A story that I had penned for Dataquest Magazine..

1. Cover Story
Sell?
Can They
Celebrities seem
to be peddling
everything,
from innerwear to
hardware, but can
they make you part
with your moolah
when it comes to a PC
or a mobile? airports: people go in a tizzy whenever there is a cricketer
or a Bollywood star around. To state that Indians are star-
T
struck would by no means be an exaggeration. We are an
he air was laden with nervous excitement at obsessed nation, keeping a tab on what our stars do, what
Ballroom 1, Taj Lands End in Mumbai. It was they eat, what they use…
an unusual sweaty February afternoon and yet Little surprise then that celebrities know their power
the room was full of journalists and the rest. and use them smartly too and the game is known as ce-
The press invite promised ‘premiere of Compaq Presario’s lebrity endorsements. The trend caught on in the late
latest blockbuster starring India’s biggest superstar’. The eighties or so, when television truly arrived in India. It
corporate communications people would not reveal any- was then that advertisers started using celebrities (namely
thing else, preferring to keep that ‘you will be shocked and film stars) to increase awareness for their products. And
bewildered’ kind of smug expression on their faces. The just after the Indian cricket team trounced West Indies at
event started, HP India’s head honcho spoke briefly about Lords by 43 runs to pick up the Prudential Cup in 1983,
the achievements and emphasized how historic the day advertisers knew they had 11 more people to peddle their
was. The music and lights at the back went berserk for a products. Thus, Kapil Dev was signed up for a host of ad-
brief while and out of the prop emerged Shahrukh Khan, vertisements ranging from BSA SLR bicycles to Palmolive
the reigning Bollywood star, in a black leather jacket. shaving cream (‘Palmolive da jawaab nahin’) and so were
A hush descended upon the gathering, with the flash- his other teammates.
bulbs bursting ever so rapidly. Shahrukh muttered a few
words on Compaq and its affordable PCs for the Indian mar- A Heady Concoction
ket. Posed for a few more photo-ops, answered a few ques- Over the years, celebrity advertisements as a trend gained
tions and zoomed away presumably to his posh villa next solid ground and evolved into celebrity endorsements.
door, leaving the gathering much content and overawed. The difference between the two, endorsement and adver-
This is the effect celebrities have on Indian audiences. tisement, is minor but significant. By endorsing a prod-
Even sane and serious individuals are known to swoon in uct, the celebrity not only appears in the adverts (like in
the presence of celebrities. The effect is most evident at advertisements) but also becomes a brand ambassador
36 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication

2. endorsing 35 different products. The result is there
for all to see,” says Deepak Advani, senior VP and
chief marketing officer, Lenovo. Lenovo was one
of the first few IT companies in India to use ce-
lebrities in a big way.
Meanwhile, HP also seems to be pretty
happy with the response to the Shahrukh
adverts. “Shahrukh is the right choice as
his popularity cuts across gender, age, ge-
ographies. He is a technology buff, and a
content Compaq user. The association helped us to
leverage his popularity among the masses to educate on
the proposition of empowering people with their PCs,”
of sorts. He or she is mentions Shuchi Sarkar, head (Marketing), Personal Sys-
supposed to know about tems Group, Hewlett-Packard India.
the product and is often seen at
different company events. Endorsements Peaks and Pitfalls
are pretty common for white goods (like consumer Using a celebrity is like treading a fine line, as there are
durables) or the FMCG sector, as the products require a a variety of things one needs to assess before going in for
higher brand recall. Thus a Coco Cola needed Hritik to such endorsements. Do celebrity endorsements make
counter Pepsi’s Shahrukh. sense for IT products? “They do make sense. If it is an
But an IT product company like HP signing on a ce- Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan or Hritik Roshan, it
lebrity is indeed a surprise. The dynamics of the industry surely makes sense, as they are known to be quite discern-
are quite different; a person would buy a laptop based on ing in nature. Take Aamir Khan for that matter, who is
two main criteria, cost and configuration. Hence, debates quite a clever guy, you could put him on a forum with a
were plenty on whether Shahrukh would help Compaq. bunch of industrialists and he will hold his own against
Some even suggested that the move
was a defensive one, in response to a “Celebrity endorsements do
Chinese company’s push into Indian make sense for IT products.
market.
