India's exit from T20 World Cup a dampener for advertisers

India's exit from the ICC T20 World Cup on Tuesday night has dampened advertisers who were using the event as a marketing vehicle.

From the ratings, it is clear the tournament failed to match the viewership it got on its debut in 2007 and also in 2009.

The average TV ratings (TVRs) for the India matches this year was 1.88, while it was 3.78 and 2.51 in the 2009 and 2007 seasons, respectively, according to data from TV audience monitoring agency aMap.

Media buyers say the biggest reason for low TVRs is because of a lack of buzz surrounding the tournament.

Brand Sachin on top of the world

TVRs are a function of the number of viewers seeing a programme for a stipulated amount of time.

"The tournament was not marketed properly. Except cross-channel promotions, there were hardly any other TV spots used to promote it. In the case of IPL, the buzz created was huge and the promotional campaigns were also run across TV news channels," said Ajay Das, media controller-strategy and planning, RK Swamy.

The last match that India played, with Sri Lanka on Tuesday, got the highest TVR at 2.2, marginally higher than that of the match against the West Indies at 2.1.

Through this year’s tournament, the TVRs for three India matches of the five it played has been over 2. However, for all non-India matches on ESPN, the TVRs have been below 1.

Marketers who chose the tournament to pitch their products through the tournament are unhappy with the team’s performance.

Caribbean getaway

"BIG TV recently launched its HD DVR and we chose this event to create awareness about the product and the brand. Early exit of the Indian team is definitely a dampener for us and it is being reflected in the TVRs, too. We are looking at other mediums as well to advertise the product but the TVRs of the tournament and India’s exit have been a setback," said Umesh Rao, senior vice president, marketing and business operations, Reliance Communications.

The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Spice Mobile, Chevrolet and Videocon are the Indian advertisers in this season of the tournament.

This is the third T20 world cup on the ESPN STAR Sports network. It acquired telecast rights in 2006 for $1.1 billion for all ICC matches to be held till 2015.