Azhar's foundering team is giving advertisers sleepless nights a month before the carnival
AS the World Cup nears, the cardiograph of many an advertiser rises and troughs with the Indian team's performance. The Big Game has been hyped beyond any event in a long time and Indian corpo-rates are estimated to be collectively spending close to Rs 230 crore in the 42-day period on TV advertising alone.
But how India performs can affect view-ership by about 20 to 30 per cent. Says a leading media buyer: "Advertisers will spend many sleepless nights, given the price they have paid and all contracts being non-cancellable." Star-ESPN and Doordarshan have paid about $16 million (over Rs 67 crore) and $6 million (over Rs 25 crore) respectively to the England and Wales Cricket Board for telecasting rights. In the last edition, Star Sports, then in a nascent stage, didn't even manage to break even with advertising revenue. It's, therefore, cautious this time. Star-ESPN is charging nearly three times its regular rates, and only package deals to both sponsors and spot buyers. These entail a spread of an advertiser's rupee across the 42 scheduled matches. Most of the money has been paid by February-end. The official presenter, Pepsi, has paid close to Rs 12 crore while the six associate sponsors, including LG and Hindustan Lever, have coughed up between Rs 6 and 9 crore. DD bought the rights for just 11 matches, including the five preliminaries India will play, and the semi-finals and finals. It has charged 100 per cent premium and has sold similar packages with 25 per cent payment up front. The two official DD sponsors will pay close to Rs 7 crore while six associate sponsors will pay nearly Rs 5 crore each. "India's dismal performance—eight straight losses against Pakistan, and several of them by over 100 runs—is disturbing," says Gurpreet Seekond, media services director, HTA. To hedge their bets, smaller advertisers have stuck to DD. "The lean towards booking on DD is expected because of the five sure India matches and the high-interest semi-finals and finals," explains Sunil Manocha, vice-president, marketing and acquisitions, Nimbus Communications.
Besides, the entry cost into Star-ESPN is high. Even a single 30-second spot per match costs about Rs 1.5 crore while DD would cost Rs 50 lakh. To be effective, you need at least 4-5 spots which means an outlay of about Rs 6-8 crore. On DD, the costs are nearly a third. "For someone who can't set aside such large monies, the DD package is affordable and realistic," says Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director, Madison DMB&B, which is buying time for the likes of P&G, BPL and Godrej.
THE disbursement of ad spends is dictated by the target audience in cable & satellite (C&S) homes, in Doordarshan homes or both. So while MNCs like Lever and LG are sponsors on both, smaller advertisers or those catering to the Indian market like Parle and Godrej have preferred to stay with DD. Confirms Abhik Gupta, marketing manager, Godrej Soaps: "The satellite rates were exorbitant for us." Others like Britan-nia are using a novel approach: a high-voltage pre-World Cup advertising at regular, non-World Cup rates to be followed by limited advertising during the event.
"But, as an event, the World Cup is very important even if India's performance is a concern," says Seekond. "Each match will be watched by 25-30 crore people and an advertiser will get undivided attention for four to five hours that even the best of regular programming can't promise," claims Rajeev Karwal, vice-president, sales and marketing, LG Electronics.As a sponsor on both channels, the reach he gets with one five-hour game would take a week to achieve in normal times and that too at 25 per cent extra cost.
The quality of the game will dictate view-ership, feels Gupta. The West Indies-Australia series got reasonable TRPs and fans stayed up nights to watch Lara convert lost games to victories. The interest in cricket, coupled with the build-up for the event, assures Karwal that he will get his money's worth within the first five days. Again, says a media planner from Initiative Media, one of the biggest World Cup buyers: "India's average performance of the past few months was factored in right at the beginning."
Nevertheless, Star-ESPN has kept a kitty of about 10 per cent of ad time that may be open to speculation as in the '96 World Cup. "India's performance can affect spot buys," feels Gupta. So also does the chance of Tendulkar not being able to play even though he is in the team. If things go well for India, Star-ESPN could make a killing on reserve spots, says a media buyer.
Siddhartha Ray, CMD of Starcon India, which is the co-ordinator for the DD Sports consortium for selling the World Cup exclusively, is confident that all fears will be allayed as India will definitely reach the Super Six stage and, in all probability, the semis. While MNCs with deep pockets aren't terribly bothered, smaller advertisers are biting their lips in nervousness. They hope the spirit of the game will prevail beyond the fortunes of any one team.