MUMBAI: The sponsors of the sixth edition of Indian Premiere League (IPL) are to benefit significantly from the tournament, Pepsi being the bigger gainer, Ormax Trac20 report stated.

The findings of the pre-phase of Ormax Trac20, a syndicated research being conducted by media insights firm Ormax Media, revealed that Pepsi seems to have the ball out of the park even before the tournament started.

As per the findings, the average number of sponsors recalled at an unaided level per respondent stood at a healthy 3.2, more than double compared to previous years.

Title sponsors Pepsi contributed significantly to this performance, with an unaided recall of 82 per cent even before the tournament started. DLF, the title sponsors till last year, scored less than 50 per cent on recall in the previous seasons of IPL.

Other sponsors with high unaided recall are Vodafone (37 per cent) and franchise sponsors Nokia (32 per cent).

Ormax Media CEO Shailesh Kapoor said, “This phase of the research was conducted in the fortnight leading upto the start of IPL 6. Such high recall levels are indicative of the strong association a brand like Pepsi has managed to build with the tournament, despite this being their first year of association. It is evident that the brand fit between Pepsi and the IPL has worked this year.”

The Ormax Trac20 research is being conducted across 11 cities, in three phases, with a total sample size of 9,000: Pre-phase before the IPL started, mid-phase during the IPL and post-phase at the end of the tournament. The findings of the pre-phase have been released for the subscribers.