How FMCG Brands win with IPL on Television featuring Rajiv Dubey and Krishnarao Buddha
Instant impact for product launches, and access to a large aggregation of new and young audiences makes TV associations on IPL a gamechanger for FMCG brands
IPL on television breached the 500 million mark for the first time in 2023. From an advertiser’s point of view, TV brought a large influx of new audiences during IPL with young and affluent viewers displaying a clear preference for the medium. During IPL 2023, BARC reported a 37% reach growth in Male A Urban viewers, 40% in 15-30 AB Urban and 36% in 15-30 AB 10 Lakh+ Cities on television. The growth was a perfect opportunity for FMCG brands to reach out to new users and elevate their market share.
At the recently concluded India Brand Conclave, brand custodians Rajiv Dubey and Krishnarao Buddha engaged in an eclectic discussion on how live sports on television led by cricket drives business impact for brands. Here are some of the key insights from the discussion:
On the differentiated impact IPL on TV provides for FMCG Brands:
Rajiv Dubey: “With a certain set of mediums, you may be repeating the audiences, but with cricket on television, you reach out to newer, younger audiences, and children. There's also a massive spillover because there’s a massive scale of collective viewing. Nothing can achieve a scale like live sports on TV and this is validated even in the US market with Super Bowl. A study found that even in an evolved market like the US, linear TV was the overwhelming preference for watching megaevent.”
Krishnarao Buddha: “Considering Parle is a mass brand, IPL on television helped us reach the younger target audiences, which is difficult or expensive otherwise. If you look at the construct of Parle's portfolio, it is targeted at children or women. The TV association helps us unlock a large sum of female viewers.”
A YouGov research in 2022 on the power of co-viewing on TV for brands highlighted that 92% IPL viewers on TV discuss with family or friends before purchasing products. Additionally the research states that co-viewing of live sports on TV drive 2.2X brand higher recall among viewers.
Key Facets that advocate the power of IPL on TV for FMCG brands:
Rajiv Dubey: If planned effectively, IPL on television can serve large brands across the funnel. For legacy brands it helps reach out to new audiences, whereas while launching a new product, it gives you a PAN-India scale and an instant, large scale impact.”
Krishnarao Buddha: “The combination of SD and HD enabled us to reach a targeted set of audiences. It gave us the perfect platform to target a combination of mass and premium audiences. While we drove salience for our mass brands through SD feed, HD feed allowed us to reach affluent audiences for our premium range Parle Platina.”
IPL on HD witnessed landmark growth in 2023, crossing 100 million viewers and reaching almost 4X more audiences than the previous year.
TV continues to be the primary platform of impact for FMCG brands. While Parle Products was an associate sponsor on television during IPL 2023, Dabur was a prominent advertiser during the 2023 Cricket World Cup. With IPL 2024 around the corner, FMCG brands have a proven ally for scaling new heights.
