IPL ads: The big bet by mouth freshener brands

“Zubaan kesari” and “shaunk badi cheez hai” may be a pop culture punchline, but on the Indian Premier League (IPL), these taglines represent something far more strategic than just clever copy. They signal the sustained dominance of a category that continues to find both scale and legitimacy on India’s biggest sporting stage.

The latest TAM Sports data shows a marginal reshuffle in the advertising pecking order of the Indian Premier League, but the story of mouth fresheners remains largely unchanged. After topping IPL 18 with a 12.7 percent share of ad volumes, the category slipped to second place in IPL 19 at 13.6 percent, just behind e-commerce services. The shift is narrow, but it underlines the sustained weight of the category on India’s biggest sporting platform.

Even more telling is the continued presence of key players such as Vishnu Packaging and K P Pan Foods among the top advertisers in 2026. Their consistent spends point to a category that has made the IPL central to its visibility strategy.

A large part of this dominance is underpinned by the sheer size of the underlying market. Today, pan masala market stands at a market size at Rs 48,455.9 Crore in 2025, as per IMARC Group, highlighting the scale of the category that sits behind the “mouth freshener” label.

Why IPL continues to matter

Industry experts say the answer lies in scale, frequency and cultural relevance.

N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research, says, “Mouth freshener brands leverage IPL primarily for massive reach, high-frequency visibility, and cultural relevance. The tournament delivers unparalleled scale across urban and rural India, enabling these brands to build top-of-mind recall in a low-involvement, impulse-driven category.

He further added, “Additionally, IPL provides a legitimate platform for surrogate advertising, allowing brands to maintain visibility despite regulatory constraints. The association with cricket and celebrity endorsements also helps enhance aspirational appeal and brand legitimacy.”

The ability to combine reach with repetition makes IPL a near-perfect vehicle for the category. With matches played almost daily over several weeks, brands are able to sustain high-frequency exposure, something few other media platforms in India can deliver at a comparable scale.

The surrogate advertising reality

At the heart of the category’s dominance lies the well-established practice of surrogate advertising.

Samit Sinha, Founder & Managing Partner, Alchemist Consulting says, “This so-called ‘mouth freshener’ dominance in the IPL is, in reality, a euphemism for surrogate advertising by paan masala brands. Names like Vimal and KP Paan Foods are not building elaichi or confectionery brands in the true sense; they are sustaining and reinforcing recall for their core tobacco-linked products through legally permissible proxies.”

Much like alcohol brands advertising soda or bottled water, the intent here is widely understood by consumers, which is why the recall seamlessly transfers to the parent brand rather than the advertised product, as per him.

He adds that the strategy is driven as much by necessity as by opportunity. “This is a high-consumption, deeply penetrated category, particularly in North India, and a mass-reach platform like the IPL delivers exactly the kind of scale and demographic alignment these brands seek. When you combine that with the restrictions on direct advertising, surrogate routes become not just an option but a strategic necessity.”

High spends, focused bets

The centrality of IPL in the media mix is reflected in the scale of investments. Chandramouli estimates that “for leading mouth freshener and pan masala brands, IPL typically accounts for 25 percent to 40 percent of their annual advertising spend. In more aggressive growth phases, this can go up to 50 percent or more, as brands prioritize IPL as a high-impact, short-duration investment to dominate share of voice and drive immediate demand.”

This is not a scattergun approach. The spends are sharply aligned to a defined audience cohort. “The primary target cohort comprises male consumers aged 18–45 in Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural markets, where consumption of mouth fresheners and adjacent categories is highest,” Chandramouli says. “IPL’s broad reach also enables brands to tap into a secondary, younger aspirational audience, using premium variants and celebrity-led campaigns to reposition themselves as lifestyle products.”

Frequency, legitimacy and impact

Nisha Sampath, Managing Partner, Bright Angles Consulting, says the IPL offers a rare combination of reach and signalling power. “The mouth freshener category targets a mass male audience that skews into Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. IPL is one of the few platforms that can deliver this audience at national scale, combining reach across television and digital with high engagement.”

She adds that repetition is critical for the category. “These brands also operate within the constraints of surrogate advertising. As a result, they rely heavily on repetition to build and sustain brand recall. IPL’s format, with matches played almost daily over several weeks, offers sustained, high-frequency exposure that is difficult to replicate elsewhere in Indian media.”

Beyond visibility, the association with a premium sporting property carries symbolic value. “IPL is a premium sporting property, and association with it lends a degree of legitimacy to the category, which it is always seeking. For brands that cannot advertise their core products directly, this kind of contextual credibility becomes especially valuable.”

Regulatory questions remain

The category’s strong presence also keeps it under scrutiny. Sampath notes that regulatory attention on surrogate advertising has been rising, even as brands continue to maximise the opportunity.

Sinha frames it as a structural issue rather than a marketing one. “Whether this constitutes a loophole or a systemic gap is more a legal and ethical debate than a marketing one. Marketers will inevitably operate within the boundaries of what is permitted; if a workaround exists, it will be used.”

For now, the data suggests continuity over disruption. Mouth fresheners may have ceded the top spot in IPL 19, but their double-digit share and continued dominance among advertisers indicate that the category remains deeply embedded in the league’s commercial playbook.