ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024: Ad strategies shift as mobile takes center stage

As the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup approaches, advertisers are looking at shaking up their marketing strategies.While TV ad rates are predicted to hold steady, predictions are mixed for digital. Some anticipate a premium on mobile inventory due to high demand, while others expect programmatic buying to offer flexibility and potentially lower rates.

Overall, with Disney+ Hotstar announcing ‘Free on Mobile’ viewing, the focus has shifted to creating shorter, interactive, and location-based advertisements optimised for mobile consumption.

“As soon as free word gets associated there is a significant scale which gets generated along with it. So advertising on the mobile (Hand Held Device) for World cup will definitely see an increase due to its ability to provide higher reach. If we take a cue from IPL (Indian Premier League) which is aired for free on JioCinema we would understand that the sizeable reach which it provides,” said Vaibhav Choudhari, vice president, West, Carat India.

However, experts are also concerned about the audience going through a cricket fatigue.

“While most brands would have spent their significant chunk of budget on IPL(Indian Premier League) , the takers for the event might see a drop leading to platform offering lucrative packages to onboard advertisers,” Choudhari added.

Some of these advertisers categories in Choudhari’s list belong to FMCG, auto, BFSI, food and beverages, travel and hospitality and electronics and retails.

The real money gaming brands like Dream 11 and My11circle and on the other hand the Pan masala brands would be usual large advertisers for the Wold Cup.

Ecom and FMCG categories would also see sizeable participation but rest of the categories would see little contribution on this event.

This could also be one of the reasons why ad rates for television have stayed stable between Rs6.2 lakh and Rs6.5 lakh per 10 seconds.

As per TAM numbers, ad volumes per match during ICC T20 WC 2022 saw a drop of 47 percent over ICC T20 WC 2021 and ecom-gaming, aerated soft drinks, cellular phones-smart phones, wires and cables and perfumes/deodorants were the top categories.

Explaining this lack of increase in TV ad rates, Amol Dighe, CEO, Investments and Business Development, Madison Media, said, “Given novelty of the World Cup happening in the US for the first time, advertisers are naturally excited about the event's potential. Then there is the usual excitement around key matches like India vs Pakistan. However, despite all of these factors , there hasn't been a substantial increase in advertising prices. This could be attributed to several factors. Firstly, the June-July period is generally slower for advertisers compared to other times of the year. Additionally, the World Cup follows closely after the IPL, meaning that the audience may have already had their fill of cricket content, potentially impacting advertiser interest and investment.”

However, advertisers will need to adapt their strategies to leverage this mobile-first consumption, said Russhabh R Thakkar, founder and CEO ad tech company Frodoh World.

“Advertisers will have to focus on optimising ad creatives, formats, and placements for smaller screens and potentially shorter attention spans. We may see an increased emphasis on interactive, bite-sized, and location-based mobile advertising to capitalise on-the-go nature of mobile viewing, Thakkar said.

This World Cup, advertising is also being moved to the programmatic way of doing things and as a result experts foresee a lot of advertising rate flexibility coming in.

“Be it advertisers with smaller budget or the ones having big plans, there is a space for all in the inventory; and the pricing will be designed in such a way that it allows adoption across different client tiers. If we follow the law of supply and demand, as the demand rises the rates may tend to fall, and with brands of different scale showing interest in cricket world cup advertising, the demand is sure to grow. Also, interesting matches, with high scoring totals, will bring in many additional viewers to tune in from different devices adding on to a good supply of inventory. Hence a positive change in rate is anticipated,” said Maanesh Vasudeo, senior vice president, media operations at digital marketing firm LS Digital.