Reliance touts 'brain mapping' to lure IPL advertisers after Disney merger

Reliance-Disney entity focuses on revenue with IPL, targeting small businesses and using neuroscience studies for ad engagement.

After striking an $8.5-billion media merger with Walt Disney, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is targeting small businesses and promoting unconventional neuroscience studies to boost its revenues from the IPL, the world's most valuable cricket league.

The pricey broadcast rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) and other cricketing events which cost Disney and Reliance nearly $10 billion in recent years, are set to weigh big on the merged group, which is India's biggest entertainment giant.

Battling competitors Netflix and Amazon in the $28-billion market, the Reliance-owned venture is holding a month of closed-door seminars in seven Indian cities to woo small companies to become IPL advertisers, offering ad packages worth $17,000.

"Ads are integral to IPL coverage," the company said in one document that set its streaming service a target of reaching 40 million smart TVs and 420 million mobile devices during the IPL, set to run for 60 days from March 22.

The document shows Reliance is privately pitching advertising agencies with "brain mapping" research that it says analysed the brain cells, or neurons, of participants to show its streaming ads have a higher engagement rate than Google.

Five media executives and Reliance sources, and two company pitch decks, revealed its focus on adding small advertisers as it beefs up digital ad inventory to increase streaming revenues, in strategies Reuters is the first to reveal.

"You have to make money," said one company executive familiar with the thinking behind the effort.