Marketing the Brand Around Indian Premier League 2025: A Tool to Integrate Brand with Social Message

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the highly anticipated sporting events across the globe. It is world’s second largest sporting event with a valuation of $13 billion. With a massive viewership, the IPL has progressively turned into an advertising platform for marketers establishing relationship with cricket supporters. Existing literature reveals that with the growth of socially responsible branding, companies are increasingly using sporting events as a strategic platform to reach a larger audience and communicate their brand message through advertising. Despite the popularity of the IPL, there is limited empirical research analyzing the advertisements aired during the IPL. Therefore, the research study aims to explore the different ads and integration of the brand image with the social message. Moreover, through the study, an attempt has been made to study the celebrity engagement in advertisements and its relation in promotion of social message. The study analyzed all the advertisements aired across sixty-seven (67) days of IPL 2025 with seventy-four (74) matches in total. The study holds significant importance for marketers, social entrepreneurs, and government who aim to leverage the influence of sports in promoting constructive social change. The research will also contribute to the existing body of knowledge on brand marketing during any sports events and highlight the potentiality for the brands to be socially responsible along with promotion.