With a little over two months to go for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 scheduled to kickstart from 5 October, brands across categories are finding ways to tap into the cricket frenzy.
As the big ticket cricket event returns to India, advertisers are looking to connect with fans leveraging both offline and digital partnerships. Sports marketing executives that Storyboard18 spoke to expect an increase of 25-30 percent in sponsorship initiatives during the ICC Men’s World Cup 2023 over the last tournament that was hosted in England in 2019.
“It will see a significant increase in sponsorships compared to 2019. I’m expecting at least 25-30 percent jump. The factor of revenge consumer spending is still in play. After years in lockdown, it is first big-scale global cricket event that is happening in India so brands have saved up for it,” says a senior sports marketing executive on the condition of anonymity.
As of today, ICC has global partners includes Nissan, Booking.com, Emirates, Aramco, BharatPe, MRF Tyres and Byju’s. While its official partners include Nissan, Nium, OPPO, Coca-Cola, Upstox, Bira 91, Polycab and DP World. The category partners are Royal Stag, Jacob’s Creek, Dream11 and FanCraze.
However, more advertisers are expected to come on board for both online and offline sponsorships with Team India as well as digital partnerships that translate into social media promotions.
Sponsorship galore
Srinivas Rao, chief investment officer, Wavemaker India tells Storyboard18 that with World Cup this year happening in India and specially during the festive season, the relatability factor increases.
“Further, with a lot of brands getting active around that time with season-specific offers, there is an expectation of this edition going big. Interest levels being seen currently is pretty good, and we expect this World Cup to be a big success,” he says.
Rao expects fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), gaming and other tech categories to be active during the 2023 ICC Men’s World Cup.
Royal Stag, an Indian brand of whiskey launched in 1995, has a long history of sports sponsorship. The liquor company has sponsored the West Indies cricket team and the Delhi Capitals.
In December 2018, Pernod Ricard India Pvt Ltd, the maker of Royal Stag, signed a five-year global partnership with the ICC. The deal was estimated to be worth US$5-6 million per year.
As an ICC official partner, Royal Stag will focus on promoting the brand during the upcoming 2023 World Cup tournament as well.
Kartik Mohindra, CMO, Pernod Ricard India shares that company’s journey with cricket started in 2000 and since then they have only strengthened the brand association with the sport, creating a huge impact on cricket fans across the country.
“Our aim is to share the excitement of the game with cricket fans around the world. We have been proud partners to ICC since 2018, one of the most coveted sports bodies in the world, allowing us to deliver a truly “Live it Large” experience to die-hard cricket fans, more so this year with the World Cup scheduled to return to its spiritual home, India,” he adds.
In July, FanCode Shop, the merchandising arm of FanCode, has announced an extension to its exclusive licensing and merchandising partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to curate official fan merchandise and accessories for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup India 2023.
This will include everything from polos, fan t-shirts to sippers, keychains and coasters.
Yannick Colaco, co-founder, FanCode says that they will be setting up retail outlets across stadiums during the tournament as well as build, manage an exclusive digital store for ICC in India.
“FanCode shop will be responsible for end-to-end product and customer experience, manufacturing, logistics, customer care, and marketing. Along with an on-the-ground presence through outlets in stadiums, we will promote the ICC digital store across multiple major digital platforms, including the official broadcast partner of the ICC in India,” he notes.
Digital viewership push
Like IPL, the digital viewership is also expected to go up given the official broadcast partner Disney Star will be streaming matches free on over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform Disney+Hotstar .
Wavemaker’s Rao points out that digital will play a big role in this edition of the World Cup with Disney+Hotstar deciding to show World Cup free of cost.
“…there is going to be a fair amount of interest generated as it gives advertisers to reach out to a larger audience pie at lower entry costs,” he explains.
While both fans and advertisers are pinning their hopes on ICC World Cup 2023, a lot will depend on how Team India performs on ground as well as gauging the viewer interest in ODI games.
“The last ODI World Cup was in 2019 and after that there have been a couple of T20 World Cups so it would be interesting to see whether the audience still have an appetite to sit through eight hours of one day games especially when India is not playing. More importantly, World Cup in India has always been “high-risk, high-reward” because it is completely dependent on India’s performance,” the sports marketing executive quoted above highlights.
The executive goes on to explain that if a brand is front loading a lot of advertising just when the World Cup starts then it is great, but if advertisers are planning to save the media money for semi’s and finals and India gets knocked out of the tournament early then it is a complete washout which is not a case with IPL.
“..but if India does well like in 2011 World Cup and ends up winning then sponsors will laugh their way to the banks,” he concludes.