Chinese brands expected to spend ₹700 cr on ads for Indian Premier League

“The Chinese brands were quite visible on The Kapil Sharma Show as it returned to the screen after the lockdown hiatus. I presume Chinese mobiles will advertise on IPL too. They account for a substantial chunk of the advertising revenues that Star is expecting. In fact, their spends contribute about 20-25% of the total IPL revenues,” said Sandeep Goyal, chairman, Mogae Media, a Mumbai-based marketing and communication agency.

The strategy of Chinese brands has been centred around leveraging big Bollywood and sports celebrities, bagging title sponsorship for sports properties for peak visibility, and concentrating advertising money on cricket.

Despite a campaign to boycott Chinese brands, smartphones from the northern neighbour continue to dominate the Indian market, justifying the advertising blitzkrieg on both offline and online platforms.

The lockdown put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus has created pent-up demand and made consumers realize that technology is important as they continue to work from home. Handset industry executives expect consumers to continue investing in these products.

Vivo India launched a high-decibel campaign with actor Aamir Khan to promote its camera-focused V-series models in June. The company has been highlighting its India-focused approach to create a positive image amid the anti-China sentiment in India. The company, however, chose not to comment on its IPL plans.

Xiaomi India was an early adopter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India initiative, beginning local assembly of printed circuit boards.

“We manufacture 99% of the smartphones locally, with 65% of the value of the smartphone being locally sourced, and in the process have directly and indirectly created employment opportunities for more than 50,000 people to date, in the country. Our aim is to transform India into a global manufacturing hub and we have been actively contributing towards this,” said a company spokesperson.

The government needs to come out with a medium- to long-term plan to reduce Chinese dependence in strategic areas such as pharmaceuticals and telecom, said Biswajit Dhar, professor of trade, Jawaharlal Nehru University. “Decoupling from China has to be carefully done and it has to be a well thought out process and not a knee-jerk one. India’s economy right now is too dependent on China,” he said. The sponsorship of IPL is one area where government policy “seems unclear,” he said. Taking loans from the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is another, Dhar said.
Live Mint