When it comes to sports in general or the grand and most awaited ICC T20 World Cup 2022 on Hotstar audience as well as brands share the same kind of sentiments.
Just like sports fans can go on for hours, debating about their favorite sports-persons and games, brand evangelists too aggressively vouch for the brands they love. But should this be the only reason for advertising during live matches? No, there’s much more to this.
Before we get into the marketing and psychological factors of sports sponsorship and advertising, can we entertain you with a fun fact? Sports sponsorship dates back to the times of gladiators in ancient Rome where wealthy and influential citizens sponsored the gladiator combats which used to be advertised on walls and pamphlets used to be distributed.
Why Brands Must Advertise During ICC Men’s T20 World Cup?
Moving on to the current scenario, here are some of the reasons why brands prefer advertising during live streaming/broadcast of sports:
HIGHLY ENGAGED AUDIENCE: NO CHANNEL SWITCHING DURING AD BREAKS!
Though streaming on the same devices as series, movies or other content, live sports are far more engaging. Sports matches are not only a source of entertainment but major events that attract a lot of news and discussions. It’s like an edge-of-the-seat thriller where each and every action can lead to a different outcome. Hence, it commands the highest level of attention by the viewers who don’t even change channels or swap the screens during commercial breaks which are much shorter too.
STRONG EMOTIONAL CONNECT: GAMES END BUT MEMORIES STAY!
Sports is not only a source of entertainment but a demonstration of action, skill, group dynamics, leadership, entertainment as well as pride (team/state/national level). The motive to watch live sports might vary for the sports audience from national pride to following a particular sports player, but the emotions are strong and everything that happens during a match leaves a deep and long-lasting impact on the audience mind including which brands were associated with the match.
POSITIVE ASSOCIATION WITH BRANDS: REMEMBER THOSE ADS WE WATCHED DURING THE T20 WORLD CUP 2022?
Sports are often associated with several positive emotions- patriotism, a bias for action, brotherhood, transparency, fair play, etc. When a brand associates itself with sports, in the audience’s minds, similar associations are formed with the brands too.
We are sure you don’t need any more reasons to advertise on ICC T20 World Cup 2022. Here’s a simple way to make your advertising journey easier.
Advantages of Advertising in 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup on Hotstar
There are many obvious reasons for the popularity of T20 World Cup:
- Shorter format means higher attention span
T20 World Cup is a shorter format of the game where both teams have single innings each which is limited to a maximum of 20 overs. This short form makes it easier to hold people’s excitement which is otherwise difficult if the match goes on for multiple days. It also means that the game can attract new fans, who may not have the patience of watching a game for too long.
- More entertaining than other formats
T20 is fast-paced and one good over can change the entire game, which means that the batsmen are always trying to take more risks with batting and bowling, resulting in an exciting and fast-paced game. The audience is always on their toes with the multiple 4s and 6s hit by the batsmen as they try to outdo each other.
- High viewership and advertising records
When it comes to viewership and advertising, the T20 World Cup again bags the top spot. The T20 World Cup 2021 broke many viewership records:
The match between India and Pakistan that took place during the T20 World Cup 2021, garnered a record-breaking viewership of 167 million on television including Star Sports Network and 12 million on Disney+ Hotstar.
The popularity of T20 Men’s World Cup for Advertising on Hotstar
Now as the situation gradually improves, so does the online search for the T20 World Cup 2021 among people. Here is the search trend from August 2020 to August 2021 for The T20 World Cup: google trends 2021
We all know Cricket is synonymous to a festival in India. Even with formats like IPL, the excitement and enthusiasm of people for the teams of their particular states is off the charts.
Imagine the case with formats like the World Cup when the country is competing against the best teams of the world. The outpour of support is hence amplified due to patriotism.
The event has generally been held every two years, the last one being held in 2021. The seventh ICC Men’s T20 World Cup tournament was scheduled to take place in 2020 in Australia, but due to COVID-19, the tournament was again postponed to 2021, with the host changed to India.
However, due to the deteriorating situation of COVID-19 pandemic in India, the matches were relocated to the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The series was then played from 17 October to 14 November 2021.
