The new season of reality show Bigg Boss is expected to start airing in October
After sitting out of the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) due to rising anti-China sentiment in India, Vivo has exited another marquee property - Bigg Boss.
The phone maker last year had signed a two-year deal worth Rs 60 crore with Colors for the reality show.
However, this year Vivo has decided to lie low after rising call for banning Chinese brands and products in India post the Galwan Valley clash.
Replacing Vivo as the presenting sponsor for season 14 of Bigg Boss is online gaming platform Mobile Premier League (MPL).
“With MPL expanding into areas like entertainment via its live-streaming and a bunch of video-first features, Bigg Boss was the most obvious choice for us to associate with,” said Abhishek Madhavan, vice-president, growth and marketing, MPL.
This season the Bigg Boss house will have multiple MPL touchpoints to captivate the audience and drive consumer connect.
The new season of the reality show is expected to start airing in October which means it will directly compete with the IPL this year.
With Dream11 winning IPL’s title sponsorship rights and MPL taking Bigg Boss’ presenting sponsorship, all eyes will be on the online gaming space this year.
Already online gaming has gained more traction in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to industry estimates, online gaming space grew 21 percent during the lockdown months.
Even MPL got a fillip during the COVID-19 lockdown. “Over the course of the lockdown, we saw over 10 million new logins on the platform,” Madhavan had told Moneycontrol, in an earlier interview.
MPL is also betting big on the IPL and will be aggressively spending towards marketing during the league.
MPL also expects retention of its paid users to increase during the IPL.
Be it Dream 11 or MPL, online gaming platforms have continued to spend on advertising this year and with new content seeing the light of day, these platforms are leaving no stone unturned in terms of marketing.