Choosing the best advertising spots in a stadium or the right time to telecast a sporting event is no easy game. A TAM Sports study shows possible ways to ensure best returns on investments.
Advertisers and broadcasters haven’t had this much thinking to do in a long time. Take for instance, a cricket match. It’s not just the way the game is played that makes T20 cricket different from the five-day version. Even the “most preferred” advertising spots vary in the two forms of the game. TAM Media Research’s new division TAM Sports, a specialist on measuring Return on Investment (RoI) on sports sponsorship, has come out with some such findings to suggest guidelines for advertisers.
In T20 cricket, for instance, the players dug-out or the spot just above the boundary board are best places to advertise. The best example is that of Aircel in the first edition of IPL. With each match witnessing over a dozen sixes, Aircel, which had booked numerous spots above the perimeter board, naturally gained maximum visibility. Live coverage of sporting events, once considered the best way to ensure high ad revenues—is also a concept that is set to change. “When US-based broadcaster NBC secured exclusive rights to telecast the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they realised different time zones would mean the opening ceremony being shown live at 5 a.m. in Washington. NBC delayed its telecast by 12 hours and saw a record viewership of 30 million and ad revenues of around Rs 5,000 crore,” the study observes.
Compare this with the recent India-New Zealand cricket series that was telecast live at 3.30 a.m. According to TAM’s data, early morning viewership was a paltry 0.2 TVR. Could the channel have delayed the telecast? “It’s something that can be tried out,” says, L.V. Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research.
With sports programming at an all-time high in India, such research is welcome for advertisers and channels. In the last one year, sports programming has increased from 65,179 hours (in 2007) to 71,350 hours (in 2008), pushing up ad inventories of sports channels. Over 3,917 hours of ad inventory was consumed in 2008, up from 3,484 hours in 2007.TAM findings
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