The 8th edition of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to take place between October 16, 2022 to November 13, 2022 in Australia.
ICC T20 World Cup 2022 Schedule
A total of 16 teams will be participating in this season of the T20 world cup to compete for the title.
Eight Teams including Australia, Pakistan, India, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan have been directly qualified for the Super 12s Stage.
However, Sri Lanka and West Indies have not qualified for the Super 12s, so they will be competing in the Group Stage along with the six ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 Qualifiers Teams- Namibia, UAE, Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Scotland, and West Indies.
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 has been divided into three stages.
- Round 1
- Super 12
- Knockout Stage
ROUND 1
The First Stage of this T20 World Cup is called Round 1 which consists of Group A and group B. Group A consists of Namibia, Netherlands, Sri Lanka and UAE while Group B has Ireland, Scotland, West Indies and Zimbabwe.
SUPER 12
The next stage of the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 is called Super 12s in which the four qualifiers teams from the First Round will contest along with the eight Top ranked T20 teams who have already qualified for the Super 12s Stage. Furthermore, the Super 12 Stage is divided into two subgroups called Group 1 and Group 2.
Group 1 includes England, Australia, New Zealand, Afghanistan, and the 1st Qualifier Team from Group A of First Round along with the second qualifying team from Group B of the First Round.
Whereas, Group 2 counts India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Bangladesh, and the first qualifying team from Group B of the First Round along with the second Qualifying team from Group A of the First Round.
THE KNOCKOUT STAGE
The third and the last stage of this tournament is called the knockout stage in which the four qualifying teams will battle till the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 final match to conclude the T20 World Cup winners for the 2022 season.
Apart from being a sporting event, the T20 World Cup is also packed with entertainment and marketing events. From quirky ads to catchy jingles, contests, celebrity’s performance, fantasy sports leagues, and on-ground activation, there has been no stone unturned when it comes to promoting the mega event.
Men’s T20 World Cup live streaming on Hotstar: Shrinking an entire stadium into a mobile screen
Hotstar is the digital arm of Star India. It is one of the largest video OTT platforms in India. In April 2020, Hotstar was merged with Disney+ to be rechristened as Disney+Hotstar.
Star India purchased the official TV license to live telecast all the major ICC Events from 2015 to 2023. So, Star Sports will bring live coverage for ICC T20 World Cup 2022 in India on television.
This means that Star India channels in case of TV and Hotstar in terms of digital have the official rights to broadcast and stream live T20 World Cup matches.
While television broadcasting and digital streaming are meant to watch live matches only, Hotstar went beyond to ensure that the experience of viewing T20 World Cup matches live is not unidirectional but also engaging the audience and provides them a platform to connect with friends and family while enjoying the game.
Understanding T20 World Cup Men Ads Audience On Hotstar
- Reach: T20 World Cup expects an average reach of 200-230 million, which is almost as big as the IPL.
- Young, Urban, Male: Disney+ Hotstar has the largest sports viewing premium audience with ~60% Male, 70% of the audience is between the age of 18-34 years, 85% are NCCS AB Urban population of India.
- Affluent Audience with High Propensity to make online transactions: Advertising on T20 World Cup on Hotstar is one of the fewest ways to target the SVOD audience who are affluent and are definitely acquainted with one of the online payment methods. Here’s a snapshot of Hotstar + Disney’s penetration among various categories:
- Education: 40% Hotstar users are Graduates/Diploma Holders.
- Income: Average monthly household income is ~ INR 18,000.
- Ownership: More than 70% penetration in premium durables.
- Finance: 63% penetration in credit card users.
- Entertainment: 90% penetration in paid OTT apps audience.
- Online Shopping: 66% penetration among monthly online shoppers.
- Travel & Holiday: 66% of annual travelers.
- Engaged Audience: ICC events drive 60% more conversations than other top cricket.
- Target premium audience: One of the major advantages that Hotstar offers is the ability to target premium (NCCS A/B) audience during a live match. This is something unheard of for other platforms. World cup viewers are 1.7x more likely to be NCCS A vs average internet users. It also lets you reach out to high attention audiences via CTV targeting- CTV viewers are 3x as engaged as mobile viewers.
