IPL on TV helps garner mass reach at a scale, create positive impact: Shashank Srivastava

Maruti Suzuki has been associated with live sports and even IPL for new car launches over the years. What role has television played for the brand as a part of the media mix? Can you tell us a bit about the impact television has had on your brand and business metrics?

As per some industry reports (KPMG), sports had the highest reach on TV in 2022 reaching close to 720 million individuals. Sports, especially cricket in India with such a large viewer base, helps to build faster reach and we have leveraged sports over the years as an efficient and effective medium for our new launch and brand campaigns. In India, there are 210 Million TV households and TV reach is close to 850 Million. This makes TV an automatic choice for advertisers.TV plays a critical role in top of the funnel marketing and we have been leveraging TV for new car launch campaigns as well as for our brand sustenance campaigns. Our TV spends contribute to around 40% of our overall media spends and TV campaigns have helped us not only in improving the brand health scores for our existing brands but also in creating buzz and awareness for our new launch campaigns. As mentioned above, the fact that television helps in garnering mass reach at a scale, it does have a positive impact both on our brand as well on business metric   

Buying a car is a collective decision in Indian households and advertising on mega events like IPL on television brings together friends and families like no other medium. What are your thoughts about the shared brand experiences that television creates among viewers?

Cricket is a religion in India and IPL is a mega festival that goes on for close to 2 months. It does create a festive atmosphere and brings everyone together. This also makes IPL the biggest impact property on TV and has been continuously delivering high all India TVRs and reach for the past so many years despite some drop in the reach in last season. It does give all brands an opportunity to reach out to a massive audience and to create a huge buzz. Because of the inclusive viewing, it also helps to build brand affinity outside of your core TG and specially for Auto brands it is imperative to do so as the car buying decision is more of a collective decision and all members of a household/family contribute to the final decision. We have tactically leveraged IPL in the past depending on our brand and business needs some times through sponsorship and at times through only spot buys to have threshold level of presence to create the right buzz   

As a brand, you continue to have traditional and new-age media as a part of your marketing plans. What are some of the distinctions that television provides compared to other mediums?

As mentioned above, television provides reach at a scale which is yet not matched by any other single medium. TV provides inclusive viewing as against digital which is more exclusive viewing and one to one whereas TV is one to many. Television also helps to create impact because of the sheer scale of the medium and the large screen advantage which is important for imagery building.

What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of advertising on the big screen during a high-octane experience like IPL? How does it compare with attention, receptiveness and engagement through other mediums? 

Presence on the big screen during a mega event like IPL has its own merits and we have seen a lot of brands utilizing it very effectively. Also, multi-language feeds are helping increase viewership in regional markets. As mentioned above, we have also leveraged IPL on TV for our brand campaigns and it has yielded very favourable results in the past.

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