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Nithya Subramanian

New Delhi , May 7

CONSIDER a huge logo of a brand covering a cricket field or boundary hoarding changing every few seconds when a camera pans across it. According to media research outfits, Indian cricket is still not over-sponsored and brand placements have not reached their potential.

"There's a lot of white on Sachin Tendulkar's T-shirt. Just look at Schumacher, there is not an inch of space available on his suit," said Mr L.V. Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer, TAM Media Research, India. Sponsorship opportunities can be created, it just needs some imagination, he added.

There could be opportunities for sponsorship by linking music, having a live band or cheer girls. One could look at digitally inserting ads or logos for television as the number of these viewers are always much larger than the live audience.

Purists may smirk, but as many as 50 brands have figured in a single cricket match. Compare this with rugby: In the World Cup final just 20 brands were present, or the FIFA Cup where 21 brands were visible.

TAM Media Research recently started tracking product placements and looking at prominence levels of the brands. "We were awarded the Best Paper Award at the Asia Pacific European Society Opinion and Marketing Research Conference, one of the world's prestigious market research forums, for our work on product placements," said Mr Atul Phadnis, Vice-President, TAM India.

"It's not only in the area of sports, but broadcasters also are interested in knowing the impact of brand placements in live events aired on channels. Also, popular entertainment shows are using product placements in a big way," Mr Phadnis said. Product placements lend a lot more credibility to the brand compared to normal advertisements.

Big Brother TAM is `watching'

IT'S not just financial services and travel-related services that are being outsourced to India. International research agency, AC Nielsen, has also started using India for some of its backroom operations.

For starters, the UK arm of the research agency has assigned the Indian team the task of putting together media research data collected in the British market. "Other markets such as Australia and the US are also likely to run pilot projects before assigning work to India," said Mr L.V. Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer, TAM Media Research, India.

Meanwhile, after monitoring the viewing preferences of channels in over 4,500 households across the country, TAM India is planning to launch an Elite monitoring panel for the high-end of society.

"Several brands such as ICICI and Samsung want to understand the consumption patterns of the affluent class. We are working out the parameters for this study," said Mr Atul Phadnis, Vice-President, TAM India. These panels would be placed in Mumbai and Delhi and would look into networth of the individual and ownership patterns. TAM Research will also start a monitoring agency, Radio AdEX, for ads on radio channels.

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