- Leverage highlights to increase reach– Highlights based campaigns deliver 25% higher reach and are 20% incremental over live viewership.
- Audience profile: Major part of the T20 World Cup audience on Hotstar is formed by the millennial and Gen Z (Above 15 years of age), urban males with high purchasing power and a high propensity to buy.
A report by KPMG has categorized digital users of the country in various brackets based on the income level and evolution of these digital users.
The audience profile of Hotstar matches that to the top-level digital consumers of the country- Digital Sophisticates (top 3%) and parts of Digital Enthusiasts (36%) and has the following characteristics:
- Premium audience: They belong to the top income bracket in the country and complete most transactions online.
- Better targeting: Likely to have several paid video & audio subscriptions that make it difficult to target them through advertising on digital platforms since Hotstar T20 World Cup is one of the fewest media to advertise to paid subscribers of OTT.
- Highly engaged users: Apart from live sports, Hotstar also offers regional language commentary, a live sports game to play, and a social feed to share emojis and comments, and this year, they have introduced watch parties as well. The result is a highly engaged user. According to a report, an avg Hotstar audience spends about 45 minutes on the platform per day.
- Low cost per reach: 1000 ad impressions (views) can cost as low as INR 250, ie. 25 paise per view for mid-roll video ads on live matches (including the time before and after the matches) for full tournament.
- Low advertising budget: Sports advertising is widely popular for being a high-impact property. For years, sports advertising has meant television advertising where although reach is high, advertising packages have been exorbitantly high-priced. Hotstar has disrupted this practice by offering advertising packages for as low as INR 5 Lakh. Now advertisers have more power in their hands to decide where and how to advertise.
Men’s T20 World Cup Targeting Options For Advertising
Brands that want to raise their awareness among the audience and capture their attention should opt for T20 World Cup advertising. These are apt for both online and offline brands like FMCG, automobile,s etc.
These ads are charged on the basis of views/impressions. The objective of these ads would be to reach out to the maximum number of people and gain their attention and trust by showing these ads the optimum number of times.
- Mid-Roll Video Ads
Mid-roll video ads are 10-30 sec non-skippable ads that would be played during the over breaks, drink breaks, and other breaks during the live streaming of matches. These ads are very effective in terms of branding because they are long enough to narrate a touching story and are delivered to an audience that is highly engaged in the match.
However, these might not be a very good option for driving traffic to the website since people would not like to leave a live match to visit another website. Only one level of targeting is possible for mid-roll video ads.
- Pre-Roll Video Ads
Pre-roll video ads are 5-10 sec long non-skippable ads that are played before the live streaming of a game starts. Since these are played before the live streaming of matches, they are not as high impact as mid-roll ads but experience a higher CTR. One level of targeting is possible in the case of pre-roll video ads.
- Branded Cards
Branded Cards are simple banners that carry the brand logo and message. These are placed just below the live streaming of matches in the social live feed. Brand cards also go under one level of targeting.
T20 World Cup on Hotstar: Understanding the Audience Targeting Options
The targeting options can be divided into 3 categories/levels:
- Geography Targeting
Based on geography, there are 18 location options to select the target geography. Advertisers can select one or a combination of more than one location based on their target audience. Following are the 18 locations options:
- Combination of Cities:
- Top 6 Metros: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore & Hyderabad
- 1 Mn+ Town: Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Patna, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Ernakulam, Ranchi, Surat, Chandigarh, Kanpur
- Combination of States:
- HSM (Hindi Speaking Market): Pan India minus the Southern States
- Southern States: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala
- North India: Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh
- West India: Maharashtra and Gujarat
- East India: West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand & North Eastern States
- Individual States: Maharashtra, Gujarat, AP + Telangana, Tamil Nadu, UP + UK, Bihar + Jharkhand
- Individual Cities: Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai & Kolkata
- Audience Targeting
Audience targeting is based on the audience profile-
- Age Based Targeting: This type of targeting is done on the basis of the age of the audience, for example- less than 30 years or more than 30 years.
- Language Targeting: This targeting is based on the language the audience selects for the in-match displays and the commentary. The available options are- Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada.
