April 2, 2013: PepsiCo is planning to spend big during the next two months specifically targeting IPL Season 6. The beverages major which has become the title sponsor of IPL 2013 is spending 25 per cent more than what it spent last year. The company which has taken a long term equity bet is planning to spend close to Rs.160 crore in April to June months. The company which has been getting 50 per cent of its volumes in these months is building a 360 degree fan salience as a strong correlation between salience and consumption has been seen.
According to Deepika Warrier, VP- Beverage Marketing, PepsiCo in her conversation with Economic times said that “there are 200 million people who engage with the IPL. And India is a very low per-capita consumption market for beverages, so we’re looking at a huge growth opportunity.” Though there are lot of marketing experts who are criticising the rationale behind spending close to Rs.160 crores in 60 days for promotion, PepsiCo believes that there plan of going beyond advertising and activating consumer engagement in stadium, digital and mobile platforms will help them in activating their brand and translate into revenues.
The company would be closely monitoring the return on investments and is planning to go for incremental spending once this season is over. PepsiCo would be activating brands like Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Lays and 7Up during this IPL season and would be going for regional marketing. They would be taking 7Up to South where it has strong brand presence and activating the brand with Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad teams and would be activating Mountain Dew brand in North and would align with Rajasthan, Delhi and Punjab teams.
The approach that the company is taking is a long term approach where a cross functional effort is being taken to enhance the fan experience in on ground integration of brands. It remains to be seen how far PepsiCo is able to score over its rival Coca-Cola which has gone for a very different approach altogether and is looking forward to ‘deseasonlise’ promotion campaigns i.e. not focusing on any particular event or season to sell their cola drinks.