If it is an Amitabh Bachchan,
Quite a ‘Saif’ Choice Shahrukh Khan or Hritik
In 2005 a relatively unknown com- Roshan, it surely makes sense,
pany from China, Lenovo, created a
buzz across the world by buying out as they are known to be quite
IBM’s PC division for $1.25 bn. Sud- discerning in nature. These
denly it was in the big league, and yet guys are very savvy in terms of
it was not widely known. While in the
Western markets the transition hap- hardware, computers, IT, etc”
pened quite steadily, the story in India Prahlad Kakkar, CEO, Genesis
was a wee bit different. Thanks to the
dumping of products by Chinese companies; the ‘made in them. These guys are very savvy in terms of hardware,
China’ tag reads ‘cheap and unreliable’ in India. computers, IT, etc. In fact Amitabh Bachchan is a known
To counter this impression in India, Lenovo decided collector of sophisticated toys, they enamor him to the
to enlist the services of Saif Ali Khan. After quite many extent that if you give him a new gizmo, he will sit with it
years, Saif had found his foothold in the Indian film in- for hours to figure out how it works,” says adman Prahlad
dustry and was finally in the reckoning for the big league. Kakkar, CEO, Genesis. He has been associated with ce-
Also, he had a much cleaner image in comparison to his lebrities for a long time with ads like Pepsi, et al.
peers. Lenovo snapped him on, with sister Soha Ali Khan, “A celebrity does not guarantee success. The main issue
and splashed them all over town. is the idea. I think Lenovo has done a fine job in bringing
“The association with Saif is great. He has a healthy im- the idea out and there is not much dependence on Saif.
age and, more importantly, is choosy about endorsing prod- He is a part of the whole story and not merely peddling a
ucts. We did not want to associate with a celebrity who was product. Take for instance the face recognition commer-
DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication February 15, 2007 | 37

3. Cover Story
What the Gurus say…
Prahlad Kakkar Piyush Pandey
On celebrity endorsements On IT and celebrity
Obviously, it works. Otherwise they would not be used as Celebrity and computers are quite a credible match, as everyone
regularly. Though, let me tell you, that a great majority of uses a computer. The important issue is the idea.
advertisements are not celebrity driven, I have a feeling that
not more than 10-12% are actually celebrity driven and the
Big money at stake
If you are paying that kind of money, you should be working very
rest are your everyday ads. Now look at the power of celebrity
hard on it. It is like having a bad movie script and signing on
endorsements, the perception today is that 90% of all ads are
Amitabh Bachchan. As no Mr Bachchan can really save you if
celebrity driven though it is quite the opposite. That means
your script is really bad. So all depends on how good is the match
that the only ads that one remembers are the ones that have
between the brand and the celebrity and what is the best balance
celebrities in them. Thus, celebrity endorsements do work,
between the brand, the celebrity and the idea.
otherwise people would not be paying that kind of money to a
celebrity, the difference is too huge. Celebrity endorsements do Celebrity endorsements in India
pay otherwise businesses would not shell out so much money Lot of celebrities are used in America, ditto for South East Asia. It
for them. is like this, if you have a good idea, who would not want a good
actor? But yet again, let me emphasize on the need for a good
Celebrity towering over the brand
script otherwise nobody benefits—neither the brand nor the
There is a danger in that aspect also, the celebrity is so big that
celebrity. When a celebrity gets accolades for those lovely ads,
it completely vampires the product. That is a creative solution,
take the case of Abhishek Bachchan for Motorola, then you feel it is
if your creative is weak then the celebrity will tower over and
a win-win situation for every one.
if the creative is strong then he or she becomes part of the
whole presentation. You cannot be lazy just because you have a
celebrity, in fact one has to work all the more harder to justify the mar and Yuvraj Singh quite well to sell X-Box 360. The
presence as the brand needs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and product instantly caught on the fancy of the Indian users.
not five steps behind.
