As the IPL draws closer, all eyes are now on the individual teams and what kinds of publicity and advertisements that they are going to be planning. There’s lots of news floating around about which team has hired which bollywood actors/singers and what ad agency is working on which advertisements. Never before have people been so eager to actually watch advertisements - Advertisements that would otherwise be forced on people are actually turning out to be events that people look forward to.

This is a huge opportunity for the teams. The main stake involved for all the teams, of course, is to build loyalty in its fans. Loyalty to the brand, to the home city and to the star players, so that they may sell tickets merchandise and all kinds of stuff to them. And advertisements are a great way to do this too. But in today’s YouTube-world, these folks can take a new and innovative approach to advertising.

In the US football (really rugby) league, the final match, the “superbowl” is an eagerly awaited spectacle, as much for the ads as it is for the actual game. Companies pay insane amounts of money to get 30-second slots of TV to show one-off advertisements there. The hype is so much that companies go to great lengths to create entire campaigns centered around that one 30-to-60-second-slot. And then, the next day, all the advertisements get talked about all over the place. A marketers dream come true - Viewers actually seeking out advertisements.

But we find ourselves in a slightly different situation in India today - people are seeking our ads for IPL teams. I think there is more to it than meets the eye. People are looking at the teams for more than just ads - They want to figure out which team to cheer for. For the 8 cities that have franchises, it may be a direct choice to cheer your home city, but for the vast majority of the rest of the country, which team to cheer for is literally up for grabs. And this market is very valuable to the team owners.

The Chennai Superstar’s “Anything is possible” ad

This trend was started with the ICL - specifically the Chennai SuperStars team that created a really memorable ad - The “Anything is possible” ad. It was really hilarious and garnered a huge hit for the Chennai team - Which incidentally also won the inaugural ICL tournament. The expectations for the advertisers are very high with all the huge amount of hype already floating about the IPL, and all eyes will be on them.So far, only the Kolkata team has released their ads, and I must say I’m a little disappointed with the viking-helmet-wearing-football-playing image that they’ve built up. But its never too late. The team anthems, the team mascots are all going to come out sooner and later, and it is going to be a fun fun two months from now!