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Indiantelevision.com's Media, Advertising, Marketing Watch

Neo ropes in eight sponsors for India series

Indiantelevision.com Team

(6 October 2008 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: With the four match India versus Australia Test cricket series kicking off on 9 October 2008 followed by the England playing India in seven one-day internationals and two Tests (14 November-23 December), Neo Cricket has announced that it has roped in eight sponsors for both series.

It has upped revenue targets for the upcoming cricket season to Rs 3.1 bilion. This covers the series against Australia, England as well as for domestic cricket. Of this, the targeted revenues for the Australia series is of Rs 1.1 billion.

Airtel is the co-presenting sponsor. Hero Honda, Toyota, Coca-Cola, HDFC Standard Life, Pidilite, Royal Bank of Scotland and Nivea are associate sponsors.

Neo Cricket senior VP ad revenue Sunil Manocha says that the response to the series has been enthusiastic which is why he says it has reached the rate of Rs 100,000 per 10 seconds for spot buys. For the Australia series, Union Bank has taken the Action Replays package. Airtel has also signed up for the fours and sixes deal. Toyota Altis is sponsoring the man of the series where one viewer who correctly predicts who it will be wins a car.

Hero Honda has taken the Master Blaster package. Manocha adds that the channel has sold around 85 per cent of its inventory for the Australia series thus far.

A media buyer spoken with though says that Neo Cricket will find it difficult to cross Rs 80,000 per 10 seconds. For the England series, it is understood that Neo is looking to cross the Rs 300,000 threshold per 10-second spot for the ODIs.

Despite the fact that the last Test series against Sri Lanka did not fare well, Manocha is confident about this series delivering bang for the advertiser's buck.

"An India versus Australia series is now even bigger than India versus Pakistan. When we toured Australia last year, matches got an average TVR of 3.3 among males 15+ SEC A,B,C. This was despite the fact that matches were not television friendly in terms of timings.

"For this series, we expect an average TVR of 4 to 4.5. The TVR could peak at 11. After all, the TVR for the Perth Test which India won last year peaked at 8."