Top 5 Experiential Sponsors to look out for in 2020

EE News Desk Jan 10, 2020

Experiential spends are witnessing a steady rise in India. Increasingly brands are realising the power of experiential and are ready to spend almost 15 percent of their marketing budgets annually on it.

The total spend on experiential is pegged to be close to 20K crore at the moment. With the government of India being the biggest spender on experiential with annual spends touching close to 10K crore.

There are some brands in particular that have made experiential as the mainstay of their marketing strategy. To borrow the phrase used by Roshan Abbas, MD, Geometry Encompass, about rising popularity of experiential, event marketing has evolved from being ‘nice to do’ to ‘must do’ over the years, and it’s a fact that is here to stay.

Coming back to experiential spends in 2020, here are the top 5 experiential sponsors to look out for:

Bacardi:

Food and drink brands usually bring high energy beats to music festivals. With the ban on advertising of alcohol, liquor brands have long resorted to surrogate advertising.

While countries like the USA, UK and Australia allow alcohol advertising with certain restrictions, alcohol ads are completely disallowed to be targeted to India. Thus, Bacardi, a popular name in the business of alcohol, promotes its signature rum through sponsorships of various events, most notably the annual NH7Weekender music festival, and music CDs.

In addition to supporting the NH7 Weekender festival and live gigs, the 157-year-old company launched Bacardi House Party Sessions (BHPS) in 2017, an initiative designed to mentor “indie” musicians through their careers.

Vivo:

India is an overcrowded smartphone market with more than 150 brands. Chinese brand, Vivo has found a way to get consumers’ attention, riding on the tried-and-tested formula: Cricket and Bollywood and using experiential in a big way.

Vivo, owned by China’s BBK Electronics, paid Rs. 2,199 crore to sponsor India’s most-watched cricket event, Indian Premier League (IPL).

Volkswagon:

The leading German auto brand Volkswagon is another brand to watch out for in 2020. It already spends a considerable budget on experiential.

The auto major supports major events like the popular 'Race of Legends' racing event. Volkswagen also sponsors the annual MTV India Music Summit, Jaipur. The Summit is a deep dive, going beyond the surface offering an immersive and incredible musical journey to all music aficionados.

The Skoda Auto Volkswagen India media night is another event where all the brands from the Volkswagen Group -- Skoda, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche -- showcase one new product each that is slated to hit Indian roads.

Raymond:

When it comes to experiential spends, popular fabric brand, Raymond is unmissable . The Raymond and MTV sponsored, India Music Summit, Ek Saccha Sur has successfully done its three editions. Raymond also spends big on sporting events like the ICC World Cup, India-South Africa series and Asian Games, Indonesia as well.

Levi’s:

As a lifestyle brand, Levi’s uses experiential in a major way to connect with its customers. It is a big spender on events which has music as its central theme.