money. This existential path ought to be worked out by the leaders behind the IPL because the world has changed.”

“Massively expensive properties and inventories are peddled and even purchased by advertisers during IPL Interestingly, most advertisers are Boomers and older people. So their hopes are pinned on TV because TV is what they feel comfortable in. For those advertisers who are younger and represent younger brands-apps, fintech, etc,- they are probably likening the costs to results on digital. However, results on digital that happen over two months are one kind,. For the long term, sustained and monetizable results, digital is to be invested in over time, not just during the IPL.”

He adds that IPL needs to be very clear about what it can actually offer in terms of “C strategy: which is the core product, cricket; M strategy: which is money - pricing, finance deals, performance-linked components, etc; E strategy: which is entertainment, the stickiness factor. People come in droves for the tamasha and many stay for the tamasha (without caring that it is cricket). Will that work in the future? What works for TV historically doesn't always work for digital.”