Ad campaigns that caught people’s attention during ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021

YouGov BrandIndex data reveals the impact of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup’s association on Ad Awareness of key sponsors. The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 is one of the most anticipated sporting events of the year and many brands have joined the bandwagon as official sponsors to engage with a highly diverse and attentive audience. As the World Cup comes to an end this week, YouGov evaluated Ad Awareness for the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 brand sponsors during the course of the tournament.

YouGov’s daily, continuous streaming syndicated brand tracking tool – BrandIndex – looked at the five brand sponsors tracked by it, namely Booking.com, Coke, Oppo, Emirates and Nissan.

Data from BrandIndex shows since the beginning of the tournament, Booking.com, the official Accommodation Booking Partner for the ICC T20 Men’s World Cup, recorded an increase in its Ad Awareness by +1.2 points, from 13.6 on October 17, 2021 to 14.8 on November 4, 2021.

Booking.com’s new campaign invited cricket lovers to watch the IND vs PAK T20 World Cup match at the T20 Pavilion and also offered an exclusive opportunity to meet Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor. The campaign seems to have resonated well with cricket enthusiasts, driving Ad Awareness for the brand.

For the same period, Oppo, an official global partner of T20 World Cup 2021, also registered an increase in its Ad Awareness from 24.5 to 25.3. The brand launched its  #LightUpTheGame campaign giving viewers a chance to grab match tickets, get clicked with the trophy at the stadium, and showcase their special video messages on the official Oppo screen there. The exciting campaign caught viewers’ attention, increasing awareness for the campaign. 

While some sponsors had a positive impact on their Ad Awareness scores, not all brands witnessed the same success.

YouGov BrandIndex data shows that Nissan, an official partner of ICC T20 World Cup, recorded an increase in its Ad Awareness by +0.7 points at the beginning of the tournament (week of October 17, 2021), however the scores started to fall thereafter and declined to 11.9 points towards the end of the Super 12 stage of the World Cup (on November 4, 2021).

Similarly, Coca-Cola, the exclusive non-alcoholic beverage partners of ICC T20 World Cup 2021, recorded an initial upliftment in its Ad Awareness score but witnessed a decline of 1.5 points towards the end of Super 12 (from 22.8 to 21.3 between October 17 and November 4, 2021).

Emirates, the official airline partner of the tournament, revealed its own themed A380 livery to spread the appeal of the event. Although the reveal created a lot of buzz, it had little impact on driving Ad Awareness throughout the tournament, and the scores plummeted by 1.3 points between October 17 and November 4, 2021.