Subbu Sab Jaanta Hai: Brands of IPL 2020

IPL window has grown extremely popular over these years with more and more brands patronising IPL to promote their brands. There have been cases of brands getting overtly popular through this, classic examples were: Micromax, Snapdeal, Muthoot Finance, Zoo Zoos from Vodafone, Polycab and many more. I always feel that to understand the advertising landscape and the brands that are active in India can be easily decoded by watching a set of matches. This will give us a clear picture of the big spenders in our country. So the objective of this note is to capture the brands that got featured and also to highlight the good work done by brands, some bad work and some extremely bad work. There are some brands which have just use the opportunity to shout loud, louder and loudest without a strong proposition to share. Few categories had to stay away as the weather conditions were not favourable for them – Ice creams, Soft drinks etc., Some of the brands moved smartly into capitalising on an upcoming festival “Diwali” and unveiled promotions around it, notable ones are Ajio.com, Titan, and Coke.

Most of the brands tried some connections to bring in the Virus into their theme : Paints, Fans, Laminates.

STAR, National and Regional channels have enabled brands to focus on their relevant markets thereby avoiding unnecessary media spillage. Hotstar has further localised the advertising opportunities where usage/location based advertising has boomed.

The usage of celebrities across categories is a proof that the quality of creative is sliding down. The easiest way to crack a brand is to use a celebrity and write a few lines. “Phone Pe “ and “CRED” are great cases where the celebrities are going beyond and engaging with the audience. Using Aamir Khan as a “dummy” in the CEAT ads is a very bold approach and one needs to see the success of this communication. But the overall feel of the creative scene seems to be pathetic and not encouraging comparing the kind of talent we have. This also could be an indication of overspending rather than smart spending.

The big list of popular celebrities who occupied enough advertising space: Ayushmann Khurana, Vicky Kaushal, Aamir Khan, Amitabh, Shahrukh, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Hrithik Roshan, MS Dhoni, Saurav Ganguly, Sachin, Salman, Ranbir, Ranveer, Deepika, Hemamalini, Akshay Kumar, Rakul Preet Singh, Hardik, Pant, Rohit, Shikar Dhawan.

Let’s try and take a look at the communication and brands category wise:

1.Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

Colgate Toothbrush’s “ Taxiwala” proposition is a very strong one while the communication may not be highly engaging, but the thought of germs in toothbrush is a powerful one.

Coke introduced its Cola advertising as a continuation from the old series with Ranbir and Paresh Rawal, a very timely one.

Five Star’s “Do Nothing” is an interesting shift from “Suresh / Ramesh”.

Dairy Milk Silk’s Romantic proposition got stronger with the interesting 30 sec where the boy is travelling with an umbrella, is definitely engaging.

ITC’s sponsorship has enabled them to promote their brands: Savlon, Engage, Bingo and Sunfeast range.

The big colas featured late while Thumbs up was stealing the thunder with Ranveer Singh from the beginning. Salman’s shifted loyalties into Pepsi camp.

Sprite’s Drone Ad with Anirudh in South and some other person for the rest of the country goes only to prove that the southern markets need to be handled with care, but the same care should have been taken while conceptualising the TVC.

Bourbon
Sprite
Thumbs up
Coke
Dark Fantasy
Fortune Oil and other products
Dairy Milk Silk
Five Star
Bingo – Promo
Colgate Vedshakti
Colgate Zig Zag Toothbrush : Taxiwala / Ayushman Khurana
7up
PEPSI – Salman Khan
Sunfeast
SKORE
Sensodyne
Maggi Tomato Ketchup
Maggi Noodles
Savlon
Tide Ultra : Triple action by Ayushman Khurana
Engage Deos
EVA Deodorants

Building Materials / Construction Industry

Nothing really stuck in the heads, except for the Alia Bhatt and Ayushman Khurana’s Colors of India campaign, still I felt the connect with the brand was lagging and therefore the recall.

Asian Paints with some simple storyline was average.

JSW tried connecting some Rishab Pant’s old incidents from his on-field experiences were stupid and too far fetched.

JSW Steel with Rishab Pant
JSW Coloron Roofing Sheets RishabPant
JSW Paints with Alia Bhatt and Ayushman Khurana
JSW Cement with Ganguly
Indigo Floor Paints
Berger Silk : Kareena Kapoor
Berger Paints : Akshaykumar
Asian Paints Weather Shield
Polycab wires
Merino Laminates
Century Ply : Virus protecting furniture

Automobiles / Auto Products

Clean road shots continued to occupy this ever-challenging category, where FORD for a change concentrated on SERVICE aspect a smart decision to move away from the clutter.

Aamir featuring as a Dummy: an expensive celebrity that way, the question is Why should there be a Celebrity at all?

MG Gloster’s Abbreviation led campaign with the kid stood out only with the feature “Reverse parking”

HERO’s corporate message focussing on COVID was run of the mill

MRF Two Wheeler : Virat Kohli
MRF ZLX
CEAT : Aamir Khan / Don’t be a dummy
MG
KIA
SKODA
HYUNDAI
HERO corporate / Covid
HERO Xtreme : Virat Kohli
TVS Jupiter : Amitabh
TVS Apache
TVS Victor : Dhoni / Amitabh
TATA ALTROZ
FORD Service

Finance

RBI continued with its cautioning messages, AMFI (mutual fund association) used almost all cricketers to drive the message “SAFE HAI”. CRED’s simplicity to lot of people came across as complicated.

HDFC Bank
RBI with Amitabh
Mutual Fund
CRED
Master Card

Enablers

Aamir’s multiple storyline TVCs were endearing and engaging with his presence and some simple story telling.

Amazon with idea of “Khushiyon ka Door” wasn’t making an impact

AJIO came late, but with its filming and presentation was creating some engagement.

Phone Pe
Amazon
Flipkart
Ajio
Bharat Matrimony : Dhoni
Housing.com
Pharmeasy

Online Gaming

Dream 11’s interesting series, did justice for being the Title Sponsor. Two distinct set of commercials certainly created impact for that brand. Lot of consumers seem to have logged in to the brand.

Dream 11
My 11 Circle
MPL

Education

Coding can be done even by 3 yr olds looks like a tall promise from Whitehat Jr another Byju group initiative. BYJU’s with SRK had some interesting TVCs last year, not this year.

UPGRAD was an absolute non-sense and I think they recovered by another meaningless TVC.

Byju’s
White hat Jr
UPGRAD

Surrogates

As usual, NO COMMENTS.

Sterling Reserve
British Empire
Mc Dowell’s
Royal Stag
100 pipers

Footwear

Sporto work though came in during the later part of the season looked good but the messaging was confusing.

Paragon: Hrithik
Sporto

Luxury Products

We can afford to miss these.

TITAN
TANISHQ
MANYAVAR

Online / Apps

Facebook’s thought of Open up your thoughts to expand your world was interesting. (the same thought translated into Tamil “Ulagam viriyum” was funny). Regional Agencies have a lot of potential to tap these.

JOSH, the replacement for Tik Tok attempted something interesting.

Instagram Stories was inviting.