Live & kicking: Football returns to Disney+ Hotstar
Audiences, today, are demanding great content options. This is representative of the times we are in and more importantly, the advertising potential. As live sports return to Disney+ Hotstar, the opportunity for brands has grown further.
The benefits are enormous: Disney+ Hotstar’s daily watch time has surged since the onset of COVID-19 and viewer engagement has grown in double digits. Connected TV viewership has almost doubled and 20% – 25% of daily viewers are interacting with the platform’s social feed on mobile.
So, as live football kicks off again, Disney+ Hotstar is set to deliver audiences on a greater scale than ever before. The Bundesliga is already underway and will continue till June 27, 2020, while the Premier League begins on June 17, 2020. The platform is expected to deliver a reach of 8 to 10 million viewers for the leagues.
Seeing it, believing it
The excitement among fans is palpable, as seen on social media, and is mirrored by the viewership – The Borussia Dortmund vs Bayern Munich match on May 26, 2020, saw a four-fold rise in peak concurrency over the Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund tie on November 9, 2019.
Football reach on Disney+ Hotstar is at scale; the platform garnered approximately 8 million viewers on these tournaments pre-COVID, predominantly comprising the urban male 15+ target audience, while TV garnered approximately 5.5 million viewers in the same period. The average time spent by league viewers on the platform is 20 minutes as compared to 25 minutes on TV.
Data reveals that Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are the the top five states viewing football and accounting for approximately 55% of Disney+ Hotstar’s viewership of the game. The numbers also reveal the top five most popular Premier League teams on the platform.
Time to strike
There are multiple partnership opportunities to reach this affluent audience. During the live feed, brands can use mid-rolls (10- to 30-second video during live ad breaks) and pre-rolls (5- to 10-second video before users enter the live stream) that can be targeted to specific audiences. A broader range of brand ownership opportunities around weekly content includes highlights, goals of the week, saves of the week, player of the week and top moments.
With active advertisers – Audi, LinkedIN, AbinBev and Jaguar Land Rover, to name a few – seeing a huge impetus in their marketing campaigns, the never-seen-before viewership numbers live football offers on Disney+ Hotstar promise tremendous ROI.
