Pepsi and Coca Cola do Battle in IPL Franchise Sponsorship

Two franchises of cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) have switched their allegiances to Coca Cola from PepsiCo, representing significant blows to the soft drinks company.

However, ahead of today’s, April 8, commence of the fourth edition of the league, PepsiCo have agreed numerous new partnerships of their own in what is a war of the Cola’s in the inaugural Twenty20 competition.

Both The Mumbai Indians, captained by recently appointed Coca Cola brand ambassador Sachin Tendulkar, and Kings XI Punjab were backed last year by PepsiCo, but will be sponsored in the 2011 season by Coca Cola, joining the Deccan Chargers in agreeing new deals with the American giant.

The new acquisitions for Coca Cola mean that they will now be sponsoring five of the ten franchises that compete in the IPL, having backed the Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the last four years.

Industry sources estimate that the company will, in total, be spending approximately US$11m on advertising the brand at the tournament – an increase of about 25 per cent on last year.

Coca Cola India director of marketing Wasim Basir stated: “We have extended our association with IPL by partnering with three new teams. The teams that we are sponsoring belong to markets that are very important for Coca Cola. The teams were available and we wanted to associate with them.”

PepsiCo, the official sponsor of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, has in turn announced that it will partner the other five IPL franchises becoming the official pouring partner of the Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore, the Rajasthan Royals, and both of the League’s two new teams, the Pune Warriors and the Kochi Tuskers.

In addition, PepsiCo has agreed a deal with SetMax, the associate broadcaster of the 2011 IPL, which sees the company’s ‘Mountain Dew’ soft drink become the associate broadcast sponsor, receiving in-game advertising privileges throughout the tournament.

PepsiCo India executive marketing director Deepika Warrier said: “IPL in summer offers us a great opportunity to carry forward to positive momentum built during the Cricket World Cup. We will be rolling out some exciting campaigns and consumer activations across our major brands.”