Cricket on TV as a platform is accessible for brands with big or small budgets: Panel

The e4m Pitch BrandTalk 2022 witnessed an eclectic panel discussion on why associating with cricket on television is an ideal platform for building brands, and exploring the unmatched scale of cricket on television in India.

The panel comprised Hema Malik, Chief Investment officer, Mediabrands India; Puneeth Bekal, Director – Marketing, Mastercard; Samir Sethi, Vice President and Head – Brand Marketing, Policybazaar.com and Ujjwal Sinha, Director – Marketing, CARS24.

The session was chaired by Business Strategist and Angel Investor, Lloyd Mathias. He started the discussion by giving crucial context into the scale of sports, especially cricket on television. “India has a TV penetration of over 950 million viewers out of which more than 700 million watch live sports on TV. Cricket is a dominant part of sports viewership on television. We’ve seen all forms of cricket whether it be ICC events, Bilaterals, IPL consistently grow in terms of viewership. In the context of IPL we’re talking about 400+ Mn viewers in a short span of just two months. To sum it up, live sports on television is too big to ignore”

Puneeth Bekal from Mastercard opened the discussion further explaining why viewers prefer consuming sports on the large screen. He commented, “The reason people prefer consuming cricket on TV is because mobile screens are extremely distracting due to notifications and picture-in-picture orientation while multi-tasking.”
He also mentioned that today, TV is still assessed as the most trusted medium.

The scale which cricket on television brings to the table and the higher attention span altogether, I think, is a very great place for any brand to be a part of the cricket ecosystem. We are deeply committed to sports in general and obviously cricket thereon,” he opined. 

Mathias then asked Hema Malik from Lodestar to share experiences of her clients that associated with cricket on TV. "Associating with cricket on television has played an important role for our clients across different categories, life-stages, single product brands or portfolio of products. While it's the fastest and largest reach aggregator, cricket on television offers far more than just scale. During cricket events, our client brands have witnessed significant inflections in brand & business metrics.”

She further praised Disney Star’s efforts in grooming their platform and how they have made it more convenient. “I feel Disney Star has done a fantastic job in grooming their platform, making it multi-lingual. It’s the only platform in the country of this scale that touches the length and breadth of the nation, and at the same time within the national platform, how they have figured out geographical solutions by giving language feeds and giving local assets like commentary. I think that allows a lot of brands, especially portfolio brands that can leverage this regional targeting with focused, customised targeting solutions,” she added.

Samir Sethi from Policy Bazaar then gave the audience some valuable insight into how they leveraged cricket on TV to not only build the brand, but also the online insurance category as a whole. Speaking on the power of the medium he noted, “Cricket on TV as a medium is the single largest aggregator of audiences in India. The platform is accessible for a whole range of brands irrespective of how big or small their budgets are, whether they operate regionally or nationwide. There is something in it for all advertisers. It is a myth that you can’t do customised targeting on linear TV.” 

Finally, speaking about how the online automobile marketplaces leverage cricket on television, Sinha said, “The headroom to grow in the automobile market is huge, and that is where we felt associating with cricket on television was our best bet to capture the masses. There is a significant overlap between the TG of the car market and the cricket-viewing audience on TV. That is how we’ve been leveraging cricket on TV for the past 7 years and we’ve built the brand at the back of these associations. When you operate in the used car segment, the consumer wants trust in the medium that is reaching out to them, and TV is the one medium that resonates with consumer trust.”