Artist Aloud associate VP Soumini Sridhara Paul

IPL is no longer just about Cricket. It is a brand that people are consuming. When a sport replaces conventional entertainment like the IPL does, it is only obvious that entertainment joins hands with it. Ironically, no other sports property has managed to create as many versions as the IPL has. HBO has created HPL – Hollywood Premier League, SONY MIX has created PPL – Pix Premier League, Hungama.com has created HPL – Hungama Premiere League, ArtistAloud.com has created AAPL – Artist Aloud Premiere League just to name a few. One may wonder why various media players would do this?

Well, the logic is pretty simple. If you cannot beat them, then join them. The consumer today is not skewed to only one kind of entertainment. He has a choice between movies, music, live events, comedy and sports. People living in the metros believe that they are the only ones who experience the best of all entertainment but that is so far from the truth. The youth in B-towns today may be speaking the local language but he is in no way short of information or entertainment. And interestingly speaking that is exactly what IPL has tapped by creating nine teams that connect nine different cities together making each individual feel patriotic for his city.  

When ArtistAloud.com approached its artistes asking them to create a song each for their favourite teams, it was interesting to see how most of the artistes made a song each for the team which represented their (the artistes’) city. Thirteen such artistes took the initiative and are now being released for people to listen and download under the name, AAPL (Artist Aloud Premiere League). Simultaneously, Hungama.com have created the most innovative Hungama Premiere League that actually gets people to buy content that is associated with the stars representing a team where in there are altogether nine teams just like in the IPL. Hence, the team with the most amount of content purchased becomes the winner of the Hungama Premiere League and five lucky winners actually get to attend the finals of the actual IPL Finals. So while cricket is being played on the IPL field between the nine teams, content is being played on the Hungama.com field between the nine teams.

One of the other interesting developments with IPL 5 is the way they have presented the xtra innings with actually having a live band in the studio. It only goes to show that music is everywhere and even in sports. Whether its music driving the sports or sports driving the music: it really doesn’t matter. The end result is that the consumer gets to be where he is and experience all in one.