IPL fever subsided a few weeks ago leaving behind a staggering ₹4,800+ crore in ad spend, 190+ advertisers and 450+ brands across television, JioHotstar, CTV and social platforms. According to viewership data reported by MediaNews4U, IPL 2025 clocked a historic 840 billion viewing minutes, with the final alone drawing 31.7 billion minutes making it the most watched IPL final in history. Yet despite this record-breaking scale, the season’s campaigns rarely pierced the white noise. There were a few advertisers who developed strong series of creatives that stood out during the matches but even these failed to stick in viewers’ minds unless the work was explicitly discussed or read about. In this analysis, we deconstruct why creative storytelling took a backseat to media metrics and how stakeholders must course correct before IPL 2026.
A BRIEF TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
Not long ago, IPL ads felt like cultural events in themselves. Remember the ‘Zoo-Zoos’ dancing across screens? The infectious “Mauka Mauka” jingle that became a fan anthem? Or “Indiranagar Ka Gunda,” whose character-driven narrative transcended sport? Those campaigns worked because they paired a simple insight with a compelling story earning attention, driving word-of-mouth and living beyond the boundary ropes. They weren’t just ad spots; they were shared experiences that threaded through water cooler talk, WhatsApp forwards and even prime time banter.
A RAY OF HOPE: SPLIT‑SECOND STORYTELLING
Even amid this sea of sameness, a handful of brands demonstrated how razor‑sharp storytelling—executed in perfect sync with the media plan—can cut through the clutter. Take Swiggy’s 10‑second spot, in which an elderly gentleman orders gulab jamun for his wife and delivers a heartwarming surprise at her doorstep, so much so that he became affectionately known as “Gulab Jamun Uncle.” In that split second, it conveyed genuine emotion, playful humour and clear brand purpose and landed with viewers long after the match resumed. This is the art of split‑second storytelling: every frame, every beat and every media placement choreographed to amplify recall.
THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM
This year, however, we saw a decisive shift from creative ambition to media obsession.
Most ads defaulted to a laundry list of features or a star plug, trading emotional resonance for product positioning.
High frequency, 10-second bursts blitzed every break delivering reach, yes, but no lasting impression.
Soaring TV and CTV rates nudged brands toward “safe” ideas, sacrificing the bold concepts that build recall.
Template driven humour and visual clutter replaced insight led narratives, leaving viewers unmoved.
WHERE ARE THE GAPS?
It appears that multiple links in the campaign chain may have missed the creative brief:
- Brand teams, focused on securing premium inventory, may have relied on reach over resonance.
- Creative partners, under tight deadlines and budgets, might have defaulted to celebrity endorsements rather than pushing for distinctive concepts.
- Media planners, driven by GRP’s and CPM targets, could have optimized frequency without stopping to ask whether the ads were memorable.
- Platform owners, keen to hit scale metrics, perhaps didn’t require storytelling benchmarks alongside delivery KPI’s.
This isn’t to point fingers there are no official post-mortem reports yet—but these are the areas where we’d encourage everyone to reflect and recalibrate before IPL 2026.
WHAT’S THE COST OF CREATIVE APATHY?
Wasted spend: For instance, Brand ‘X’ allocated ₹50 crore to prime-time slots, only to see unaided recall languish at 2% after the IPL.
Declining brand love: Viewers remember sixes and wickets, not your messaging diluting long term equity.
Missed cultural moments: IPL is India’s Super Bowl; failing to deliver memorable campaigns means ceding cultural capital to mere visibility.
WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE?
Root campaigns in insight. Begin with a human truth not a media plan. Let research steer the idea, not the other way around.
Dare to be bold. Allocate a portion of budget specifically for high-risk, high-reward creative experiments because courage begets memorability.
Fuse storytelling and strategy. Treat creative development and media planning as collaborative partners, not sequential tasks.
Redefine success metrics. Go beyond impressions and GRP’s measure emotional impact through recall tests, social engagement quality and sentiment analysis.
Enforce accountability. From clients to creators to platforms, embed creative-quality checkpoints at every stage of the campaign lifecycle.
In India, cricket isn’t just sport it’s storytelling. Brands that win during IPL aren’t those with the biggest media buys; they’re the ones who feel the game, understand emotion and tell a damn good story.
Over to you: which IPL ad do you still remember? If none, what will it take for IPL 2026 to be both big in scale and unforgettable in impact?
(Views are personal)
