Rexona has partnered with Cricket Australia (CA) to bring an innovative way for the advertising the deodorant brand during the Big Bash League. On December 12, CA announced a commercial partnership with Rexona and named the campaign armpit advertising. As per the contract, the logo of the brand will be imprinted on the apparels of the umpires under their arms in the BBL.
The logic behind the idea of the brand logo on umpires’ apparel is quite unique. Whenever, the umpires would lift their arms to signal a six, a wicket, or a wide ball; Rexona’s logo would be visible. In the modern cricket, jerseys of players are fully covered with logos but there are very few brands on umpire’s uniforms.
Unilever, the parent company of Rexona has coined the term Pit-vertising for the campaign and said, “The campaign has begun the process of trademarking pit-vertising as it seeks to find fresh space in a format of the game already awash with branding.”
In the pandemic era, Cricket Australia will be generating a record $70 Million in commercial sponsorship revenue during summer, courtesy of BBL and series against India. This would be a 23 percent spike for CA as compared to the summer of 2018-19.
Stephanie Beltrame, CA’s Executive General Manager, said, “The work we have done on the revenue side has really helped us stabilize our financial situation. We’re grateful to have partners stick with us and we’ve brought on a number of new partners. Most of them have been at a slight increment to previous deals, and that has allowed us to offset some of the costs that we will incur.”
Cricket Australia is well known for experimenting with new ideas. The latest edition of the Australian T20 league is coming with three new rules to add more entertainment value to the game. The tournament kicked off on December 10 with the opening game between Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Sixers.