Idea Cup renews advertiser interest in cricket

According to media planners Doordarshan is commanding a rate of Rs 2 lakh for a 10 second spot and Ten Sports, which had reserved some inventory for the last few matches, has hiked its rates to Rs 2.5 lakh from its earlier rates, which hovered between Rs 1.80-2 lakh.

“There is almost 20 per cent of inventory left with Ten Sports and it has jacked up its asking rate to Rs 2.5 lakh for the 4th and 5th one day international (ODI) of the Idea Cup,” says Mr Venkat Subramanian, Vice-President, Lintas Media Group.

Having sold spots for clients such as Maruti and Sony Bravia, Lintas Media Group believes it has got good rates having bought spots earlier in the series.

Renewed interest

“Initially there was poor response from the advertisers, but considering India won the last ODI, there was interest shown by advertisers. Now the last two matches are going to be crucial for both the teams and Ten Sports will be jacking up its rates for its left over inventory,” added Mr Subramanian. The fourth match to be played on Tuesday was washed out due to rain and will be played on Wednesday, August 27.

However, the Idea Cup has been attracting the regular set of cricket advertisers with companies such as LG, Airtel, Vodafone, Coke and Pepsi buying airtime on its matches.

But advertisers who booked early had to pay much less and the going rate at the beginning of the series during the test matches hovered at Rs 40,000 for a ten second spot.

“India did not fare well during the first test match and the ad spots would have fetched the channels at least Rs 40,000,” observes Mr Navin Khemka, Vice-President, Zenith Optimedia. The media buying agency has clients such as Hewlett Packard, which was the animation sponsor for the series.

“Ten Sports would be asking a rate of Rs 2 lakh for its ODI matches and would be commanding a 10 per cent premium for the saved inventory in the last two matches which would be full by now,” added Mr Khemka.

At the same time, cricket has not been the flavour of the season on television as new general entertainment channels (GEC) have earmarked huge media spends for their launches.

For instance, of late the new GEC channel Colors has been flooding the media with its new shows such as Big Boss. As Mr Tarun Nigam, Executive Director, Starcom Media, observes, “Today media buying agencies are influenced by the hype created by new GEC channels. There is not much buying happening for cricket right now compared to the reality shows on the GEC channels. It is possible that there was not much media buying for the Idea Cup as there seemed to be sustained hype about the newly-launched GEC channels.”