The displacement of IPL from its native ground means a sharp cut on its on-ground ad-revenues. Generally about 10 per cent of total ad- revenue comes from on-ground promotions, and this year there will surely be a decline in the revenues from this segment. This is because with IPL moving from Indian shores, there will be huge shift in the target audience of the companies. And with the change in the pattern of target customers, the advertisers are gearing up for new campaign strategies. But there are a number of brands that are planning for a pull out altogether from on-field publicity deal with IPL, as they will have no target audience in the stadiums of the foreign country.

 

The Money Churning Capabilities of IPL

 

But most of the advertisers would take a middle path that is, reworking the entire campaign from scratch. Even then, it would get costlier for the advertisers as they will have to change the entire content of the campaign including its language and theme in order to connect to the audience in a foreign country. Only the companies with global presence such as Nokia can afford such a huge undertaking.

Nokia, that remained the chief sponsor for Kolkata Knight Riders in the first season, confirmed that it would re-structure its overall publicity mechanism for the IPL Season 2. “We make one of the largest investments in India in the IPL. But with the change in venue, we may restructure the whole mechanism, mainly the on-ground advertisement message. It would be premature to suggest what the new strategy will be. But the partnership with KKR will be there,” Nokia India Ltd’s vice-president and managing director (markets) D. Shivakumar said. Another global giant, LG Electronics, is going to hold a meeting shortly to work out their strategy regarding their on-ground consumer connects activities for the IPL. Once they receive the official confirmation from IPL, they will start putting their plans into action.

LG was among the top advertisers for IPL in its inaugural session. However, this year LG, along with other top advertisers decided to cut down on their advertising budget for the upcoming cricket tournament. The reason cited for this cost cut was a price “too high”.  The 10 second ad slots that were sold for Rs 2.5 lakh last season by Sony MAX, this year the same time slot has been priced at  Rs 3.5 lakh. As goes the industry speculations, the price structure may encourage a few more companies to join the bandwagon of LG. There are also possibilities of companies’ switching allegiance from this upcoming tournament to something more lucrative such as poll-analysis.

Advertising revenues make up the major part of IPL’s profit. But with a switch in the venue, it would have to roll in punches. As it comes out, from every aspect, the Indian Premier League on a foreign land is doomed to suffer. The IPL organizers are fully aware of this fact. But even then, they have to get it going for the sake of getting ahead.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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