From the Stands to the Screens: How IPL Influencer Marketing is Taking Over Advertising?

India’s single most-watched event, a celebration of sport, and an absolute marketing jackpot! There is no better time to put your brand on the map than the Indian Premier League (IPL) season. If you don’t have the resources to advertise or run extensive campaigns like the big brands do, you’ve got an even better more feasible option that will help put you in the middle of the IPL Influencer Marketing fervor.

As fans revel in yet another high-spirited IPL T20 season filled with cheer and excitement, why not piggyback on the ‘moment marketing’ phenomenon that is the Indian Premier League, to create conversations and drive viral content around your target audience? With IPL continuing to gain traction both in India and around the world, brands can successfully capitalize on the event and benefit from increased brand visibility, higher engagement, and a deeper connection with their audience. By understanding the pulse of their consumers and creating relevant, timely content that aligns with the IPL season, marketers can leverage the power of moment marketing to create a lasting impact on their target audience.

The IPL brings with it excitement, a festive buzz, and a sense of community. It gives everyone a reason to get together with friends and family, to laugh, cry and cheer through each match. And leveraging this season through the use of influencer marketing can drive your brand’s connection with the customers by creating conversations.

Why IPL Influencer Marketing?

To join the conversation

With 2023 viewership in India crossing the 140 million mark in the opening weekend, clocking in 30.7 crore viewers for the first 10 matches this season, there is no denying that the IPL provides a whole gamut of branding opportunities for marketers to grab eyeballs and be seen amidst the clutter. During the 2021 IPL, more than 1.9 million data points were available throughout a number of social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more. Between the 9th of April and to 6th of May, there was a 257,000 average of posts per day that poured in from the teams, the players, and regular people. This is a sizable amount of data points that brands leveraged to gain insights. IPL 2022 season garnered more than 6.5 billion video views on digital media which was almost a 50% increase over the previous year. 

Using these IPL conversations to draw attention to your brand requires the organic engagement and social impact that influencers can amass. In the 2020 IPL season, Twitter had most of its total IPL content as brand content influencers posted. With these text-format tweets, brands made big waves in moment marketing and had trending conversations that incorporated the brand message in a seemingly organic way.

Making use of IPL influencers to join these conversations proved to be more impactful than native marketing by the brand alone on Twitter. Influencer content is undoubtedly more engaging and resonates with the audience while promoting the products in a way that feels authentic and natural. This helps build brand loyalty and create a positive association between the brand and its audience. By injecting personality and creating into campaigns, they bring in more eyeballs with their quirky and entertaining tone and influence over their following.

To level up your launch

The IPL season is one of the best times to launch new products because it can fetch you greater reach than any other festive season. With people glued to their screens to keep track of the IPL schedule, scores, matches, and more, you have a better chance of garnering popularity for your new product if influencers integrate them into their IPL-related content.

One main perk of using IPL influencer marketing during the season is that it can create a more impactful pre-buzz before the actual launch. By collaborating with the right influencers, brands can easily tap into their followers’ minds and create interest in their new products. Influencers can create sponsored posts, stories, and videos featuring the new products which can help generate excitement and create a buzz before it even hits the market.

Another advantage of using IPL influencer marketing during the season is that it can help brands target specific demographics. By collaborating with influencers who have followers that match their target audience, brands can ensure that their new products are reaching the right people. For example, if a brand is launching a new line of sports shoes, it can collaborate with influencers who are known for their fitness and sports-related content. This can help create a more targeted approach to marketing, which can lead to higher conversions and sales. Kofluence Brand’s App has an optimized Creator Discovery feature which comes with a deep understanding of the latest trends and audience insights and can help narrow down the right influencers for your brand.

To elevate engagement

Influencers are your brand’s engine of consistent engagement and they can be utilized to promote not only your message or new products but also your contests, offers, and discounts. These marketing tactics are highly effective in driving conversions and customer retention. By partnering with influencers, brands can offer exclusive discounts to their followers, which can incentivize them to make a purchase. This can help drive sales and increase customer retention, as followers are more likely to return to a brand that offers them exclusive discounts and offers. Additionally, by offering exclusive discounts and offers through influencers, brands can create a sense of urgency among their followers and encourage them to engage with the brand. This can help create a loyal customer base and ultimately, grow the business.

Influencer content from the previous IPLs has driven conversations specifically about brand vouchers, discounts, and offers. Much of this content was from sports influencers who have a significant engagement rate during the IPL season, and collaborating with them can help brands reach a wider audience. During the 2020 IPL, sports influencers saw the highest engagement rate on Twitter and Instagram while arts and entertainment influencers known to leverage their creativity to create IPL-centric content ranked second in influencer categories for high engagement.

To amplify AI marketing and UGC

User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to get your target audience to engage with your brand while making fun, interactive content. Formats such as Instagram music or augmented reality (AR) filters on social media platforms can help you develop UGC. Influencers play an important role in the successful execution of these projects. They have an acute awareness of the interests of the target audience and so, can help you create great content – be it jingles that people can use as audio in their reels or AR filters for their snaps. Influencers can further help you promote your content and filters through their well-established platform.

Immersive artificial intelligence (AI) is a great way to provide your target audience with an experience that will make your brand memorable, especially amidst the clutter of IPL campaigns. One brand that used AI to pull off a successful IPL campaign was Spotify which partnered with Snapchat in 2022. They created the Dynamic Cricket AR Lens that allowed people to create their own “match responses” by adding AR impacts and music to key moments from the IPL matches. Snapchat’s AR focal point was able to pull in these match minutes that people could respond to. People enjoyed reacting to 4s, 6s, and wickets from the match live with the help of this AR innovation.

Such AI campaigns can help drive engagement, and with influencers in the mix the campaign can access wider reach. To know more about how you can use Immersive AI and influencer marketing to grow your brand, you can read our blog here.

How do you get started?

We at Kofluence, will serve as your trusted partner to activate ROI-driven influencer marketing campaigns, across categories for a winning spell. With Kofluence, getting started with influencer marketing is easy and hassle-free. Our fully automated platform allows you to launch, run, and manage campaigns all by yourself. If you’re looking to reap the benefits of the IPL Influencer Marketing season’s exposure and are in search of a trusted partner, Kofluence is an excellent choice. Experience the power of 10X better reach by tapping into our extensive network of over 500,000 creators, an experienced team of experts, and the one-stop platform for a smooth campaign experience. So join the big league this cricketing season and let Kofluence catapult your social media presence with customized IPL marketing solutions as per your budget and requirement.

Closing Thoughts…

With #TATAIPL and #IPL2023 trending, you might want to consider investing in an IPL influencer marketing campaign that can help you take advantage of the buzz. Not only will it enable you to join the conversation in an authentic, entertaining way but it will also result in increased brand awareness, reach, and engagement.

If you’re ready to take your IPL influencer marketing strategy to the next level and capitalize on the IPL season, don’t wait! Sign up with Kofluence today and start creating impactful campaigns planned with the right strategy and the tools, that resonate with your audience. you can make the most of this exciting moment and achieve your marketing goals like never before.

So, what’s the wait? The IPL season’s not here forever, get started with Kofluence today! Request Demo

If you found this blog to be helpful browse through our website for other blogs on similar topics or get in touch with us for your next influencer marketing campaign! Download the Kofluence app and find relevant campaigns catering to your target audience! To opt-in, download the Kofluence app here: iOS users, and Android users.