What makes an ad truly effective during IPL?

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is where cricket meets commerce at full throttle. Players chase records on the pitch, while brand campaigns chase attention across screens with influencer stunts, high-gloss TVCs, in-app takeovers, and stadium-flooding sponsorships. 

As the campaigns roll in, so do the weekly verdicts, effectiveness reports from agencies naming the ‘most impactful’ ads of the week. But here’s the real question: in a media landscape that’s more fragmented than ever, what does impact actually look like?

Today, virality can be deceptive. Views and likes are nice, but marketers are digging deeper, asking tougher questions about real influence. To break down how IPL effectiveness is really measured, we turned to the folks from research and media agencies who track and decode this chaos every year. Their take? There’s more to campaign success than just top-line numbers.

Visibility ≠ Effectiveness

While visibility remains non-negotiable during the IPL, industry experts are unanimous—it’s no longer enough.

“IPL has always been about visibility,” says Anshu Yardi, Vice President, Business Partnerships & Communication at TAM Media Research, “but measurement of effectiveness or impact is evolving with time.”

It’s no longer just about eyeballs. Yardi explained that effectiveness now leans heavily on custom measurement frameworks such as brand lift, sales lift, and brand equity studies. 

For instance, TAM Sports employs its proprietary Brand Prominence Value (BPV)® to quantify how prominently a brand appears during the IPL—on jerseys, boundary boards, and LED screens. This data is cross-referenced with consumer recall, engagement, and even eventual conversions to paint a fuller picture.

Sandeep Ranade, EVP and Head of Qualitative Research at Hansa Research, echoes this layered view. He said, “Visibility is just one side of the coin. Effectiveness brings in the ROI or the bang for the buck angle.”

He explained that effectiveness is about measuring the ROI: how much lift did the campaign actually create in terms of brand recall, awareness, or visibility compared to the money spent on the IPL. 

“In simple terms, effectiveness is the delta (increase) in visibility/brand recall/ awareness for a given spend on the event.”

Ranade’s team runs IPLOMania, a comprehensive study tracking where consumers are watching matches (TV vs OTT), their favourite teams, and associated brand mentions. 

What’s clear from these insights is that effectiveness can’t be judged solely on surface-level metrics. A campaign might trend on social media, generate headlines, and even win creative awards, but if it doesn't deliver on the brand's core objective, the celebration might be premature.

So, what really matters is what you get from that visibility. That’s where effectiveness comes in.

“A viral campaign isn’t always a successful one,” said Yardi. “If buzz was the only goal, sure. But if conversions were expected, then virality alone doesn’t make the campaign effective.”

Nikhil Rangnekar, CEO at Interspace Communications, an Independent integrated media & communications agency shared, “Effectiveness is always the goal. If business goals aren’t met, the campaign is a failure — even if it goes viral and wins awards.”

As brands fight for space in the IPL’s marketing carnival, the scoreboard has shifted. Effectiveness, it turns out, isn’t about who shouts the loudest but who connects the deepest.

Measuring the right metrics for the right goals

No two brands walk into the IPL with the same playbook. Some aim to cement recall, others want to convert interest into sales, while a few are simply looking to ride the cultural wave, and that alters the lens of effectiveness.

“Every campaign has a specific objective — awareness, consideration, or conversion — and you need KPIs tailored to that,” explained Ranade.

Industry experts note that while brands often define their objectives clearly during planning or pitch discussions, the execution phase can sometimes blur those priorities. For instance, an awareness-focused campaign might get caught up in reporting high engagement numbers, or a conversion-led campaign might highlight virality instead of actual business outcomes. This misalignment between objectives and measurement can make it difficult to assess true campaign success.

Ritesh Ghosal, Partner at CrispInsights, breaks it down into a three-step metric model:

• How many saw the brand (via GRPs/impressions),

• How many noticed and remembered it (recall), and

• Of those, how many were positively influenced (motivation).

These steps become particularly important during large-scale events like the IPL, where brand visibility is high but audience attention is divided. For example, a brand may invest heavily in a top-tier sponsorship that guarantees visibility across screens and stadiums. However, if the creative lacks distinction or relevance, it may still fail to create lasting recall or emotional connection.

Ghosal’s emphasis on motivation feels especially relevant here. “Being noticed is not an end in itself — it’s an opportunity to log a motivating memory for the brand,” he added.

This idea is reflected in campaigns like Dream11’s 2020 ‘Ye Main Kar Leta Hoon’ ad series, which aimed to go beyond just visibility. 

By using cricketers in humorous, self-referential sketches, the campaign sought to build recall while tying it directly to engagement and app usage. Its effectiveness was assessed through metrics like user acquisition and retention, not just social buzz.

