Sports
Neo Cricket partners with London Dreams and Kurbaan for India-Australia series
MUMBAI: Neo Cricket has announced its association with the upcoming Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor starrer Kurbaan and London Dreams (starring Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan and Asin) for the ongoing India–Australia series.
As part of the promotional activities, the movie stars will become part of Neo Cricket’s in studio show, Extra Cover, anchored by Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan, in presence of two guests’ panelists.
Also, a series of SMS-driven contests will be run on Neo Cricket, giving viewers a chance to win prizes and meet the movie stars.
Neo Sports Broadcast head – marketing & communications Abhishek Verma said, “Alliances with films are integral to our strategy of building better viewer engagement and films that have mega star casts always have a better appeal.”
The channel has also invited cricketers like Mohinder Amarnath and Michael Bevan as guest speakers for Extra Cover. The Commentators for the India – Australia series are: Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Michael Kasprowicz, L Sivaramakrishnan, Bruce Yardley and Robin Jackman.
Sports
JioHotstar launches commerce ad tool with Instamart to convert IPL viewers into buyers
The platform launches intent-driven advertising with Instamart, aiming to turn cricket fans into customers
MUMBAI: Streaming ads are about to get a lot more pointed. JioHotstar has launched what it calls a signal-led commerce advertising capability, a system that uses real purchase intent data to help brands find consumers who are already primed to buy, not just browse. Instamart, Swiggy’s quick-commerce arm, becomes the first partner to use the offering, which goes live during the Indian Premier League cricket season when JioHotstar’s audiences are at their largest and most engaged.
The pitch to advertisers is precision over volume. Rather than serving ads based on broad demographic slices, the new capability lets brands tap aggregated, privacy-safe insights drawn from actual purchase behaviour to identify and reach high-intent audience cohorts across JioHotstar’s premium content. Crucially, it also closes the loop: consumers can move directly from content to product exploration through integrated call-to-action formats, without leaving the viewing experience. Advertisers, in turn, get down-funnel reporting across key metrics, giving them a clearer read on what their campaigns actually did.
Anup Govindan, head of sports sales at JioStar, said the offering goes beyond watching to predicting what consumers are likely to do next. “We are enabling brands to engage audiences not just when they are watching, but when they are most receptive,” he said. “During marquee events like the TATA IPL, brands can reach the right audience at the right moment, making engagement more meaningful, measurable, and outcome-driven.”
Himavant Kurnala, senior vice-president of product at Instamart, said the partnership closes the gap between inspiration and purchase. “By aligning premium entertainment with the convenience of quick commerce, we are not just placing ads; we are creating a more relevant and frictionless shopping experience for millions of Indian households,” he said.
The launch adds to a growing suite of precision tools on JioHotstar, which already offers self-serve ads and a Shop The Look feature. With 450 million monthly average users and a library of more than 300,000 hours of programming across 19 languages, the platform has no shortage of eyeballs. The question it is now answering is whether it can turn those eyeballs into wallets.
For brands, the timing is no accident. Cricket season on JioHotstar is the closest thing Indian advertising has to the Super Bowl, a moment of mass attention that the platform is now determined to monetise with considerably more finesse than a banner ad ever could.
