1 In a year marred by the Covid pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of most of the sporting events across the world, sports sponsorship in India dropped by about 35%. According to the report, India’s sports sponsorship for the year 2020 fell to Rs5894 Cr from Rs 9109 Cr in the preceding year. The biggest share was taken by media where advertisements on TV, digital, and print media contributed about 62% of the total amount, in Rs term it came to Rs 3657 Cr, which was about Rs 1700 Cr less than the preceding year.
Now coming to sponsorship spends, which included on-ground sponsorships, team sponsorships, and franchise fee, took 28% of industry ad spends amounting to Rs 1673 Cr compared to Rs 3340 Cr in 2019, Only athlete endorsement rose by 5% against the run of play in a year ravaged by the pandemic.
The pandemic resulted in wiping out gains of many emerging sports. Cricket cornered about 87% of total sports ad spend. The share of other and emerging sports dropped to a mere 13%.
Many sports properties were either cancelled or postponed and even sponsorship and media spends were impacted. But it was really commendable how the sporting system reacted to this crisis taking into consideration the very fact that the sports were back sooner than expected. Even in the face of adverse context, the stakeholders came together to provide the spark the industry needed. The Indian Premier League (IPL) and Indian Super League (ISL) are exemplary demonstrations of India’s preparedness to host major sporting events. under such adverse circumstances.
Over the last decade, the business of sports had grown at the rate of 12%, and if there was no pandemic, the total business would have crossed Rs9500 Cr in the year 2020. Last year was like that proverbial backward step instead of normal growth and it is not known what will happen this year. Meanwhile, during the period of no activity in sports, there was a significant jump in the level of social media influencer activity among popular athletes. Of the 377 endorsement deals that happened last year, 275 involved cricket players. The year also saw female athletes pulling in brands.
2 It is almost 2 weeks that IPL 14 is underway and you see ads of so many celebrities on TV and print media. Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB) conducted research on ad recall during IPL. Most recall celebrities were MS Dhoni, Ranveer Singh, Virat Kohli, and Salman Khan. The research pointed out, while Dhoni topped the recall list, only one of his associations – Dream11-has got instant recall of 79%, which indirectly meant that other brands which Dhoni in endorsing suffered, including Star TV/IPL (9%), Indigo Paints (8%), Orient Fans (6%), Livfast Solar (6%) and, Yipee (2%).
Meanwhile, for Ranveer Singh, his association was more democratically spread with Jip Fiber (56%), JD Mart (48%), My11Circle (22%), and Bingo (18%). In his case, many respondents recalled his association with more than one brand.
Interestingly, Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, and Ranbir Kapoor, and cricketers like Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, and Hardik Pandya, either had no ads or very less recall value or the media weightages behind those ads were too insignificant to be noticed by viewers. IPL has become India’s largest media property and must-have for all the advertisers and brands, who can afford to buy spots on the tournament. IPL has also become a status symbol. No wonders that more than 100 advertisers across 25 categories are advertising with IPL.
Sometimes there are too many ads of the same celebrity come together at a time. There was a joke on social media saying that ” please watch IPL in between Ranveer Singh’s ads”. The big advertisers, who are pumping in lots of money, need to keep rotating ads. If you keep running one or two films multiple times, the fatigue will set in very fast. You have to use multiple ads. Celebrity is good for instant recall, but it should be used in the right context.
Friends, I hope you liked the above information.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
29th April 2021.