UT Ramprasad, Head - Marketing Communications, Tata Motors

Kabaddi is gaining traction and marketers are taking notice thanks to Pro Kabaddi League. It is truly a homegrown sport that needs backing and is not yet overexposed to brands giving marketers a chance to nurture meaningful associations and grow with the platform.

We interviewed UT Ramprasad, head-marcomm, Tata Motors to know his views on the growing popularity of Kabaddi, along with Rahul Kothari, Zenith Media, and Dipika Bhasin, PHD Media. 

POV:

Marketers are pushing hard to catch the consumers' attention and keep brand recall high. With leagues like Pro Kabaddi League offering a good mix of on-air visibility along with on-ground activation opportunities, how best do you think marketers can leverage this property?

Rahul Kothari 

Home grown sports like Kabaddi are turning out to be a good option for marketers in India, a country truly dominated by cricket in terms of viewership and fan following. PKL has very high advantage of customisation and localisation as per brand requirement, since it is not governed by any international body, and it is incorporated purely from the purpose of marketing. Any association becomes lively the moment On-Air association is combined with On-ground platform, along with branding across multiple available options like Team branding, Sales linked contest, players endorsing your brand etc.

Dipika Bhasin

Sports is way of life and kabaddi is a homegrown sport, made for the Indian audience. Unlike international sports, where a choice has to be made by marketers to either cross-sell or upsell, kabaddi has a homegrown advantage, allowing it to leverage both without friction across different touch points.

The kabaddi gestation period will be higher in certain markets, but more effective and long-lasting for brands targeting small town Indian audiences with impact and high unaided recall. Leagues, teams, players and tournaments are at the inception of growth of audience and engagement, with openness to weave brand and content contextual communication through pro-active joint planning. Association can be done by markets, players and time of launch. Contact sports like kabaddi help brands seamlessly demonstrate brand attributes of power, strength, inspiration, humility and home-field advantage. International brands like Amazon, VIVO, Gionee, Pepsi - as well as homegrown brands like Patanjali and Bajaj Electricals – have all successfully leveraged association with the sport across all touchpoints, and owned them for a longer period of time in comparison to aspirational sports like cricket and football, and at an optimum cost too.