Is IPL delivering for advertisers?

Indian Premier League (IPL) is making headlines, one after the other and the entire nation seems to be catching on to the T20 fever like never before. The stakes in terms of the money involved have become extremely high but, this is India, and in this annual extravaganza of super fast cricket nobody seems to be really bothered. This is a situation where it’s difficult to conclude if one should be happy or worried with what is happening.

Advertising rates have already exploded to unprecedented levels with the broadcaster charging a whopping Rs. 6.5 Lakh for each 10 seconds of advertising. That’s a hell of a lot of money, considering a fact that a regular ad of 30 seconds would cost Rs. 20 Lakh for each screening and assuming it is screened 10 times in a day, one requires an investment of a cool Rs. 2 Crore for a single day of advertising.

Things do not stop here, the broadcaster is trying to squeeze in as many commercials as possible between every over and has even introduced several new concepts (read distractions) like the strip ads on the screen, mini ads between 2 deliveries, branding almost everything like 4s, 6s, wickets, catches, run outs and even time-outs.

With 10 sponsors for the tournament and around 50-60 spot advertisers on the channel for this season, this daily dose of cricket entertainment comes with a very heavy dose of hundreds of ads bombarded on that poor viewer who is left with a bad headache at the end of the game.

Sure, there is a good demand from advertisers to be on the IPL, but is it worth it? Are advertisers getting their money's worth by being on air during the match? In my opinion IPL is not only too costly a proposition for an advertiser, but also not delivering anywhere close to their expectations.

Sample this; there are close to 50 new ad films that have been shot for the event and the audience is finding it really tough to grasp them. Remember the Shah Rukh Khan starrer newspaper boy ad… now, can you tell me the name of the advertiser?? No, it is not KKR… the advertiser is actually “Nokia”. It’s the same thing with the Sharman Joshi ad with his girl in the changing room of a cloth store, which many people are confusing as another ad in the Airtel series, but actually it is also another “Nokia” ad. I listed some of the known brands for a general understanding but, there are numerous unknown brands which are on air, and nobody seems to be noticing.

Internationally, there are a lot of big television events which do not have a plethora of advertisers on them, but a select few who enjoy more airtime so that the ads deliver better recall. Broadcasters of IPL in India seems to think otherwise resulting in endless numbers of ads which are going unnoticed, simply because of the sheer number of them which are on air.

After spending that kind of money, I don’t think advertisers deserve to get lost in the clutter. Unfortunately grabbing the eyeball and attention of the viewer at the same time seems to be the most difficult task of this IPL season.

Bollywood lacks the fighting spirit. Television shows that IPL can be defeated.

It has been around 15 days now since the third season of IPL begun. Bollywood superstars can be seen making rounds of cricket stadiums more than their film sets. In a clear sign of defeat, the bollywood seems to have given up to the cricket crazy nation, assuming that nobody will watch their movies during IPL and hence there has been no big movie released in the last 2 weeks.

Contrary to this submissive behavior from bollywood, the television industry has shown far grater heart and proven that they would not go down so easily. Some television channels can be seen emerging much stronger in successfully battling the IPL threat this season.

Colours, seems to be showing the way with its prime time show Balika Vadhu managing to produce top ratings with a handsome TVR of 7.7 as against 5.0 of the IPL for TAM week 11 (7-13 March). In what can be termed as a definite morale booster, the remote control seems to have been back in the hands of the women this season as the television channels seem to be taking on the IPL successfully.

Whether these ratings show that IPL as a property has reached a tipping point remains to be seen, but what needs to be appreciated is the fact that the Television industry has emerged as much stronger than the fickle bollywood folks who chose to go down without a fight.

Stop glorifying advertising guys as ‘Brand Gurus’

It’s becoming a habit to see media glorifying the ad agency professionals as ‘Brand Gurus’. There is that regular set of 10-15 odd glorified agency folks (I don’t want to name them, but its the obvious lot) who are usually a part of any brand related content in various TV programs or newspaper columns. These people are liberally projected as someone who determines the success of any brand that they handle. In fact, the country's leading news paper recently even came out with a power list of these top 25 brand gurus in the country.

Certainly, there is something seriously wrong with the way media is doing its job. It is strange that these same people whom the media glorifies so much at times happen know so little about the brands they claim to drive. Some of these so called ‘Top Guys’ in the agency circles tend to literally surprise and irritate their clients due to their extremely low understanding of client’s business, unprofessional approach, lack of work ethics and really mediocre thinking ability.

I have experienced an instance when one of the topmost NCDs (Usually touted as one of the top 3) in the country, presented to us, a TVC idea based on a concept that was actually out of date for our business, and surprisingly, he had no clue about it. It is a regular occurrence for many client side marketing guys to spoon feed agencies with the strategic approach, communication briefs and even copy just to get the work done.

It baffles me when I see the agency guys proudly talking about the way they managed to create a successful brand and take the credit for the organizational successes. I have seen several interviews of these agency folks talking about the brand successes they have achieved for their clients involved in selling chocolates, shampoos, bank accounts, cars and everything else… frankly, for me, that’s nothing more than a bad joke.

Can the success of a brand be attributed to some creative agencies that happen to hardly be involved in the clients business on a day to day basis? What happens to the visionaries who have the idea, who take the plunge, risk their monies and put people to work? What about the people with the product expertise, manufacturing, supply chain, sales and so many more who help create and deliver the brand promise? Ad agencies are just support systems who handle the creative duties; rather in India, there are a very few agencies who even have a capability to provide strategic inputs to clients.

Unfortunately, the nexus between media and ad agencies is so strong that the readers or viewers are made to think that the ad agencies and its people are god’s gift to mankind when it comes to anything to do with the term ‘brand’. Obviously, no prizes for guessing that the age old tactic of “You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours” works perfectly fine for the media since the agencies are the same people who get them the ads.