Brands are venturing into uncharted territories. On Thursday, Cricket Australia announced a partnership with deodorant brand Rexona for the Big Bash League with an underarm spin.

Umpires would sport logos of the Unilever brand on their armpits – a first in cricket sponsorship. The idea being when they raised their hands to signal a six – and BBL does see a lot of sixes – the logo would flash prominently on TV screens.

An ugly move?

The armpit advertising campaign, which Rexona is trademarking as ‘pitvertising’, elicited mixed reactions from brand watchers. Some called it an ugly move, berating Rexona for plumbing the pits, while others cheered the cheeky placement, calling it clutter breaking.

An amused Ambi Parameswaran, former chief executive officer of FCB-Ulka Advertising, called it a fun effort, pointing out that deodorants are often advertised in a humorous way. “The umpire is not going to hold his hand up for five seconds so that the brand name registers. So, it’s not really a brand building effort as much as a buzzworthy gimmick,” he said.

Scoring big

Giraj Sharma, founder of Behind the Moon consultancy, said that the use of logos on umpires’ clothing isn’t new. “Emirates was there on the clothing of ICC Elite Panel Umpires for a long time. PayTM was there on the umpires apparel during IPL2020. These brands do get noticed as at every critical juncture in the match you have the focus on the umpire,” he says.

However, Sharma said that putting the logo on the armpit portion of the clothing was certainly new, clutter-breaking, as well as relevant and would earn Rexona high brand recall.

Anuj Kapoor, Assistant professor of Marketing at IIM-Ahmedabad, felt that Rexona’s brand image would improve. “Using umpires – a neutral person – to endorse a brand will only lead to high trust and durability,” he said.

Also, he pointed out that Rexona would have a strong first mover advantage, and the credibility they would earn from the campaign would not be easily replicable. On the other hand, Naresh Gupta, co-founder and chief strategy officer, Bang in the Middle, felt it was an ugly placement. “Most people will cringe at this placement. In advertising, both medium and the placement matter. I suspect we will see a memefest with pitvertising,” he exclaimed.

On this point, Kapoor, too, agreed. “Armpits are prone to sweating. I am assuming that Rexona has thought about this aspect – else, trolling and memes will follow,” he said with a grin.

Scent of innovation

Is pitvertising going to spark off a bout of creative thinking on logo placements in India? After all the Board of Cricket Control in India is usually on the ball when it comes to commercial opportunities.

Gupta felt that India’s IPL has already seen many innovations, and the next session of the 20/20 league could see more such experiments, especially when players, giant screens on ground, perimeter boards on boundary and commentary team become one entity and adserve becomes a bit like programatic advertising.

Parameswaran said there are hundreds of gimmicks possible around cricket. A few years ago, logos on bats, stumps would have been considered completely wrong form in the gentlemen’s game, he said. But it has happened. “But beyond a point, it’s all going to be a blur...everything will lose any kind of a recall value, at least with consumers,” he warned.

Giraj Sharma, too, expects to see more offbeat and disruptive advertising on the cricket pitch. However, as a cricket-lover, he felt that somewhere the charm of the sport will get taken away by too much commercialisation. “We might just land up killing the goose that lays the golden eggs with logo over dose,” he said.

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