Ice-cream to underwear: top Indian brands turn to cricketers in World Cup advertising frenzy

From milk to underwear, suitcases to mattresses, ice-cream and spicy noodles, there are few items that cricketers aren’t advertising at this Cricket World Cup in India. 

Of course, Indian players are the most popular, but the Proteas have been on local TV too.

Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and captain Temba Bavuma tell billions of Indians, on numerous occasions during the broadcast of World Cup matches, to “be more natural”, “more comforting” and “blend in” on behalf of Amul. 

That’s the dairy company Cricket SA signed a deal with before the tournament to have the company’s name on the sleeve of the Proteas shirt.

It’s not just South Africa, the Afghanistan and Sri Lankan teams have also benefited from Amul — which with $6.5bn (R1.2-trillion) worth of revenue last year, can probably afford a few week’s worth of advertising at a World Cup.

It must be pretty worthwhile for them too, given that SA will be in the semifinals.

Cricket owes its relevance to India, where the majority of its 1.4-billion population are rabid consumers of anything to do with the sport.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is the second wealthiest league in the world after the NFL in the US, after it signed a $6.4bn (R117.6bn) broadcast rights deal earlier this year and various companies want a slice of that popularity.

Indian opener Shubman Gill’s face is plastered on billboards advertising Tata Capital financial services.

KL Rahul wants you to buy suitcases, while Jasprit Bumrah, the Indian fast bowler is the brand ambassador for Zepto, a grocery delivery service.

The slogan is a bit lame however — “Groceries delivered at Bumrah Speed”. 

Given he was forecast to be one of the stars of the tournament, those companies who have Hardik Pandya at the forefront of their campaigns must be a bit miffed he will play no further part in the World Cup after he picked up an ankle injury against Bangladesh.

Pandya has got everything from ice-cream, to spicy noodles and underwear covered.

He does his best modelling for Van Heusen a clothing brand, that has got Pandya to prance about in navy innerwear (as underwear is known here) while he does “shadow batting” using a virtual reality headset in his apartment.

Faf de Klerk it is not nor could it ever be, given how any sort of copying of De Klerk’s attire by Pandya using an Indian flag as a design would be greatly frowned upon by the majority of the Indian populace.

It should come as no surprise that the most popular of the Indian players is Virat Kohli.

This tournament has not had one player be so central to it since India’s last home campaign in 2011, when Sachin Tendulkar was the dominant figure.

From the pursuit of his 49th ODI hundred — achieved amid a frenzied atmosphere at Eden Gardens — to his birthday celebrated on Sunday, the World Cup has been made to feel like the Kohli Show, with rest just invited along for bit part roles.

One of Kohli’s sponsors from Royal Challenge — more famous for their alcohol brands, but having broadened their horizons to include packaged drinking water — placed a 9m tall and nearly 23m wide 3D advert near Marine Drive in Mumbai on Sunday featuring Kohli.

There was usual marketing claptrap about “bold choices” and the “brand’s spirit”, along with “Kohli being an exceptional cricketer”, that accompanied the launch.

Kohli’s not just about water, he has up to 20 different companies that use his image, covering everything else from mobile phones, to sportswear, to banking and dental care.

Earlier this year he also signed as the face of Duroflex, a mattress company, which does sound a lot like another company that uses rubber on a mattress — with Kohli stretched out on one of its products.

It is certainly lucrative being an Indian cricketer in the time of the World Cup, and unlike South Africa, where players are mostly used for sports brands or soft drinks, in India, anything really does go.