Mobility Wars
cial that is running now, it is a very straight benefit of how While IT companies might be new entrant in the celebrity
a computer recognizes you. As I said earlier, it all depends endorsements game, mobile companies, both operators
on the idea that you have,” says Piyush Pandey, executive and OEMs, have been cavorting celebrities for sometime
chairman and national creative director, O&M. He is re- now. Airtel has extensively used celebrities in the past and
nowned for the Fevicol and Cadbury campaigns. continues to do so. The company used both Shahrukh and
But adman Alyque Padamsee warns about selecting Sachin to spread the word about its products. Hutch was
the right celebrity, as it can be quite crucial to the message relatively slow on the celebrity front, letting its pug talk
that is spread. “The important thing is to choose the right about the benefits. Even then, Hutch has employed the
celebrity for the right product. Using tech savvy celebri- Indian cricket captain, Rahul Dravid, for endorsements. It
ties like Shahrukh and Saif for computers is a good choice. used Dravid for the launch of its voice services and special
But it would not be really advisable to enlist Sachin Ten- brand promotions like ‘World Cup Jao’ etc.
dulkar to promote a computer brand, as his persona does Tata Indicom has also decided to woo the Indian au-
not really match with the product,” he says. dience in a big way through the Bollywood couple, Ajay
Finally, there must be a need for a celebrity. For in- Devgan and Kajol. In the past the company had signed
stance, product launches suit well with celebrity style en- on Saurav Ganguly and Irfan Pathan, but since both of
dorsements. In this regards, Microsoft used Akshay Ku- them went through a slump, the company simply dumped
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4. Cover Story
them for the Devgans. In fact, at the launch of Tata Indi-
com’s online store, Daryl Green, CEO, Tata Teleservices, Alyque Padamsee
was unusually joyful in the company of Kajol, stating that On celebrity endorsements
he was grateful to the couple for endorsing the products. Celebrity endorsements work in India.
“The brand association has been a resounding success,” The important thing is to choose the
he said. Meanwhile, Kajol could not even recall the Tata right celebrity for the right product. Using
Indicom phone that she used, “it is a nice black one,” she tech savvy celebrities like Shahrukh and
stated. Reliance is another company that has used celebri- Saif is a good choice. But it would not
be really advisable to say use Sachin
ties extensively: first it was Virender Sehwag and now it
Tendulkar to promote a computer product, as his persona does not
is Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Though it was not really re- really match with the product. There must be a kind of bonhomie
nowned for the creative aspect in its campaigns. between the product and the celebrity.
On the OEM front a resurgent Motorola signed on Ab-
hishek Bachchan to reach the youth. Somehow the cam- Challenges
The challenges can be quite daunting as one needs to pay attention
paign does not seem to have been much of a success, as
to the idea and not get carried away with the celebrity, and this is
they are back to using creative without celebrities. Nokia
where many falter.
and Sony, meanwhile, seem to be fairly reluctant to use
a celebrity to promote their brand. The small players are Big money at stake
also using celebrities, albeit the not so shining ones. Take Celebrities come at a price. The choice of a celebrity is dependent
the case of Fly Telecom, it used Malaika Arora-Khan for on the business needs. Are you launching a product, or is it a
branding exercise? It is important to weigh the cost of using a
launching their product. And therein lies another
celebrity vis-à-vis the expected returns.
lesson: aim big. It is no use really spending money on a
Even sane and serious individuals are not-so-happening celebrity.
known to swoon in the presence of
celebrities. To state that Indians are Global Choice
Internationally, celebrity endorsements is a big ball game.
star-struck would by no means be an Take the case of Tiger Woods, he became the highest paid
exaggeration. We are an obsessed athlete in terms of endorsements when he signed a five-
year, $100 mn deal with Nike. According to reports his
nation, keeping a tab on what current relationship with Accenture is not as much, but
our stars do, what they significant in monetary terms. Accenture has been us-
eat, what they use… ing these international commercials quite successfully
in different geographies like India. Canon has signed
up tennis ace Maria Sharapova for promotion of the
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5. Cover Story
“A celebrity does not
guarantee success.