- NCCS A, B Audiences: NCCS stands for ‘New Consumer Classification System’ and is used for consumer classification. Consumer Classification means segmenting the consumers on the likelihood of them buying products at different price points. NCCS uses income and education level of the chief wage earner as a basis for segmentation.
3. Device Targeting: This targeting is based on the device that the audience is using to watch the matches. It can be further divided into:
- 15K+ Devices: This targeting option is for brands who want to target a premium audience by showing ads to audiences having a handset of value of more than INR 15,000.
- Below INR 15K Devices: This targeting option is for brands who want to target the masses by showing ads to audiences having a handset of value less than INR 15,000.
T20 WORLD CUP ON HOTSTAR: UNDERSTANDING THE MATCH TARGETING OPTIONS
- Full Tournament – Full tournament refers to all matches ranging from India practice matches to the playoffs stage. The entire impressions would be divided into two parts equally and run on Super 12 India matches + India Practice matches + Playoffs and rest would be run during Non India matches. However, the minimum requirement for a full tournament plan would involve running ads on a min of 7 days consecutive macthes with at least 1 India match. The price range for a full tournament starts from Rs 210 (mid-roll ads on Highlights without audience targeting) and goes up to Rs 480 (Midroll – Living Room CTV without audience targeting).
- India Practice Matches: The ads would be played during India Practice Matches ie matches played before the actual tournament as a warm up and with the results being of no significance. The price range for India Practice matches starts from Rs 210 (Mid-roll- Highlights without targeting) and goes upto Rs 480 (Mid-roll- Living Room without targeting).
- India Matches (Super 12 only) + Playoffs (3) – The price range for India matches (Super 12 only + Playoffs) starts from Rs 420 (Mid-roll- Highlights without targeting) and goes up to Rs 960 (Mid-roll- CTV without targeting). India Matches + Playoffs rate card would mean that all impressions will be burnt on 5 India group stage matches + 3 playoffs (irrespective of India presence in playoffs) + 2 India Practice matches.
- Non-India Matches (Super 12 Stage) – The price range for Non-India matches (Super 12 stage) starts from Rs 175 (Midroll – HL) and goes upto Rs 400 (Midroll – Living Room (CTV)). Non-India Matches rate card would mean that all impressions would be burnt on Non-India matches in the Super 12 stage. This would not include any presence in the playoffs. And the minimum requirement is to be present on 10 consecutive matches.
- Non-India Matches (Qualifier Stage) – The price range for Non-India matches (Qualifier Stage) starts from Rs 150 (Mid-roll on HL) and goes up to Rs 335 (Midroll – Living Room (CTV)).
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 Advertising Rates
Advertising on Hotstar during ICC T20 World Cup 2022 might seem like a captivating option to you, but knowing the right rates is also important. You can find the best ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 Advertising Rates in The Media Ant. Here is a brief idea regarding the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 Advertising costs (for full tournament;
- For Pre-roll ad video: INR 280 for a 6-30 sec video for 1000 ad impressions
- For Mid-roll ad video: for 1000 ad impressions
- Live (10-sec): INR 250
- Highlights (10-sec): INR 210
- Living Room (10-sec): INR 480
Looking for reaching out to a wide audience with ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 on Hotstar? Here’s your chance, fill this form to advertise now.
Best practices for Low & High Budget T20 World Cup Advertisers on Hotstar
If you have a budget of less than INR 2 Crore
- Use single creative: +50% additional uplift
- Use at least 15-sec creative: +30% additional uplift for creatives with more than 10 sec length
- Have a targeted campaign: +50% additional uplift
- Strictly follow Kantar Guidelines for creative (CLIPS PrincT20 World Cup explained in the following section): +38%additional uplift when campaigns followed at least 4 Kantar guidelines.
If you have a budget between INR 2 Crore- 5 Crore
- Use multi T20 World Cup creatives: +25% additional uplift
- Use a combination of 10s + 20s + 25/30 s: +23% additional uplift
- Have an open targeting: 9 out of 10 campaigns in T20 World Cup 2020 were ROS
- Strictly follow Kantar Guidelines for creative (CLIPS PrincT20 World Cup explained in the following section): +13%additional uplift when campaigns followed at least 4 Kantar guidelines.
