IPL, a match or an emotion? Well, I would say a match with emotions where a cricket ball grips the viewer’s interest until it hits a six or a great stroke. This year, IPL comes with utmost importance for cricket lovers because it’s being broadcasted in regional languages by OTT partners which grips users’ interests to know more about the cricket updates in their native dialects. This can also be a great opportunity for app marketers to tap into respective audiences via Granular Targeting because, as per the report by Axis My India, this year 57% of people are looking to watch Tata IPL on TV Screens whereas, 30% are on their mobile phones. 

Such high-energy tournaments add extra excitement to the IPL season because, with exciting and nail-biting matches, people’s emotions jump in and out as they feel a deeper connection with their state’s team wherein, tapping into the fans at granularity along with AI/ML mechanism can do wonders for brand awareness. Since this yields better results as it helps marketers in the identification of specific audiences who show interest in the brand’s offerings.  

Here’s How Granular Targeting Plays a Significant Role in Maximizing a Brand’s Reach During IPL:  

With internet and smartphone penetration, people are becoming mobile-first and tapping into them via Granular Targeting can be a differentiating factor for brands because netizens are just a screen touch away from brands and rely on their smartphones for everything before anyone else. This is why, this year IPL will see advertising worth US$550 million wherein, the OTT partner will hold a share of 60% which can be an advantage to drive effective campaign performance (source: Campaign India). Here’s How: 

Hyper-Local Ads: These create a timely personalized experience based on the users’ interests and get done via geofencing on smartphones. Since this being a location-based marketing strategy automatically triggers a pre-defined action via push notifications or hyper-local ads. This works well and encourages users to make certain desired actions as their needs from specific geos easily get fulfilled with the help of AI/ML algorithms and predictive metrics. During IPL, marketers can showcase cricket updates and associated content to cricket lovers to hold onto their interest and engage them to know what’s next.

Personalization Marketing: 71% of consumers expect brands to render personalized interactions as they trust them regarding their requirements and if netizens don’t get as per their expectations then, 76% of them feel frustrated as well (source: McKinsey). Hence, marketers can leverage Personalized Marketing incorporating AI/ML insights which provide them with users’ past actions and history to predict netizens’ futuristic and would be actions on a campaign. Based on this, marketers can seamlessly promote the brands among the audiences as it encourages them to watch ads to make quality spends on the offerings that match their requirements. 

Vernacular Communication: A message in a regional language not only helps the audience connect better but also helps develop the brand’s trust and recall that’s why, 90% of Indian netizens prefer to consume content in their local language. Of many strategies, the one marketers can practice especially in countries like India is to Go Vernacular to target the netizens during IPL. This is because the vernacular market size is $53 billion with a 540 million user base which is an exciting opportunity for app marketers for effective communication and brand promotion (source: Financial Express). Hence, the power of native languages has proven to be a goldmine to granularly target the audience as people better resonate with the content shown in their native lingos, resulting in quality engagement rates. 

Time & Context Mapping: When context & content go hand-in-hand at the right time and moment, they can really set the brands apart. During the IPL moments, the alignment of context and content can grab the users’ eyeballs and can accelerate sales efficiently. These days, people are brand familiar and their choices are no more traditional that’s why, they expect brands to showcase something new. In such scenarios, Time & Context Mapping plays an important role and at the IPL moment, displaying storytelling ads with offering or content related to cricket when audiences remain active on their smartphones can drive effectiveness in campaign performance with real-time results. 

Advertising on Connected TVs: This is a new lucrative option for campaign managers and brand owners as they get a multitude of advertising opportunities to make a brand presence. This is why, in 2023, IPL may rake in INR 5,000 crore from TV digital ads because it showcases the same content as OTT with better engagement and retention rates (source: Economic Times). CTV supports different ad formats due to which brand promotion on it becomes quite easier and marketers draw maximum users’ eyeballs towards a brand that makes a powerful impact on users as well. 

Also, one of the most important things to note is that with digitalization and the availability of better technological infrastructures in Indian tier II and tier III cities, brands can embark on a journey with a powerful image and recall value. They get a quality pool of untapped audiences with better metrics along with a possibility of quality acquisition and engagement rates. Targeting such users on different inventories based on their insights like past actions, buying patterns, purchasing history and frequency of making actions etc can help marketers make informed decisions since they get to understand the users in person. 

Hence, with the ongoing IPL season, people tend to spend more time on their devices to be updated about the match’s scorecard where Granular Targeting can help marketers and advertisers make a more powerful impact both on the users’ psychology and their digital business ecosystem as well. 

Written By: Alok Pandey, VP – Sales & Marketing, Xapads Media