MUMBAI: The Vivo Pro Kabaddi league in just a short duration of 6 seasons, has been pushing boundaries in creating brand collaborations and partnerships that resonate in valuable outputs for brands and the sport alike. This season, witnessed innovative integrations in comparison to run of the mill advertising. The scope for integrations during a live game are several and the league wanted to bank upon this opportunity to integrate brand solutions using live television as a medium to amplify brand promise.
Throughout the three months long season of Vivo Pro Kabaddi, the matches provided a perfect platform for brands like VIVO, Thums Up, Gillette, Tata Motors, Honda provided an opportunity to not only advertise but also integrate brand messaging into LIVE content to drive stronger impact. The fan favourite jumbotron (graphic that appears on the screen) evolved this season to further drive editorial narrative of the game, be it building the key battles to watch out in each match or driving hero performance traits. And, in a technology first, the jumbotron was used innovatively wherein the tvc was seamlessly integrated during the broadcast without taking a commercial break.
Furthermore, Thums Up, became a brand that integrated their brand proposition in gameplay verbiage during a high impact LIVE match moment. All Super Raids during the season were “Toofani Super Raids” – across all broadcast graphics, commentary and on-ground platforms, this gave the brand stronger recall for their messaging through the three months.
Honda wanted to build recall value for their corporate anthem, VIVO Pro Kabaddi League provided them an opportunity to build the anthem across 13 cities on-ground and on live television. The teams worked together to seamlessly to integrate the anthem in hero player stories during the Pre-Game Show. VIVO Pro Kabaddi League offered multiple options to create this recall as touchpoints where eventually a fan could connect with the anthem.
Brand Launches
For the first time, VIVO Pro Kabaddi was used as a platform to launch the new Honda X-Blade bike, this enabled the brand to reach out to their target audience. Apart from these innovations, Tata Motors and Dream 11 contextually built their association with the league by creating customized brand specific commercials leveraging well-known kabaddi players.
Gillette launched the new MACH3 START using VIVO Pro Kabaddi as a platform, with an interesting campaign, during the countdown to start the game, ‘On your mark start’ was replaced with ‘On your Mach Start’ this clearly highlighted brand messaging. Gillette after a long duration launched a new product in the market and bet on Kabaddi to reach a younger audience that the product was targeting.
Other innovation integrations included, the Gabbar of Indian Cricket team, popularly known for his Kabaddi thigh-five action and twirling of moustache during Cricket matches, starting a new trend for moustached men on the Kabaddi mat. Shikhar Dhawan shaved off his bearded look to keep his symbolic moustache with a clean-shaven face. His mooch look was an encouragement for VIVO Pro Kabaddi League top players as well and taking his love for the game higher, Shikhar attended a kabaddi match and posed with the players, sporting the moustached look.
Over the past few seasons, VIVO Pro Kabaddi League has provided the perfect platform for amplification of a brand promise both on-air and on-ground because of the nature of the sport. As the league continues to grow and is a platform for younger players to emerge, it is also turning out to be a platform where brands look at innovatively telling their story.
