This IPL, JioCinema aims to achieve 650 million reach across devices, said Simran Channey, AVP, Brand Solutions-  Viacom18 Sports. Channey, who was speaking at the unveiling of the dentsu e4m Digital Advertising Report 2024 on India’s Digital Revolution with JioCinema,said, “This year IPL, Jio Cinema as a platform is confident of achieving a 650 million reach across devices including mobile and connected television (CTV) devices and a couple of other innovations that we have in store. This is the ambition for this year.”

After thedentsu e4m Digital Advertising Report 2024was unveiled, Channey spoke extensively about the success of JioCinema's inaugural IPL season. She shared that last season, IPL reached approximately 449 million users across multiple platforms. "When you compare this to the previous season of IPL on the previous streaming platform, it's about a 38% jump."

According to her, the reason behind the high numbers is the decision to make IPL free for all consumers in the country. “No matter what device you are on, you could consume IPL for free, which is why we say that was a barrier-free experience and that of course led to a large population tuning into our platform to consume their favourite tournament.”

Another reason that contributed to the overall growth of IPL on JioCinema was the innovations done by the platform, said Channey. For instance, introducing IPL in 12 languages to users. She said that for the first time in the 15 years of IPL, consumers from markets like Bihar, Jharkhand and Punjab, which are otherwise underserved, could consume commentary in a language of their choice.

The platform also introduced live statistics, multi-camera feed, and a 360 VR experience on the platform. “One would think instinctively that not a lot of people will use these features as they may seem so high tech, but pleasantly 100 million users on the platform were actually engaging with these features daily.”

She further added: “Usage of technology is becoming so much more native to the Indian audience that I don't think as advertisers and planners we are being able to imagine how quickly people adapt to the new features that you have introduced.” All of these things lead to people actually spending more time-consuming IPL on the platform, said Channey.

She also spoke about the introduction of a 4K stream by JioCinema for the CTV audience last IPL.  “This was the first time anywhere in the world that a tournament was streamed in 4K. It meant having an investment and getting those types of cameras into the field to have that kind of output. We were pleasantly surprised with the results. We were able to achieve a device level reach of 29 million devices and an individual level reach of about 126 million users.”

Further speaking about the upcoming IPL (IPL 2024), Channey shared that JioCinema’s ambition and objective for the upcoming season is threefold. She further shared how JioCinema plans to achieve big reach this year.

Channey explained as internet penetration is growing rapidly, one big story for JioCinema is to make IPL available on the 4G phones- Jio Bharat which is only Rs 999 device.

Explain how JioCinema intends to increase reach for the mobile audience, Channey pointed out that the app will be introducing a multilingual UI.“The way we've done commentary in multiple languages,  we want to make that learning a little bit deeper and make our app also in different languages.” She added that since JioFiber is taking last mile connectivity for Wi-Fi connection deep in the country, JioCinema expects to reach about a 200 million user base for the upcoming season of IPL on CTV devices.

She further shared that for the upcoming season of IPL, JioCinema will be opening up 4K targeting separately for their clients. If a brand is looking for an elite audience,4K is a great way to partner with Jio as the platform is expecting a reach of 40 million users on 4K alone.

For the upcoming season of IPL, the platform has introduced industry-first innovations like JioCinema Brand Spotlight, a tailor-made IPL feed for brands.

“From just a regular ad asset point of view, one big thing that we are unlocking this year is 100+ cohorts for targeting. A Lot of our clients were talking to us about better cohorting possible and we have enabled it this season. We have certain Geoclusters, six metros, demo and interest buckets available. Cross tab targeting is also available on IPL," she concluded.