Common questions about T20 World Cup advertising
1) What is the minimum billing value for advertising in the T20 World Cup 2022 on Hotstar?
The minimum billing value for Hotstar T20 World Cup 2021 advertising is INR 5 Lakh (Excluding GST) – Payable to the vendor
2) Can advertisers select certain matches?
They cannot select a particular match, but they can select only India Matches+Playoffs, Non-India Matches(super12 stage), Non-India matches( Qualifier stage), or Full tournament.
3) Can advertisers schedule T20 World Cup creatives as per the match?
Advertisers can have multi T20 World Cup creatives for T20 World Cup advertising on Hotstar but cannot schedule them as per the match but they can schedule as per campaign dates.
4) Will the ads be shown to the paid subscribers for Hotstar?
There is no particular targeting for premium audiences.
5) Can advertisers set a frequency cap for the ads?
We cannot set frequency capping for live matches and we do not get frequency reports as well)
6) Can we re-target the audience on other programs after the T20 World Cup advertising?
Retargeting is not possible during the T20 world cup as per targeting cohorts.
T20 World Cup Advertising Tips: How to design an effective creative?
A number of our customers ask us if there are any tips/best practices that we can share on how the video creatives for Hotstar advertising during T20 World Cup matches should be. So, we thought we would add the same here.
One important thing to keep in mind while conceptualizing a T20 World Cup ad is that during T20 World Cup live matches, the audience is totally engrossed in the cricket match. Hence, while we understand that it’s a high-impact spot but a lot of it also depends on the video creative.
If the creative is contextual and captures the audience’s attention without being a distractor, then the purpose is solved.
For example, Swiggy had an insight that while watching a match, people usually order food. Using this insight, they designed the entire campaign where for every sixer, a special discount was offered to the audience.
This is the best example of driving website traffic and purchases without diverting audience attention from the game.
In the previous section, we discussed the recent Hotstar study on 138 T20 World Cup ad campaigns carried out during T20 World Cup 2020. Here are some of the learnings from Hotstar in terms of creativity (The CLIPS PrincT20 World Cup)
- Clear Brand Role in the story: Interesting creatives are good but the essence lies in how well have you written the character your brand plays. About 92% of creatives followed this princT20 World Cup in T20 World Cup 2020 and saw a 1.8X impact.
- Last Frame but also the first: Most digital ads end with a CTA page where the brand name and logo are displayed but a good practice is to include the brand name and logo in the first frame too. Only 57% of the creatives in T20 World Cup 2020 followed this and it got them 1.2X incremental impact.
- Integrate Early: Do you like to keep your audience in suspense till the last frame of your ad or do you integrate your brand early in the creative makes a big difference? 78% of the creatives in T20 World Cup 2020 followed this and got a 1.1X incremental impact.
- Presence of Human/Celebrity: When trying to establish a brand, a human face/ even better, a known face can help the audience connect with the brand and the ad. 91% of creatives in T20 World Cup 2020 followed this and had a 1.9X incremental impact.
- Simple & Clear Messaging: T20 World Cup breaks are short and most audiences have a short attention span hence, the simpler and clearer the message is, the more impact it would create. 93% of creatives followed this advice and the incremental impact was 1.4X.
T20 World Cup Advertising 2022 on Hotstar: How to measure the performance of your campaign?
While advertising on T20 World Cup 2022 on Hotstar, brands also have an option to opt for a 3rd party install/attribution measurement software as well as brand lift studies to help understand the performance of their campaign (at a nominal cost).
Want to know more about 3rd party installs/ attribution software? Check out our article on top 5 digital marketing attribution software.
Popular 3rd party trackers are compatible with Hotstar platform and can be integrated at a nominal cost of ~INR 1 CPM.
- AppsFlyer
- Branch
- Double Click Manager
- Addng
- Sizmek
Brand lift studies for Hotstar T20 World Cup advertisements are carried out by Kantar Millwardbrown.
Please note that the availability of these trackers and surveys would be subject to some criteria. To know more about ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 Advertising rates visit The Media Ant website and plan your ICC T20 World Cup advertising campaign on Hotstar in the most seamless manner.
