Brands expect to extend their reach into regions by engaging in local languages.
With the ICC World Cup being positioned as the biggest event on television, for the first time a slew of new and lesser known regional advertisers are investing behind the property through their respective State’s channels belonging to Star India’s bouquet.
Affordable ad rates is the primary driver for regional advertisers, which is almost a third of that charged by the English and Hindi channels of Star Sports, the official broadcaster of the tournament.
?1,000-cr revenue target
Apart from Star Sports (English and Hindi), for the first time the World Cup is being aired in Tamil (Vijay TV), Kannada (Suvarna Plus), Malayalam (Asianet Movies) and Bengali (Star Jalsa Movies). Star India expects regional advertisers to contribute 30 per cent of its advertising revenues for the World Cup, hoping to reach a target of ?1,000 crores.
“The price paid by regional advertisers is going to more affordable in terms of reaching out to potential consumers and we expect 30 per cent of our revenues to come from such advertisers,” says Sanjay Gupta, Chief Operating Officer of Star India.
Star India is selling ad spots for the World Cup across four regional channels as a separate package to advertisers.
It is selling ad spots at a third of the cost (from ?50,000 to ?1.25 lakhs for a ten second spot) of the regular Star Sports Hindi and English feeds, where ad rates hover around ?2.50 to ?2.75 lakhs and can go up to ?5 lakhs with 6,000 odd seconds of advertising across every match.
South based regional advertisers like V Guard from Kerala, Ramraj Clothing from Chennai, and even media house Malayala Manorama and Dalmia Cement with limited national presence, have come on board apart from the national advertisers like Britannia, MRF and Amazon.
Kerala based V Guard Industries is hoping to sell more voltage stabilisers this summer by riding on the World Cup through the local language channel – Asianet Movies.
“The ad rates are a fraction of what the World Cup would charge for Star Sports and even the IPL. We can step up regional activity for products like voltage stabilisers during the summer by investing in the World Cup through Asianet Movies,” says Mithun Chittilappilly, Managing Director of V-Guard Industries.
Ahead of IPL?
With 70 odd advertisers, Star India expects to beat IPL in terms of ad revenues from its additional set of regional advertisers. “We should do better than IPL’s ad revenue numbers which usually ranges between ?600 to ?700 crores.
While we have doubled the number of advertisers from the previous world cup, many of them are also buying into the regional feeds as it helps them reach a specific audience,” added Gupta.
National brands are already investing into the regional channels to get targeted reach into these markets. While official broadcast sponsors like Nestle and Maruti have invested behind the regional channels to extend their reach, local advertisers would also add to the revenue kitty. Vivek Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Pidilite Industries said, “We are the associate sponsor and will be present across all the six language feeds. I think this is the key advantage that we will be able to engage with consumers in different geographies. Our two brands, Fevi kwik and Dr Fixit will be seen across all the language feeds.”
In the past, Star Sports has managed to rope in regional advertisers for games like kabaddi and recently the ISL (Indian Super League).
But with the World Cup, it has dedicated regional channels to the property rather than just changing the language feed and commentary to suit a particular market.
Vinit Karnik , National Director of GroupM ESP, said, “ Star India’s strategy to have regional feeds has been strategic to tap into brands that are strong regional players but do not traditionally spend on cricket.
Already, some regional players have signed up and more could come on board depending on the performance of the Indian team.”
Source: Thehindubusinessline.com
