GroupM ESP raised US$ 15mn.worth of on-ground sponsorship deals for IPL 6!

IPL 6 commencing on April 3, 2013 is going be a milestone of sorts in the short and dramatic history of IPL. With the end of the successful IPL season 5 last year; all the central sponsorship deals were up for renewal. A Tender floated by IPL for the title sponsorship saw cola giant Pepsi bagging the title sponsorship for next 5 years. Another noteworthy change in the IPL configuration saw India’s leading media conglomerate, the Sun Group, acquire the Hyderabad franchise heralding the rise of a fresh new team, ‘Sunrisers’.

GroupM ESP, the content, sports and entertainment arm of GroupM Media India, has been an active intermediary and enabler, for clients and their brands and team owners and their franchises seeking to leverage the IPL on-ground sponsorship platform, by providing end-to-end IPL related solutions.

Vinit Karnik, Head of Sports and Live practice at GroupM ESP said: – “We’ve been part of IPL since its inception and we strongly believe that IPL is India’s biggest and the most powerful marketing platform for brands to leverage the combined appeal of cricket and entertainment. This season has been a busy and fruitful season. We had the opportunity to work closely with the Sun Group’s Sunrisers and have enabled the new franchise get off to strong start with 10 on-ground official partnership/sponsorships including Make My Trip, 7UP, Garnier, Kingfisher, Live In Jeans, Manyavar, Sheltrex, RN Sports etc.... We also advised Vodafone backed by a comprehensive valuation exercise based on proprietary data and insights which helped them build a case to renew their on-ground associate sponsorship for another 5 years. Other high profile deals which we managed to facilitate this year included Bajaj Allianz and Mumbai Indians, Flying Machine and Royal

Challengers Bangalore among others.”  The total value of all the on-ground deals enabled and activated by GroupM ESP in IPL 6 is estimated at US $ 15 mn.”
IPL as a platform provides numerous and innovative on-ground sponsorship opportunities for advertisers at the central level, and a plethora of opportunities at the franchise level including team sponsorship, licensing & merchandising, and the ability to leverage multi-screen mass media experiences including broadcast, web, mobile, etc.; it’s a platform which can be exploited by different brand categories to reach out to their target audience efficiently and effectively.