With upsets galore in the ongoing IPL and some matches having nail-biting finishes, the cricket bonanza is not only generating heat for the viewers for brands too that are trying to cash in on the sports fever.

A variety of brands have hopped onto the IPL bandwagon so that they can engage their consumers. In general, brands from food, lifestyle and travelling sectors are having a field day.

Co-Founder & CEO of one such platform GoSats, Roshan Aslam, feels IPL is time when cricketing fever sweeps across the country and which can be taken advantage of by brands and companies.

So, for example, to make this period more enjoyable and rewarding for GoSats users, the company had introduced a campaign called Bitcoin Premier League where users earn 100 percent extra bitcoin rewards on voucher purchases on the platform during the IPL match hours, along with extra prizes for the highest bitcoin stackers of each week.

“We have seen tremendous response to the campaign, with users competing to stack Bitcoin just as fiercely as the IPL teams fight it on the field. Still in its early stages, IPL looks to be a success for GoSats, especially as there has been a notable increase in voucher purchases and user growth on the platform during this time,” Aslam explained.

The IPL madness is also being witnessed among the love birds, it seems. Nobody likes watching a cricket match alone and this can be the best time to find someone who not only matches your love interest, but also your cricket craze.

According to Ravi Mittal, Founder & CEO of QuackQuack, a leading Indian dating app with over 16 million user base, the IPL craze is certainly seeing a spill over on QuackQuack.

“We usually see greater engagement on our app at night. However, with IPL, during interesting and nail biting match scenarios, we see drop in user engagement, which picks up after the match is over. Our meta data also shows users discussing their favorite teams pre-match and team performances post-matches,” Mittal observed.

The interest seems to be more from tier-1 cities, but with the inclusion of new IPL teams like Gujarat and Lucknow (UP) where there seems to be some interest being generated from their respective States as well.

“Male and female users are seen equally participating in discussing matches and it seems like a cool ice breaker,” Mittal added.

The craze of cricket in India is such that the madness gets spilled over to every other sector. A majority of brands from various sectors are optimizing this opportunity to drive brand growth and sales in the Indian market. This is the very reason why these brands are betting big on their digital marketing spends too.

Shedding light on the scenario, Siddhartha Vanvani, Founder & CEO of DigiDarts, says, “The IPLSeason holds more than just the cricket excitement. It has developed into an occasion for brands, where they celebrate the power of cricket-love by aligning it with their offerings in the form of advertisements, and the magnanimous craze for the game season feeds the purpose coherently. Statistically speaking, there is a subsequent rise of over 5 percent in the ad volumes than in general and brand engagement soars exponentially”

He added: “Noting this transformation, Digidarts, a 360° performance agency, facilitates such concerns for the budding brands, startups and MSMEs across industries to actualize their business growth goals by leveraging the digital sphere for optimum performance. In the future, such digital trends will revolutionize the way we perceive digital marketing today.”
(Photo courtesy IPLT20 website)