When the Indian Premier League (IPL) is on, some of the most memorable ads are released, from Vodafone Zoozoos to Byju’s, Swiggy, and Cred. It is a two-month-long “cricketainment” that includes fans’ favourite players. The IPL has become a heady cocktail of money, glamour, entertainment and sports, creating the perfect marketing opportunity for brands. Noise, India’s leading connected lifestyle tech brand, signed star cricketer Virat Kohli as its ambassador in December 2022 to cash in on the opportunity.
Gaurav Mehta, CMO, Noise, said, “We look at sports and fitness together. There have been many legendary cricketers in the Indian team. Kohli has led from the front and made India win on foreign shores. So, there’s a lot of value that he brings to the brand.” With brands investing big in the IPL this year, “A fairly large chunk of our FY 2024 investment budgets is going into the IPL,” Mehta added.
To resonate with more audiences, Noise recently released a digital ad #SunoDilKaShor featuring Kohli, in which he talks about how the Noise smartwatch has his back and ensures that he stays on track, no matter what. Mehta said, “We’re looking at the IPL because of its large scale and our business objectives.” The campaign is targeted towards individuals aged between 18 and 35 years. Through its latest campaign, the brand plans to expand its smartwatches category.
“Our objective is to make more and more people aware of smartwatches as a category and what it can do for them in their life,” revealed Mehta. Within the first 7-8 days of the campaign’s release, people were getting more aware of smartwatches. The brand scores are trending upwards, and the branded searches are also rising.
Co-founded by two brothers, Amit and Gaurav Khatri from Gurugram, in 2014, Noise has become a notable gadget brand for smartwatches, taking on players like OnePlus, Fire-Boltt, realme, etc. It started out by selling smartphone cases and later diversified into smart wearables and wireless headphones. According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report, Noise led the smartwatches market with a 27% share.
Noise has also announced the Noise Premier League (NPL) 2023, where users can play along during the IPL matches on the NoiseFit app by predicting the winners and earning rewards. The NPL will also make accomplishing fitness goals more exciting, as users can guess the winners of matches, meet their step count goal, weekly fitness goals, and much more, and be rewarded with thrilling prizes using Noise coins. The campaign will run through the IPL season.
Mehta said, “We’re constantly enabling users to optimize their fitness through new initiatives and innovation across wearables and NoiseFit apps. We’re sure that the new age India will indulge in the experience and set a new fitness benchmark during the NPL.” Noise will run its digital ads during the IPL across connected TVs and platforms like Facebook, Google (YouTube), etc.
The smartwatch market in India saw around 47% year-over-year growth in 2022, with 100 million units shipped, according to an IDC report. Smartwatch shipments in 2022 stood at over 30 million, growing by 151% since 2021. The wearable market in India is on the rise, and Noise is capitalizing on this trend. Mehta said, “How do we make a whole ecosystem around the smartwatch is something that we will see as an upcoming trend.”
