IPL has evolved from a brand awareness giant to performance marketing powerhouse, says TAM

New Delhi: The 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is maintaining robust growth in terms of ad volumes compared to last season. 

The indexed ad volume for IPL 2025 jumped to 108.2, as compared to 100 for IPL 2024. With just a few years shy of being a two-decade-old property, IPL has transformed and evolved drastically. 

Gone are the days when the IPL was seen as a massive brand awareness ecosystem. Now, the league is increasingly being used as a performance marketing engine. 

According to  Anshu Yardi, Vice-President of Business Partnerships & Communication, TAM, IPL is no longer an alien in the ambit of performance marketing. 

“Earlier, the IPL was largely seen as a massive brand awareness vehicle. But that’s evolved significantly. Today, it's increasingly being used as a performance marketing engine — with IPL-specific offers, influencer integrations, QR codes, and real-time attribution to media activity,” Yardi explained. 

Speaking during an MRSI webinar on ‘IPL Advertising: Impact, Evolution & Opportunity’ on April 23, Yardi further said that with this evolution of IPL as a property, more and more advertisers are tying IPL campaigns to measurable KPIs such as “app installs, sign-ups, direct sales”, and its ilk. 

Yardi threw light on how this evolution came into being. In 2019, linear television was the primary advertising platform. That is no longer the case. “Today, brands are leveraging multiple screens—linear TV, mobile, OTT, and Connected TV (CTV)—to reach audiences,” Yardi said. 

Zooming in on the transformation further, Yardi stated, “Ad format innovation has been one of the biggest shifts. From standard TVCs pre-COVID, we now see a surge in interactive, contextual, and full-funnel performance-driven formats—especially on CTV and mobile. 

There’s also a clear rise in short-format creatives and a strong push towards ROI-focused campaigns.” She added that the industry, in the case of the IPL, has moved from reach-based strategies to performance marketing objectives. 

The shift that TAM’s Yardi highlighted is only going to proliferate. As the IPL ecosystem continues to evolve, the tournament is expected to become a hub of strategic, multi-channel activations. 

Putting things in perspective, Yardi said, “Brands will increasingly focus on CTV programming during IPL streaming, tapping into a more leaned-in, premium audience segment.

We’re likely to witness the rise of AI-generated ad creatives and regional content customisation to drive sharper relevance across India's diverse viewer base.

At the same time, marketers will demand real-time logo detection, advanced viewability tracking, and ROI tools that allow them to measure performance across a multi-screen ecosystem—spanning linear TV, OTT, mobile, and CTV.” 

Traditional advertising making way for multi-screen approaches, is evident in the data shared by Yardi. According to TAM’s data, traditional Free Commercial Time (FCT) inventory—long seen as the cornerstone of IPL media planning—has witnessed a 24% drop in volume since 2019. 

The decline is especially notable in categories like telecom, auto, and consumer durables, which once dominated the ad pie but have since ceded ground to rising sectors like BFSI (Banking, Financial Services & Insurance) and Food & Beverages (F&B). These new kids on the block posted an impressive 9x growth in IPL 2024, Yardi shared. 

The shift in consumption behaviour was evident during IPL 2024. According to Yardi, Linear TV recorded an average of 37 hours of advertising, while Mobile and OTT platforms delivered 48 hours. Leading the pack, however, was Connected TV (CTV), which clocked an impressive 62 hours of ad time.

In terms of brands, while there were 74 advertisers and 135 brands on linear, OTT saw 278 advertisers representing 377 brands, and CTV had 145 advertisers for 237 brands. 

The rise in multiscreen advertising signals a diversified media strategy that will only grow in the coming years.