Kingfisher IPL Ads
Posted 8 years ago
Ever since its inception, the Indian Premier League has been a runaway success in terms of ad and sponsorship revenues. The teams, the players, the club owners, everyone seems to be making the big bucks but none more so than Kingfisher. Despite the brand undergoing a tumultuous spell due to the acrimonious situation that owner Vijay Mallya has found himself in, his IPL exploits have been nothing short of excellent.
Vijay Mallya not only owns the Royal Challengers Bangalore team in the IPL, but his company Kingfisher also happens to co-sponsor 4 other teams besides being one of the biggest sponsors of the tournament itself. Hence the tag line - ‘Divided by teams. United by Kingfisher.’
The tag line has worked wonders for them in terms of ad campaigns, as their method of delivering the company message has remained pretty much the same over the past few years. Since Kingfisher seems to have its fingers in many pies, superstars from several different teams come together and attempt to sing the famous Kingfisher ‘Oo la la la…’ anthem. The market outreach gained by putting together some of the biggest cricketers in its ads has done wonders for Kingfisher’s publicity.
What’s amazing about the entire campaign is that barring some mild differences, the theme, sound track, and message have remained unchanged over the past few years. All this without ever once showing a product! Since advertising alcohol directly on the tele is a strict no-no, Kingfisher has been using its ‘King of Good Times’ tagline to great effect by ways of advertising its ‘packaged drinking water’ or calendar (imagine with air quotes and a heavy roll of the eyes). Its ads are always energetic and happy, full of experiences that are greatly improved by having Kingfisher in your lives.
From 2010 up until 2015, the Kingfisher IPL ads remained pretty much the same; different superstars in their own team jerseys trying to sing the Kingfisher theme song. In fact the song and ‘King of good times’ tagline have been embedded so permanently in my memory that the connection made to Kingfisher is instantaneous. This year’s ad was pretty much the same yet again although trending elements like hashtags and selfies somehow also found their way into the ad in order for it to appeal to the Internet youths.
The commercial lives up to both its taglines: the IPL centric ‘Divided by teams. United by Kingfisher’ as well as its own ‘King of good times’ slogan. Check out how little the ad has changed over the years by seeing Kingfisher’s 2010 IPL ad followed by the newest one.




































