E-Commerce dominates IPL 2021, followed by durables and automobiles; reveals Havas Media Group’s study

• HI-CRICKET in association with YouGov, identifies the most meaningful and impactful brands and categories of IPL 2021.
• The study reveals that defending champions Mumbai Indians emerged as the favourite team at the onset of the IPL, followed by RCB and CSK.

Havas Media Group India commissioned a special research with YouGov to launch HI-CRICKET, its proprietary IP, to understand the impact of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021in influencing brand health metrics and identify the most meaningful and impactful brands and categories of IPL 2021.

The study reveals that defending champions Mumbai Indians emerged as the favourite team at the onset of the IPL, followed by RCB and CSK. E-Commerce brands were the biggest spenders before and during the IPL, with VIVO and Amazon Prime at the top of the recall hierarchy given their high media spends on the tournament. This was followed by the Durables & Automobile sectors. Food delivery brands like Swiggy also enjoyed a high recall. The frequency of ordering remained high with close to 80% of respondents having ordered food online at least once during the match time. Dream11 was the highest recalled main sponsor, followed by Byju’s and PhonePe. An increase in the number of fantasy gaming apps was observed during the IPL, however, the majority i.e., three-fourths used it for playing fantasy cricket only. The overall impressions went up by 15% in the 1st week of the IPL which dropped back to similar levels during the last week of the IPL.

Almost all the top brands saw an increased association with Personal and Collective benefits. Automobile brands such as Hyundai, Renault and Kia witnessed an increased loyalty conversion. Durable brands such as Voltas, Signify (Philips) and Havells also managed to increase loyalty conversions.

The research was commissioned between April 2, 2021 to May 7, 2021, during the first leg of IPL 2021. The study encompasses 4500 online respondents across 10 cities in India, which gives a deeper understanding of how a larger-than-life platform like the IPL helps move mind measures. YouGov’s Cube philosophy (people, time and variables) coupled with Havas’ Meaningful Brands framework resulted in this customized quantitative structured questionnaire for an agile, real-time solution, allowing advertisers to track the impact on brand health parameters such as recall, familiarity and perception.

HI-CRICKET 2021 not only enables brands to further bolster their meaningful connections with consumers but also identifies the most meaningful campaigns during IPL this year. This study establishes a direct co-relation between brand metrics and a high-impact and high-visible property like the IPL. Havas Media Group India’s HI-CRICKET study has impactfully captured the essence of the KPIs of some of India’s top brands vis-a-vis a scenario as electrifying as the IPL.

Commenting on the findings of the second phase of HI-CRICKET study, Sanchita Roy, Head - Strategy, Havas Media Group India, said, “One of the pertinent questions that clients ask is the business outcome of high impact properties. At Havas, keeping in line with our Meaningful Brands philosophy, we wanted to understand the effect that IPL has on driving meaningfulness for brands across key high spending categories like Auto, E-commerce, Fantasy Sports, Online Food Delivery and so on. Across all the brands that we tracked as part of this study, interestingly we saw positive shifts across every stage of the consumer funnel when we compare the pre vs during tournament numbers. What we have observed is that across brands, Personal and Collective perceptions have improved with the onset of the IPL. Personal parameters like value for money & convenience, and Collective perceptions of trust & respect saw the highest increase across brands.”

Commenting on the upcoming leg of the IPL 2021 that began on September 19, R. Venkatasubramanian, President and National Head - Investments, Havas Media Group India, said, “The 2nd phase of IPL 2021 is going to be equally big or supersede phase 1 in terms of ratings and revenue. The entry cost is relatively very less considering it’s a high impact property that is coinciding with the festival period once again, hence it will be bigger for advertisers than last year. We estimate that the overall festive spends would increase by 20-25% over 2020. And the IPL will play a pivotal role as a platform for the advertisers. Star Sports has renewed and signed 5 Co-presenting sponsors and 10 Associate sponsors for the 2nd phase of the IPL which includes categories like E-commerce, Gaming, Online Education, Telecom, FMCG and several others. The inventory is almost sold out.”