2020: How Covid changed the sponsorship game this year
The early signs of sponsorship churn became visible in June 2020 when brands turned their focus to digital like never before
Year 2020 has been a year of disruptions. While it caught CMOs unaware as far as risk assessment is concerned, 2020 has turned out to be a year that has left some long-term changes on businesses across categories.
If we look at the impact of Covid -19 on sponsorships specifically, till March 2020, brands had their strategy in place as far as sponsorship spends are concerned. However, with the lockdown coming into effect, marketers soon realised that the strategy had been turned on its head and so “Plan B” was put into practice.
The early signs of the sponsorship churn became visible in June 2020 when brands turned their focus to digital like never before.
In the words of an expert marketer “it was both a vitamin and a painkiller” for brands that were trying to get a grip on the unprecedented situation unleashed by the pandemic.
While digital spends boomed during the pandemic, with the coming of IPL in August 2020, the extent of change that sponsorship landscape had undergone was unmissable to spot.
If we look at the sponsorship trends of the last 12 IPL editions, the league has majorly attracted top brands and legacy players. A shift in this trend has become the most noticeable reality of 2020.
This year, some legacy brands kept their distance from IPL 2020. And this, in turn, paved the way for new entrants to join the league, which they did in hordes, albeit at a discounted price.
In 2020, established brands were sidelined by start-ups fuelled by investor money to dominate the sponsorship game. Dream11, Unacademy; to name a few, rescued the IPL 2020 by pumping in billions of dollars in sponsorships
According to Pawan Sarda, Group CMO of Future Group, the new breed of sponsors is not a new phenomenon, categories and brands leading the sponsorship always change every 4-5 years.
“Whenever there is a new category being built in India, brands catering to these categories overpower the sponsorship landscape. We have seen this with telecom to e-commence, and now this is happening with edtech and gaming. Post Covid, I see brands being built on the digital side definitely taking the lead,” says Sarda.
When it comes to Print, sponsorship was driven by tier 2 and 3 markets as they emerged largely unscathed by this pandemic.
Some unprecedented churn took place when it comes to programming genres on TV. With GECs stalling new content during Covid 19, news TV genre attracted sponsorships in a big way. And with the ratings for news channels under suspension currently owing to the TRP scam, the trust in the genre still continues.
In the period Aug-Oct, news channels saw 28% growth in advertising revenue over the same period last year. Experts say that TV news had a very bullish market and that is the reason that it continues to attract sponsors despite ratings blackout.
