Piggybacking on IPL

Arre darling, lift —” and the young man is cut off as his wife closes the elevator doors on him. This is one of the new TV commercials for a cable network, which shows a cold war between a couple over the IPL. And it’s only one of the products piggybacking on the third season of cricket fever.

With so many sports fans glued to the telly, advertisers are finding creative ways to associate their brands with the game. An ad for a deo shows a man running across a pitch with a horde of women in pursuit. Several TV channels have launched special shows in a bid to sustain TRPs.

In fact, with the FIFA World Cup and Commonwealth Games coming up later this year, viewers should gear up for a lot of sports related ads. An engine oil giant, the official FIFA sponsor, has already started airing an ad showing John Abraham inviting two guys to watch the tournament in South Africa.

So how are viewers taking this new trend — do ads with a sports peg receive more attention or is it an overdose of cricket? According to Julian Philips, VP marketing and product management for a company, which has launched IPL on mobile Internet, “IPL is being used as a medium to reach users. From an advertiser’s viewpoint, I’d say these commercials are pushing cricket as the message behind their products, whether they are related to the sport or not.” Such a strategy would have a saturation point, he adds.

But that saturation point will not arise, opines model Karan Medappa, “Ads have a short shelf-life. When the IPL gets over, these commercials will go off-air too. Until then, they’re making the most of it,” he says.

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