Brief:

• Indian food company Britannia Industries ran a mobile ad campaign with banner clickthrough rates (CTRs) that were four times the industry average of 1.31%, according to an announcement. The ads sought to engage viewers of the Asia Cup 2018 cricket tournament held in September in the United Arab Emirates, and saw a clickthrough rate of 4.38% during the match between archrivals India and Pakistan.
• Britannia relied on a cross-screen targeting strategy that showed ad banners during key moments of cricket matches. More than 2 million unique viewers engaged with the banners, which received more than 10 million impressions during the cricket tournament, said Deepak Baid, COO of Zapr Media Labs, which developed the campaign for Britannia.
• The display ads connected mobile viewers with a video celebrating Britannia’s 100th anniversary as a company. Zapr provided Britannia with detailed analytics for the campaign, according to the announcement.

Insight:

Britannia's campaign that combined TV viewing with mobile engagement shows how brands can reach audiences on multiple screens in real-time. Zapr delivered banner ads that were customized to key moments during cricket matches to boost their relevance, and outpaced industry benchmarks for CTRs.

Sports programming has become more popular among mobile platforms to reach audiences who have shifted their viewing habits from TV. For example, NFL viewership jumped 147% on mobile phones during the first four weeks of the season. Twitter last month partnered with England's Football Association on a direct message (DM) bot that will send video highlights to overseas soccer fans starting with the third round of the Emirates FA Cup on Jan. 4. 

While less well known globally, the Asia Cup cricket tournament scored TV audiences comparable to those of NFL games in the U.S. when India was playing. The India matches averaged 19.5 million impressions, with the India-Pakistan match notching 29.4 million impressions, according to Business Standard. These viewers present a retargetable audience amid India's mobile phone customer base, which reached 1.17 billion in October, according to data from the country's telecom regulator cited by Reuters.