It’s just over six months since Pepsi stunned the advertising and marketing world in India when they bid a whopping Rs 397 crore for the honour of becoming the title sponsor of the IPL for five years, starting 2013.
When the news broke, there was only one question that was debated in the industry: would the IPL deliver the audience numbers to justify Pepsi’s investment?
When a venrnacular television channel spoke to media planners, the official broadcaster and to advertisers and sponsors in the third week of April, as the first ratings were published, things didn’t look too bad for Pepsi.
Here’s the discussion, in case you missed it. Since then, the ratings have been, fairly stable, delivering 10-15 percent lower than IPL 5. Considering the increased reach of IPL 6, Pepsi’s punt seemed to be alright, even if it was felt to be extravagant for some.
That’s as far as the audience size is concerned.
Today, the issue is no longer audience size, but the image of the IPL – and the rub off of the IPL image on Pepsi, the title sponsor.
If Pepsi sponsored the IPL, they did so for the words one would associate with the IPL before the Sreesanth-Gurunath drama: young, exciting, fast-paced, vibrant, thrilling, action, dramatic, and so on – all words that Pepsi (and, indeed, any beverage) would pay good money to be associated with.
Today, those words are not in the lexicon when one speaks of the IPL. Now the words one hears and sees (in media and in social conversations) are: fixing, bribes, sleaze, corruption, criminal, arrest, jail, bail, lawyer, police, investigation, misuse of power, arrogance, escorts and greed.
Which brand wants to be associated with words such as these – especially when you’ve paid top dollar to be associated with a totally different set of positive attributes?
Whether the IPL delivers on audience numbers or not is no longer the issue. Even if they do, the damage done to Pepsi in terms of the image of the IPL cannot be undone in a hurry.
If you asked me, should Pepsi pull out of the IPL, my answer would be, “oh, yes, abhi!”
Meanwhile, Pepsi has issued a statement saying that they will not be pulling out of the IPL, as reported by some sections of the media. “The stories in a certain section of the media today, on PepsiCo regarding IPL, are speculative in nature. As a company policy we do not comment on speculation. PepsiCo has not sent any communication to BCCI as referred in a certain section of the media”, the company said.
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