Viewership has been debated by ratings agencies but one can interpret the numbers depending on how the data are segmented..
When in April 2008 the IPL was born, there were mixed reactions amongst the media and cricketing pundits. The feeling was far from euphoric and many including this writer did not have a high opinion of the initiative’s prospects and most importantly, how the investments could be justified. The reasons were many and have been written about with a lot of ferociousness and sanity. A few weeks ago, when a brand evaluation consultancy reported a staggering value of $4.13 billion on the IPL brand it again shocked many. Now was the turn of the marketing pundits to sit back and gaze at the various variables that have catalysed the IPL into a different league. Hence the imperative to understand the magic and also scratch the surface to examine what lies beneath.
The audiences
The story of viewership has been debated by TAM and aMap but the fact is one can make numbers talk depending on how you slice the data. There have been reports in the fourth estate on how the numbers have zoomed on IPL’s homecoming and how the revenues are hence likely to be in the tune of Rs. 700 crore vs Rs. 450 crore in 2009. There has been no significant increase in the ratings or the net reach per match but when you convert them into actual numbers a slightly different picture emerges. The cable and satellite base has grown marginally and hence the same percentage means a higher number. However, what is impressive is the average time spent per match and this has gone up. This stickiness is a sign of loyalty and has impressed the media planner as receptivity of media consumption is a rarity these days. So if you correlate and index loyalty to the audiences then it make sense for brands to park moneys without clinically evaluating cost-effectiveness with other genres.
The source of revenues
The initial response from advertisers has not been spectacular but as the second week kicked off I do not know how many have noticed a huge irritant during viewing. Normally, it was a maximum of 60 seconds between overs but now as the ball is hit for DLF maximum and it takes time to retrieve it there are commercial breaks even within the over. Now, from the network broadcaster’s perspective this is a problem of plenty and therefore welcome, but from a media planner’s perspective, it works negatively for the brand being featured as it’s an irritant and is affecting receptivity and intensity of viewing. This is why whenever there are ad breaks between the third and fourth ball the commercial is cut before it ends and is seldom replayed. I do not know if the audience measurement systems record this as a screening or it is treated as null and void. Either way it seldom benefits the advertiser.
The Hype Creators: New Entrants
IPL has attracted new advertisers and lured them into making commercials. The new cell phone manufacturers and service providers have been milking this advantage. They seem to assume that the IPL has more announcement value than a morning daily and hence topicality is supreme. Valid reason, but when you have an action hero celebrity endorsing a new hand phone and also endorsing an established consumer electronic brand there is a serious problem. More so, when the consumer electronics brand is going to dominate in the form of secondage and dwarf the new entrant – minor issue in all this excitement but could prove lethal for the new entrant in the long run. This is why advertising agencies are paranoid about recommending any spontaneous or aided recall researches on the IPL. The results will not be in sync with the strong recommendations.
Big reasons for the IPL
This one may surprise many revenue parkers, but will not shake up either the media agency or the creative agency. The IPL has become part of the media planner’s and media buyer’s credentials. Being part of the IPL is writing his resume for the next job. So is the case with the brand/ marketing manager who switches jobs once in two years. But the big one is the advertising agency which is a big supporter of the IPL as it helps him invest Rs. 10-50 crore easily in a span of a month-and-a-half. This flamboyance with rationale packed in ensures that the agency’s revenues accrue that much faster. This is seen as a welcome change in times when agency revenues have dropped disastrously and the overheads have been inversely proportional. So recommending the IPL with a lot of gut passion is telling on the agency’s balance sheet positively. Few will acknowledge this, but this insight dawned on me at a recent cocktail party. The main reason why an IPL recommendation goes through is that there is little resistance from the client as he also wishes to be a ‘Hero’. As we know ‘brands’ cannot complain and they have anyway become like the endangered tigers.
So who is rich with
IPL at $4.13 billion?
BCCI for sure, which owns the IPL. The BCCI was anyway the richest cricket board and now has only got richer. The eight team owners have seen a pot of gold as the recent bidding for the ninth and tenth teams has shown them. All individual teams have been ranked in terms of brand value by the same consultancy but that has impressed few as many teams are yet to see the greenbacks on their balance sheets.
The mystery of bidding
Rs. 3,250 crore for two teams
One cannot but wonder as to how the two recent bidders will rationalise these heavy investments. Would the IPL brand evaluation have done the trick before the bidding? Nobody knows and that’s the way it should be, I reckon, as these lessons have to be learnt the hard way… as whose money is it anyway? But the myopic concern could be the big watchdog watching closely and the IPL bubble creators better watch out. Neither have the Satyam memories been erased from public memory nor the sense of vigilance from the establishment. So we have a classic business case study in the making where we have the most valuable Indian brand ever, in the fastest possible time, threatening to become much bigger, at a faster pace. History and common sense will tell us this heady amalgam is neither about the bloodline of sport called cricket nor about the emotional excitement of entertainment, but about pure commerce. It’s a new lesson beginning in the business of marketing. Let us hope it’s for all of us to cherish, as we live in interestingly unbelievable times.
(The writer was a senior vice-president of a leading advertising agency and now runs his own strategic media consultancy.)
