For the first time in the history of IPL (since 2008), we have two competing ad campaigns to entice us to consume the tournament in two different ways!
This need did not arise till 2022 because the rights for both TV and digital were with the same entity. Star TV held the rights between 2018 to 2022, for instance – Star Sports for TV, and its own digital platform, Hotstar, for digital.
But, BCCI sold the TV rights of IPL’s 2023-27 season to Star (for Rs. 23,575 crores), and the digital rights to Viacom (JioCinema to stream) which paid a shade more than even the TV rights – Rs. 23,758 crores!
So now, in 2023, Star Sports (agency: TILT) is promoting the TV viewing of IPL as something that converts your home into a stadium.
JioCinema (agency: Ogilvy), on the other hand, intentionally shows Abhishek Banerjee (Pataal Lok’s Hathoda Tyagi) watching IPL on an outdated (non-flatscreen) TV, and is goaded by a group led by Shweta Tripathi Sharma (Mirzapur’s Golu, who launches into a truly marvelous ‘Kaaa Bhaiyyaa’ drawl) to start watching it on a mobile screen because of the many interactive features present (which are ‘performed’ by Dhoni inside a phone screen).
The lyrics go, ‘Chal chhod de, idiot box ka tension’, and ‘Chal bhool jaa channel wannel ka tantrum, using words like ‘idiot box’ and ‘tantrum’ that really do not fit the Mirzapur-style locality depicted in the ad.
The larger irony may materialize in a few years when satellite TV’s share goes down further and most/all ‘TV’ may be streamed. Then, even the ‘TV’ version of IPL may be via the same pipe as the ‘digital’ version and for all you know, the TV screen could incorporate more interactive features like the mobile screen too!
But this may take a few more years in India since cable and DTH still dominate ‘TV’ viewing. As per the industry estimate reported in 2022, pay DTH and the cable sector together has a subscriber base of 122 million as on March 2021. But if you consider the US data released by Nielsen, the global marketing research firm, in August 2022, streaming became the dominant form, with 34.8% of total television consumption, compared to Cable (34.4%) and Broadcast (21.6%), the change may happen sooner than we assume.
The bigger consideration between the 2 competing campaigns for the same piece of content is what they are pitching.
Star Sports, much like how Sony Pictures Networks promoted it all through 2008-2017, is pitching Tata IPL 2023 as a group-watching experience. Most sports matches are best enjoyed with a group. The famous imagery of a completely random set of people standing outside TV stores watching a live match (being played on a TV on display) comes to mind immediately.
So, the TV rights owner of IPL 2023 pitching the matches as a communal, group experience makes perfect sense.
But, how does the JioCinema campaign address the experience? Ironically, even in the JioCinema ad, there is a group of people watching the match, even though they are huddled around a tiny mobile screen! There is just one smartphone in the entire ad (held by Shweta Tripathi Sharma, much like there is just one really large TV screen in the Star Sports campaign).
Even if the JioCinema campaign demonstrates the many interactive features on the mobile screen like 360-degree view, ‘key moments’, and multiple camera angles, among others, the situation is exactly like that of Star Sports’ campaign – a group of people enjoying IPL together, jumping, cheering, and shouting… but, in front of a tiny screen.
So what is JioCinema really pitching that is different from Star Sports’ version of IPL?
If they focus on individual viewing, that goes against the general ethos of a sports event like IPL. So I understand why they show a crowd.
Incidentally, Star’s Hotstar famously released a ‘Go Solo’ campaign in 2016, made by Lowe Lintas, that covered more than just IPL (even as Sony was the TV rights owner for IPL). But these were the early days of digital streaming in India (for context, Jio launched only in 2016-end). Understandably, Hotstar did not target TV viewing of cricket in its campaign. It merely explained the benefits of watching cricket on-the-move.
So now, it’s a bit amusing to see the 2 screens (TV and mobile) competing with each other for the same piece of content using largely the same narrative!
