"You have to make money."
Mukesh Ambani is targeting small businesses and neuroscience research to boost revenue from the Indian Premier League (IPL).
This follows a £6.4 billion media merger between his Reliance group and Disney.
Broadcast rights for IPL and other cricket events have cost Disney and Reliance nearly £7.9 billion.
These costs weigh heavily on the newly merged group, India’s largest entertainment company. It faces fierce competition from Netflix and Amazon in the £22 billion market.
Reliance is holding month-long closed-door seminars in seven Indian cities to attract small businesses as IPL advertisers. It offers ad packages starting at £13,400.
The company said: “Ads are integral to IPL coverage.”
The streaming service aims to reach 40 million smart TVs and 420 million mobile devices during the IPL, running for 60 days from March 22.
Reliance is privately pitching advertising agencies with “brain mapping” research.
It claims this research analysed participants’ neurons to show that its streaming ads engage viewers more than Google’s.
Five media executives, Reliance sources, and two company pitch decks revealed the strategy.
One company executive said: “You have to make money.”
Reliance plans to monetise small scorecard spaces on mobile screens. It has also ended free IPL streaming on its JioHotstar app, a service available since 2023. This marks a shift as it faces revenue pressures.
The IPL is India’s biggest cricket league and the Ambani family owns the Mumbai Indians.
India’s digital advertising space is competitive, with Google and Meta dominating. TV channel pricing is regulated, and broadcast ads lack geolocation.
Reliance plans to use user data to target ads based on age, income, and location while increasing ad rates.
Many small businesses attended Reliance’s February seminar in Bengaluru. They were pitched IPL ads as more affordable than ever.
Reliance’s ad rate booklet listed packages starting at £13,000. However, wellness startup owner Anita Devraj said:
“I find it cheaper to advertise on Instagram and YouTube.”
Before the merger, Reliance and Disney each spent around £2 billion on IPL rights for 2023-2027. They also spent billions on ICC and other cricket leagues.
However, these investments caused losses, with Disney India describing ICC rights as “onerous” and estimating a £1.1 billion loss.
Reliance views IPL as key to attracting advertisers and retaining subscribers. It aims to offer Bollywood and HBO content to users.
To address antitrust concerns, the merged group pledged not to raise ad rates unreasonably.
However, Reliance increased IPL streaming ad rates by up to 25% this year.
Lower-rate packages are available through media agencies that buy ad space in bulk. Media Ant’s website lists IPL ad packages starting at £4,500, while YouTube ad packs start at £90.
Uday Shankar, vice-chairperson of Reliance’s entertainment unit, said:
“You’re competing with global players: Google and Meta.
“Most of digital advertising revenue goes to these two.”
Reliance’s pitch decks feature images of people in headsets and heart rate monitors for a “brain-mapping study”.
It claims IPL ads generate four times more focus, engagement, and memorability than Instagram and YouTube ads. Google and Meta did not comment on these claims.
Google’s “brain-imaging study” analysed participants from Britain and Germany. It concluded:
“No platform has more engaged viewers than YouTube.”
Reliance cannot match YouTube’s 500 million active users in India, said Daoud Jackson, a streaming analyst at Informa TechTarget.
“You aren’t going to win an argument in a board meeting next year by pointing at a brain scan. You’ll win that market by pointing at the profit and loss chart.”
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