'Brand IPL still hot property'

• Even as PepsiCo India has made its "right choice" to disassociate from the title sponsorship of IPL, the brand of cricket league is still considered to be hot property
• Whilst past incidents may have somewhat dented IPL's image, most of the official sponsors said they will stick around and support the platform going forward  

Even as PepsiCo India has made its "right choice" to disassociate from the title sponsorship of IPL, the brand of cricket league is still considered to

be hot property. Whilst past incidents may have somewhat dented IPL's image, most of the official sponsors said they will stick around and support the platform going forward.

Videocon Group chairman Venugopal Dhoot told TOI, "Cricket's image is never tarnished, nor the players who play cricket. We are sponsors of the Mumbai team and we will continue to do that. In India, one gets maximum advertisement mileage out of cricket."

Videocon Group annually pays Rs 20 crore to the Mumbai team and spends around Rs 5 crore on IPL.

A spokesperson for Vodafone India concurred that the company's association with IPL has always delivered high reach through television and it has helped in driving a strong brand-consumer connect for the organization."Vodafone India has been associated with IPL right since the first season (2008 onwards) as its official partner. We have been the co-presenting sponsor on TV. It is the biggest sporting platform in the country designed to appeal to a wide audience with high clutter and frequency during a very compact period," the spokesperson said.

Advertising industry veterans believe PepsiCo's withdrawal from the franchise is not be the end of the road for IPL. "Life will go on for IPL, with or without Pepsi. IPL will find another naming partner," said Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison World.

However, there is a general sense that IPL may become a property most MNCs may want to avoid associating with, given the controversies surrounding the property. When contacted, a Coca Cola India official said: "If it did not make sense for us to go for the title sponsorship then (when it made available) it doesn't make sense now."

According to Harish Bijoor, CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc., brands like to associate themselves with positive properties with positive energies. "The question is whether IPL is a negative property with positive energies. If that is true, other brands will read more into this pullout than they possibly must," said Bijoor.

The buzz is that PepsiCo's pulling out could have more to do with the company's financial prudence.