By Meghaa Gangahar
The summer of 2017 has brought with it another fresh season of The Indian Premier League, or IPL, and swept the nation with cricket fever. As the series draws towards an end in May, the audience has been gripped to the matches more than ever. Cricket has always been a craze among Indians for generations, where every cricket fan has spent hours, religiously following the rise and fall of their favorite cricketers.
The Indian Premier League has proved to be the most exciting format of the game so far, where a series of matches are played amongst ten teams. The reason for its phenomenal success is the fact that each inning is played for only twenty overs, thus making the game – a quick entertainment fix. No wonder it has successfully completed 9 whole seasons so far, with the 10th one in progress.
T20 crispiness
The Indian Premier League is the most lucrative sporting event in India and has one of the largest audiences – providing a huge visibility for brand advertisements. The brands can thus place themselves on the countrys largest platform to gain a pan-India reach for their products. The T20 matches of IPL have a quintessential feature of being short and crisp cricket matches – which historically was a long-running game which would span days. It is owing to the unfatigued attention of the audience towards this game that the IPL is a favorite when it comes to promoting a leading brand like Yes Bank which offers home loans at the reasonable home loan interest rate.
And the award goes to: Yes Bank
From being the youngest Indian company making it to the Forbes Global 2000 List 2016 to getting adjudged as the Banker of the Year India 2015 by The Banker – London, Yes Bank – India’s fifth largest private sector bank is the only bank to be awarded the Greenfield Bank license by the RBI in the last two decades.
Yes Bank is also the exclusive official partner of the IPL in the financial services category. In September 2016, Yes Bank was honored with the award for the Best Social Media Campaign of the year, for the 360-degree campaign during the Indian Premier League 2016 by the World Bank Congress in Singapore. One of the primary reasons why this leading sponsor of the IPL has become a coveted choice for customers seeking home loans is its low home loan interest rate.
The tremendous increase in the brand power of Yes Bank during the IPL season can be attested by these performance statistics of their official website:
- Impressions in 2016 stood at 76 Million, and there has been an increase of 300% in 2017
- Engagement has increased by 2000% on the back of Brand integrated Video promotions
- Traffic on website has also increased by 100% during IPL season, reflecting the increased Brand Lift during IPL
The long haul
Yes Bank is definitely in the advertising game for the long haul. It has signed up a deal with the IPL for five years, starting in 2013, and maintains its commitment to IPL despite the uncertainties in the finance sector, post demonetization. While several brands have shown wavering interest in funding advertisements, Yes Bank remains steadfast in their investment. A five-year period is a decent time for establishing the brand-name association and promoting its retail banking franchise and products, successfully across the country. The bank already hosts a popular brand name which is solidified even further in the conscience of the millions of viewers watching the IPL. Through their advertisements, the bank can introduce their range of banking products, which through careful marketing strategy piques public interest.
A spot in the spotlight
Several top brands compete to claim a part of the spotlight that one of Indias most popular events showers on them. A large part of the loyal viewership attaches a fairly high amount of sentimentality with the game, thus any name that is attached to this sentiment creates a lasting impression on them. Yes Bank, which offers a range of services from personal banking, corporate banking, digital banking to even engagement with state governments and allied agencies through Strategic Government Advisory (SGA), is one of those names that comes up when the current hot topic of IPL is discussed and each time an advertisement is viewed – which is extremely frequent. Such sponsorships have increased the brand value of IPL over the years. Now that a wide variety of market players have entered the field of sponsorship, the IPL remains a playing field for the countrys top brands.
Featured Image Source: Cricbuzz