Another example is CRED’s 2021 campaign, often referenced for achieving high recall despite not being an official IPL sponsor. The brand leaned on quirky storytelling, with Rahul Dravid’s ‘Indiranagar ka Gunda’ avatar. 

While the ad generated buzz, it also contributed to a recall that aligned with the brand’s intended persona.

These examples highlight that while visibility is important on its own, it must serve a larger strategic purpose.

CrispInsight’s proprietary eDART study, run during the tournament, tracks recall and explores emotional alignment and perceived relevance. For sponsors and team-aligned brands, Ghosal emphasised, "The key metric becomes: ‘Is this a brand for people like me?’”

This question may well be the north star for brands hoping to build relevance in the IPL environment.

This becomes particularly significant in high-noise environments like the IPL, where multiple campaigns run simultaneously. In such a scenario, only those messages that create resonance with the audience tend to make an impression. Brand visibility may be high, but relevance and emotional appeal are what ultimately decide whether the campaign stays in the memory or fades into the background.

So, while charts and dashboards can track the ‘what,’ marketers mustn’t lose sight of the ‘why.’ A well-placed logo might win visibility, but only a well-timed, emotionally intelligent story can win hearts. And during the IPL, that distinction is everything.

Tracking a fragmented journey across screens

If measuring effectiveness during the IPL wasn’t tricky enough, today’s fragmented viewing habits make it even harder to follow the full user journey. The modern IPL viewer isn’t just glued to one screen but they’re switching between TV, OTT, mobile, and scrolling through social media all at once.

This makes tracking impact feel less like a straight line and more like navigating a maze.

“Tracking across fragmented touchpoints needs an integrated approach,” said Yardi. “TV and digital exposures are correlated through impressions, while influencer metrics rely on sentiment, conversions, and follower growth.”

But in practice, the ground reality is murkier. Hansa’s Ranade also pointed to the lack of third-party, industry-accepted digital spend data, which makes measuring influencer or OTT campaigns challenging. In the absence of standardised metrics, agencies rely on hybrid approaches like blending claimed behaviour, platform analytics, and third-party audits.

A 2024 RedSeer report found that more than 42% of IPL viewers toggle between TV and OTT, underlining how measurement needs to evolve in step with viewing habits. Simply counting impressions on one platform doesn’t cut it anymore.

What this means for marketers is that attribution isn’t just a matter of numbers but connecting dots across platforms in a way that reflects how people actually consume content. Someone might watch a match highlight on YouTube, see a related brand post on Instagram, and finally tap an ad on JioHotstar, all in the span of 10 minutes.

And while tools for unified measurement are getting better, they still haven’t cracked the code for real-time, cross-platform attribution during high-decibel events like the IPL.

Take influencer campaigns, for instance. A reel may spark buzz during a live match or a tweet may go viral, both of which bring a brand into conversation organically. These instances often blur the lines between brand storytelling and performance, and their impact isn’t always immediately visible in the metrics. Sentiment can suggest traction, but the actual conversion, if any, may surface much later, or sometimes, not at all.

In this fragmented landscape, the key challenge for marketers is not just tracking where the consumer engages, but understanding how these touchpoints work together to drive brand impact in real-time.

In this fragmented landscape, the key challenge for marketers is not just tracking where the consumer engages, but understanding how these touchpoints work together to drive brand impact in real-time.

Are marketers overestimating the IPL?

While the IPL continues to command massive viewership, there’s a growing concern among marketers that its ROI may not be as lucrative as it once was, especially if brands aren’t approaching it strategically.

“The way rates have gone up over the years, and with viewership fragmenting across OTT and connected TVs, the ROI on IPL has been consistently going down,” said Rangnekar, highlighting a shift in the return advertisers are getting.

He shared that many advertisers chasing fame instead of outcomes end up disappointed. Rangnekar added, “That is the reason why advertisers who care about ROI stay away from IPL while advertisers who care only about impact at any cost still advertise on IPL. Startups who still have cash to burn is a classic example of this. Over the years, we have seen many startups blow up money on IPL and then vanish.”

Yardi stated that unless campaigns are strategically mapped to objectives  and not driven by fear of missing out, IPL investments risk missing the mark. “ROI is not justified if the campaign feels forced, without differentiation, cannot resonate with audiences, improper amplification strategy or inefficient media buying.”

It’s easy to get swept up in the buzz, but a smarter strategy involves testing campaigns before committing to big spends and validating their media value. Simply relying on the hype of the IPL may not always yield the desired results.

In the end, measuring effectiveness during the IPL boils down to a simple equation: Effectiveness = Reach + Recall + Resonance + Results. While reach may get you noticed, it's recall that keeps brands memorable, resonance that builds emotional connection, and results that validate the investment. 

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