Sports is giving Bollywood a run for its money when it comes to endorsements and sponsorships.
Arun Pandey, CMD, Rhiti Sports Management (P) Ltd, in the Digital Acceleration 2.0 report by Duff & Phelps, says the emergence of D2C brands is leading to marketers looking at associations with celebrity brands for targeted outreach of their products. And it is not just about Bollywood anymore.
He says cricketers, sportspersons and other social media influencers are being roped in as brand ambassadors where the strategy is to associate with the endorser who can ensure better and higher engagement with the product’s potential consumers.
Live sports pushing the envelope for the genre
“Linear TV and live sports as a category is on an all-time high with emerging sports adding on to the fanfare that only cricket has enjoyed for the longest time. While cricket still leads the pack, other sports and sports stars have started to become a big part of brands and marketing in the present times,” says N Chandramouli, chief executive officer (CEO) of Mumbai-based brand intelligence and advisory firm TRA Research.
According to him the success of a movie is a shared reward and is a major factor that builds the brand value of the celebrity but in sports the sports stars are on their own. Their individual performance makes and breaks the game for them when it comes to bagging endorsement deals.
Moreover, the segment also grew multifold in the last two years in terms of reach through their live content. A recent FICCI report says that the Indian sports segment grew 62 percent in 2021 exceeding pre COVID-19 levels and television garnered 84 percent of media spends on sports. Live sports programming also increased to 21 percent of total programming hours leading to marketers cashing in on the reach and access.
Why are marketers focusing on sports more than entertainment stars?
Explaining what marketers are looking for exactly when they opt for sports stars over entertainment personalities, Aviral Jain, Managing Director at proprietary data, technology and insights company Kroll says, “Today, a large section of the Indian population consists of millennials and Gen Z, and brands look to tap into this budding consumer pool through relevant celebrity partnerships and focused marketing strategies.”
Sports celebrities according to him are typically able to establish a strong emotional connect with the youth today with a sense of ownership and loyalty, enabling brands to successfully correlate their product to these qualities. “They also provide new aspirational figures for the youth to continuously relate to,” he says.
Emerging brand assets in sports
Talking of new aspirational figures, after the Tokyo Olympics, names like Bajrang Punia, Devendra Jhajharia, Neeraj Chopra and PV Sindhu came to the forefront as they added major endorsement deals to their brand portfolio.
Brands across sectors ditched popular Bollywood names to add rising sports stars to their marketing communications for enhanced targeted reach and engagement.
Some of these new deals included Bridgestone and APIS Himalaya Honey signing on PV Sindhu, Mobil India getting Bajrang Punia on board, Citibank onboarding Devendra Jhajharia (from Paralympic javelin throw) followed by several others like TATA AIA Life Insurance, Cred and Country Delight Naturals who got Neeraj Chopra as their ambassador, Amrutanjan Healthcare that went for Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and SmartValue Health Care that got Ravi Kumar Dahiya.
The medalists from the Tokyo Olympics 2020 brought more to the table than any Bollywood celebrity in the year gone by, with the high engagement rates that came from the enormous growth in their social media following.
According to a recent Duff & Phelps report, Neeraj Chopra who had a 133K follower base on social platforms saw a 2682.0 percent growth, followed by Saikhom Mirabai Chanu who saw a 853.3 percent growth post the Olympics. Others like PV Sindhu, Bajrang Punia, Ravi Kumar Dahiya, Lovlina Borgohain, Parattu Raveendran Sreejesh and Manpreet Singh also saw a growth in the follower base anywhere between 45 percent and 600 percent.
Jain says the growing followership and consistent engagement across digital media enables fans to connect with sportspersons off the field as well, making these celebrities more relatable and approachable.
“These insights into the lives of sports celebrities strengthen the emotional connect, which when amplified by the usage of social media makes it more rewarding for a brand engagement,” he said.
No wonder new age brands especially those targeting the millennial crowd who are targeted mostly on digital platforms made a beeline for sports stars.
However, this doesn’t throw cricket stars out of the scene. According to the same celebrity valuation report, Virat Kohli consistently tops the charts for the fifth time in a row as the country’s most valued celebrity with a brand value of USD 185.7 million.
Like most other brands that work with Kohli, MPL too picked up the cricketer for his consumer connect. Brands say they share the same set of values with the former India captain.
“Virat has the same traits as MPL does—young, bold, competitive, and hence he was a perfect brand fit for us as we looked to scale rapidly from a young brand to a household name in the country,” says Manish Shrivastava, VP - Marketing, MPL.
MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar are also the evergreen brand favourites across sectors.
Striking a balance between Bollywood and Sports
For some brands though it’s all about balance. Like Amit Bhardwaj, CMO and Founder at fantasy platform, Fantasy Akhada, says, “There is a good mix of sports persons and actors when it comes to brands taking a pick for the right face for their brand. This clearly shows similar brand value for both categories of professionals. However, I feel that the opportunities to showcase a brand are much more when it comes to live sports; and it has only increased with the Indian Premier League becoming a perfect platform for brands across industries to launch/showcase their products.”
According to Bhardwaj, one of the other reasons for live sports being a sought-after marketing opportunity, is the kind of companies spending heavy marketing bucks today. It provides brands from SportsTech, E-Commerce, EdTech, etc. to address the right target group (TG).
Bhardwaj chose his endorsers carefully. They worked with Harsha Bhogle and Ali Fazal for their campaign where Bhogle represented the more urban cricket loving population while Fazal gave them access to the hinterland of India where their Hindi-speaking TG is.
