Tata Group Surprises With Rumoured IPL Title Sponsorship Takeover

News that Tata Group is poised to replace Vivo as title sponsor for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 has caught the sport industry and now speculation behind the change has been feverishly making the rounds there. 

With Vivo choosing to exit early from its blockbuster deal early, it continues a rather unwanted trend started by PepsiCo in 2015, when the snack and beverage giant, broke off its title sponsorship with the IPL two years early in 2015. In 2020, Vivo took a temporary reprieve from that year’s IPL tournament as anti-China gripped the country before returning for the 2021 edition.    

Now Vivo too has chosen to sever its IPL title sponsorship early, reportedly because of low ROI and ongoing investigations into possible financial irregularities, although border issues with China may also cropped up during the upcoming state elections.

What in it for Tata?

Observers are on the fence about the potential benefit to Tata Group as the primary sponsor, with some arguing that, as mainly B2B conglomerate, there is little for consumers to engage with. However, the conglomerate’s individual units have already sponsored events which were branded as Tata (e.g. the Tata Marathon rather than the Tata Consultancy Services Marathon).

Over the last few years, Tata Group has also been acquiring more consumer-facing businesses and has restructured existing ones. Securing the IPL sponsorship could be a clever play to rejig Tata’s brand image as a younger, more dynamic business while taking advantage of the tournament’s mass appeal and strong engagement levels to ramp up affinity and relevancy. 

A Tata insider told Exchange4Media that the company is “getting very serious towards being a new-age company and a strong consumer-centric entity, willing to get out of its legacy framework not just internally but in its marketing communications too”.

The high-impact, mainstream boost from the IPL  is much needed as Tata prepares to battle the likes of Amazon and Reliance in the industry for consumers’ hearts and minds.