Planma Stars is a sports management company which is a part of Planma Group had announced a tie-up with BrandMagic- a US based company on 19th August 2010. BrandMagic provides branding and virtual advertising services all around the world.
For the first time in television industry viewers were experiencing Virtual ads during the broadcast of Micromax Cup Tri-Series held in Sri Lanka. The effort of bringing the brand closer to the customer was supported by Ten Sports, the host broadcaster.
The CEO of Planma Stars, Vikram Tanwar, commented on the launch of a virtual ad and said “Experts believe that there is a clutter today in the market place in all forms of media and marketers are constantly on the lookout for new and innovative ways to brand and promote their products. We are happy to note that we have received an overwhelming response to this brand new concept and some of the first brands to have taken advantage of this innovation are Micromax, Royal Stag, and McDowells.”
The BrandMagic’s VP-international, Samuel Chenillo, also commented that “BrandMagic is proud to partner with Planman Stars to bring this innovative advertising format to the Indian sports market. Having produced virtual advertising in different sports around the world, we see great potential for its application in cricket. We look forward to offering advertisers this new medium, which will help brands cut through the clutter and can become the next frontier in cricket advertising. Since the technology is integrated into the actual live action, it is not intrusive and more engaging for the viewers. This form of advertising has become a norm in regular American sports and we intend to do the same with this technology in cricket.”
Virtual advertising refers to the continuous addition of digitized imageries during live TV broadcast and has been gaining wide approval all around the world especially in West with advertisers having earned much exploring in popular sports like soccer and baseball.
The effectiveness of virtual advertising is enhancing the ROI all over the world as a study suggests that multiple exposures to a brand aid recall higher recalls than if exposed once or twice. Thus, virtual advertisers can generate better brand exposure introducing their brands anywhere on the screen.