What JioCinema’s IPL stream truly has going for it is the fact it is free! As long as one has fast internet access, they can stream the matches on any screen, including a really large TV screen because JioCinema is making the content available in 4K resolution! All one needs to do is install the JioCinema app on the smart TV (or an older TV enabled with a FireTV stick-like addition) and watch exactly what Star Sports is promising – but free; without any subscription.
Even the interactive features JioCinema is peddling in the campaign do not align well with group viewing at all. Firstly, a group of people watching the match on a single smartphone screen is adequately preposterous. But you could argue that JioCinema and Ogilvy are perhaps just showcasing the potential and the group-viewing is only advertising exaggeration.
And then, when one viewer (the one holding the phone) is interacting with the screen by toying with the many features, what are the others supposed to do? Twiddle their thumbs? Shout in annoyance that this toying may lead to miss watching the next ball, in a match playing live?
So, while the references to ‘idiot box’ and ‘channel’ is appropriate, I don’t think Ogilvy has thought through what their primary sales pitch is as sharply as how Star Sports has defined it.
Ironically, JioCinema could pitch the same too – stream the IPL on a massive TV screen and watch it with a group, or with a ‘Shor Squad’ as Star Sports’ campaign calls it.
But there’s something Star Sports cannot pitch, and only JioCinema can pitch – the ability to watch IPL alone, in private! It may not seem like a compelling proposition in advertising, but that’s only because of how IPL has been marketed so far, as a group-watching experience (rightly so).
JioCinema thinks it cannot afford to show ‘solo’ viewers for IPL because they presume it is not going to fly.
While IPL does feel like content that is best enjoyed with a group on a larger screen, when and how we watch anything (even IPL) is based on context and convenience, and there’s no one universal rule/way. If you are at home or the office – then, a big screen. If you are in a cab or a plane that’s about to take off – then, a phone!
So, the solo-viewing pitch is actually very, very powerful. There are so many real-life situations that can be showcased:
– a mother, sleeping next to her baby, watching IPL on her phone with earphones
– a watchman of a building, watching IPL on his phone
– individual people watching the match, with earphones, in the metro, bus, train
… the situations are only limited by our imagination.
JioCinema actually has a much wider canvas in terms of imagination because they can show both group-watching and solo-watching of IPL, something that Star + Hotstar has not exploited till last year when they could have. But I understand why they did not, because that would amount to pitting 2 of their properties against each other for the same content. But JioCinema can legitimately do this in 2023 because they are competing against Star Sports which is handicapped by not owning the digital rights.
It’s possible that JioCinema has just scratched the surface of its campaign so far and may go on to utilize the full potential of what they actually own in terms of digital rights.
I’m waiting to see if that happens and if JioCinema does go the whole hog by tangibly differentiating its stream against Star Sports’ version of IPL. That would require them to let go of every existing and preconceived notion of how IPL has been marketed so far, though.
Incidentally, as Abhishek Bhattacharya pointed out to me via LinkedIn messaging, Star Sports has done precisely this kind of campaign way back in March 2014, for Pepsi IPL 2014 (agency: Lowe Lintas)! But they did it without disparaging TV-viewing (rights owned by Sony).
On the other hand, Star Sports could have a ball at JioCinema’s expense, if they really want to respond to the latter’s TV-centric jibes 🙂 Imagine what Star Sports has that JioCinema doesn’t: Predictable, uninterrupted broadcast! Star Sports could show buffering screens on mobile/TV, picture quality deteriorating with fluctuating internet speeds (not too rare with our YouTube viewing or Zoom calling), and so on, to pitch for total peace of mind when it comes to enjoying IPL with predictably high-quality broadcast all through. Of course, Jio Cinema could counter that by showing Tata Sky’s famous on-screen warning when it’s raining outside 🙂
If these 2 IPL rights owners really decide to have a go at each other, it may end up harming IPL’s reputation more than each other’s.