Reports: Chinese brands likely to stay away from IPL sponsorship and on-air advertising

IPL has been the most popular league in the cricketing world since its inception in 2008. The league has never dealt with the problem of getting sponsors due to its immense popularity. The cash-rich tournament has been watched all over the world and players are always eager to somehow be a part of it.

Vivo was drafted as the title sponsor of the IPL in 2018 for five years. But in June, the Galwan Valley incident resulted in huge distress among Indian people and they started campaigns against using Chinese brands. On 2nd August, BCCI decided to retain Vivo as its title sponsor, a decision that created a huge uproar on Twitter. 

Looking at the anti-China sentiments, Vivo pulled out from the cash-rich competition for this year. Now, the other Chinese brands like OPPO, Real Me, Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo are also mulling the option of staying away from the league for sponsorship and on-air advertising. The anti-China campaign has been gaining speed and such brands don’t want their brand value to get affected.

This year hasn’t been that smooth for the Indian T20 league. Firstly, the IPL which was scheduled to start in March but got postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now when the league is finally happening, the sponsorship issue has risen.

Advertising agencies advice Chinese brands to stay away

As per the reports in Inside Sport, an advertising agency has opined that it will be hard for Chinese brands to advertise in such uproar. “The sentiment against Chinese brands is very strong currently. We are advising our clients to stay away from any big-ticket advertising. Be it IPL 2020 or any other big television property, it is unlikely Chinese brands will advertise in these circumstances,” the advertising agency said.

Ashish Chadha, CEO of leading Sports Marketing Company Sporty Solutionz, has viewed that it will be tough for broadcasters to replace the advertising of the handset category as they have been part of this for many years.

“Handset category is one of the biggest advertising category on IPL over the years. It will be tough for the broadcaster to replace them. But the good part is some more categories have opened up for them. Edtech companies this time are expected to be big advertising categories along with the Consumer Durables as the IPL this year is coinciding with Diwali,” Ashish said.

Another media agency said that advertising will be very low this year citing the already existing economic issues in the country. “Because the economy is down, a lot of advertising will go away. For many companies such as durables, festivities suit more than April-May. They are the biggest hope for IPL this year,” said the media agency. Meanwhile, IPL is set to start from 19th September to the final will be held on 10th November in UAE.