Shreya Sachdev of PUMA walks us through the brand's marketing strategy for the Indian Premier League 2023, why social media is an important medium in their media mix and their plans on encouraging women in sports.
PUMA, a global sports brand, signed a three-year strategic partnership with Indian Premier League team Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021. Under the terms of the deal, PUMA is the official kit partner of the team. The brand was also the official kit partner for the first edition of the Women’s IPL team for Royal Challengers Bangalore.
In conversation with Shreya Sachdev, Head of Marketing, PUMA, Social Samosa tries to decode the brand's marketing strategy for IPL.
Credibility > Visibility
Brands have benefited from IPL in several ways, including speedier outreach, a larger return on investment (ROI), more viewership, and improved brand awareness.
With more spectators, IPL has grown in popularity, making it an ideal platform for brands to establish themselves. JioCinema, the Official Digital Streaming Partner clocked over 1300 crore video views in the first five weeks of TATA IPL 2023 and according to the BARC data for 48 matches shared by Star Sports, the cumulative reach stood at 451 million unique audience.
Sachdev highlighted that because the IPL would be streamed for free this year, there will be a diverse audience from various socioeconomic levels and age groups and that brands can engage with a sizable portion of the country at once.
According to Axis My India’s May CSI report, 64% belonged to rural India, while 36% belonged to urban counterparts. In terms of the gender, 64% of the respondents were male, while 36% were female. In terms of the two majority sample groups, 32% reflect the age group 36 YO to 50 YO and 29% reflect the age group of 26YO to 35YO.
As a sporting brand, visibility is the major goal of this collaboration, but there are other objectives as well.
IPL, a tournament that it is, and with the kind of viewership that it gets, yes, it's about visibility, but more importantly, it's about credibility.
PUMA’s bread and butter
The brand is active on social media and as per Sachdev, it's a no-brainer to be present there. The brand utilizes their own social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to generate buzz for IPL. And according to Sachdev, they have one of the highest engagements among brands today because they are very particular and careful about what they put out.
The brand has about 40 brand ambassadors across sports and lifestyle including Harrdy Sandhu, Mary Kom, Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma, Sunil Chhetri, Kareena Kapoor and Yuvraj Singh.
Before Women’s IPL, the brand encouraged the audience to break the gender bias around cricket with the WPL campaign.
Talking about the mix, Sachdev said “For us the first and foremost touch point is our own channels and secondly, we have a very strong lineup of brand ambassadors. So it's really leveraging social media to work for us, whether it's our channels or our brand ambassador platforms, that is something that we've really perfected.”
She explained that where the brand wants to be very targeted in terms of who their audience is and just digital spend is good enough, they choose social media. According to her, it's about finding the media mix for the initiative and the objective that the brand is trying to drive for a particular campaign or a particular activation and then finding the touch point or the platform to be able to advertise it on.
Talking about the other mediums, she said, “We are present on other digital mediums like OTT but are not very heavy on traditional mediums, like print or out-of-home. But when and if we are looking for scale, we will also touch those mediums.”
Social media advertising and digital advertising is a no-brainer and that's our bread and butter.
Expectations from the IPL
The brand wants to drive the message ‘Let there be sport’ through the partnership with Men’s RCB team and being present on a platform like IPL gives brands the option to pick their audience and also to talk to multiple audiences at the same time, she explained.
Puma believes that it is a message that permeates across genders, age groups, and professions and is not just limited to one audience group.
Sachdev explained that IPL is a sport that’s watched for entertainment but also for the love of the sport and thus it is a great platform for the brand to be present there.
“The idea is to be authentically present in places like the biggest sporting event in this country, it's a no-brainer for us as a sporting brand to be present here,” Sachdev said.
She explained that ROI differs for each brand, sometimes it's pure play reach and awareness and sometimes it's about a little bit more bottom-of-the-funnel metrics.
Elaborating brand’s ROI goal, Sachdev said, “For us, when it comes to the ‘Let there be sport’ campaign, it's really about getting a message out there, and ensuring that a maximum number of people register, and engage, as it starts a conversation.”
Moving on to the goal for the Women's IPL, Sachdev emphasized that because it was the first edition, there was no baseline and it was simply about being present.
Sachdev said, “Women's IPL did wonders for us. Women in sports is something that we as a brand feel very strongly about and being able to put our money where our mouth is and actually be present in the first edition of the WPL was a very important tick mark for us. So, it met the brand objective.”
The brand not only ranges jerseys but also an entire athleisure line. And both of those are doing really well as per Sachdev’s claim.
“Depending on what the objective is, not just for us but for other brands as well, IPL gives more than enough opportunities to capitalize and earn from that,” said she.
Plans for the rest of the year
The brand started off the year with on a high note, as claimed by Sachdev, and wants to continue to talk a lot more about women in sports throughout the year.
“We have some great women ambassadors and influencers and we are present in the lifestyle space, and motorsports space, too. So for us, it's about being extremely relevant, and generating relevant conversations across all of these touchpoints,” said she.
Marking the crease on the pitch of priorities for the brand, she said that sports will continue to be the top priority for them. Talking to the women consumers, being relevant to them, and engaging with them in a meaningful way will continue to be another.
Talking to the younger consumers on platforms that they spend the most time on and in a way that they would understand the best by being relevant to them through influencers and partnering with them through e-gaming and more, would also be on the list.
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