IPL 2009 has a lot of new things to its name. A pre-dominantly Indian tournament moved to South Africa, Knight Riders fiddled with the idea of multiple captains, Modi used his brilliance to come up with strategic or tactical timeout’s. Then we have the fake IPL player saga going on which brought blogging to the center stage yet again. Most of these things are new which might or might not be good for cricket.
One more thing stood out from IPL 2009. No its not McCullum’s tattoos but the new Vodafone ads. To me it is probably the most important thing. Vodafone did not spend on any Star power like Airtel. Instead it chose to use cartoon looking characters to convey the message.
Not only the ads are simple, useful and understandable but they are the most appealing. In fact the ads come as a refresher from the boring matches and lousy commentary. Havell’s used the same ad it did in 2008. Airtel has a new ad for My Airtel My Offer but it is repetitive. Vodafone is playing on both quality and quantity. I have seen at least 8 ads in the new series.
In the US, advertisers of popular brands vie for the prime time spots during the super bowl. They also reserve their best ads for the super bowl. I am hoping the same thing will happen in India going forward. Vodafone waited for IPL to release their new ads.
I am also expecting Vodafone will save its best ads in the same series for the semi-finals and finals. The viewership will be at its peak for the last 3 matches. Vodafone can appeal to most people to increase their revenue on value added services for the last 3 matches.
IPL is the only sporting event which commands the same kind of respect like that of Super Bowl. I am foreseeing a trend which is set by Vodafone. The only question is will other brands follow or choose to use their old boring ads?
If you have missed the Vodafone ads, I am posting few videos below :
New Vodafone Cricket Alerts Ad
New Vodafone Be the star of the Match Ad
Ain’t those ads really great?