The main issue is
the idea. He (Saif) is
a part of the whole
story and not merely
peddling a product.
Take for instance the face recognition
commercial that is running now
(Lenovo), it is a very straight benefit of
how a computer recognizes you.”
Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director, O&M
Powershot range of cameras and these commercials can
be viewed in India as well.
Meanwhile HP is using the hip-hop star Jay-Z for their
“computer is personal again” campaign. Lenovo has tied
up with Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho for advertising
campaigns for China and South East Asia.
Abhishek Bachchan might be the Indian face of Mo-
torola; internationally, the company has celebrity
spokespersons like rock star Bono (U2), and soccer
player David Beckam. Some years back, T-Mobile
had signed up Catherine Zeta-Jones for a $20 mn Even sane and serious individuals are
spokesperson deal, making her one of the highest paid known to swoon in the presence of
celebrity. In terms of money, IBM had reportedly spent celebrities. To state that Indians are
$40 mn in an ad campaign involving MASH (television
series) actors a few years back. Thus, using celebrities for star-struck would by no means be an
endorsements is a very much global trend. exaggeration. We are an obsessed nation,
keeping a tab on what our stars do, what
Money and More Money
Celebrities don’t come cheap, even the Indian ones. they eat, what they use…
According to media reports, Shahrukh charges around
Rs 5 crore per annum for brand endorsement, whereas
Saif charges around Rs 2 crore. The Lenovo adverts also
feature Soha Ali Khan, who is believed to charge Rs 35- floating on the Internet: “Sehwag ki maa ko bulao,
50 lakh for an endorsement deal. Now that Lenovo has Sachin ko Pepsi pilao, Ganguly ko Chawanprash khilao,
signed up Saif and Soha again, there must have been a Kaif ko Lays khilao, Dravid ko Castrol pilao, magar India
revision in those rates. In fact, now specialist celebrity ko jitao..” (referring to the different endorsement deals of
management companies have emerged that mainly deal the Indian cricketers). In fact, ‘Sehwag ki maa’ (Sehwag
with managing a celebrity’s endorsement deals. and his mother) jokes became immensely popular after
But does all this money make sense? “There is a greasy the Reliance advertisement based on the same theme. To
baniya sitting behind each company and if he ready to be honest, Sehwag became a butt of ridicule, every time
pay so much, then indeed it must be making sense,” says he failed. Undoubtedly, Reliance dropping him must have
Kakkar in his inimitable style. been quite a relief for him.
Quite similarly, the day Reliance signed up Indian
Dropped Catches wicket keeper Dhoni for an endorsement deal, due to his
Of late, as the fortune of the Indian cricket team was go- poor performance the earlier day, BBC carried a small
ing through a downslide, there was this humorous quote news feature, belaboring the performance of Dhoni and
42 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication

6. Cover Story
stating that if Reliance is as reliable as Dhoni, then god
help the company.
Kodak had also signed up Katrina Kaif for an en-
dorsement deal in India, but later on did not renew
the engagement. “Katrina was associated for our styl-
ish V series digital camera. Our aim was focused to-
wards creating the right association with the brand
image of the V series, which was compact, stylish
and chic. Katrina fitted that perfectly and hence
we went ahead with this strategy,” said Ravi Kara-
mcheti, managing director, Kodak India. But he
declined to state the reasons why the contract
was not renewed.
Shifting Fortunes
Talking about shifting for-
tunes in terms of celebrity
endorsements, the names
of two Indian cricketers
instantly come to
mind, though due to
diametrically opposite
reasons. First Sachin
Of late, as the fortune
Tendulkar, his brand of the Indian cricket
IBM had enlisted the
sale-ability has been on team was going through services of Dia Mirza for emceeing
the wane of late due to
his mediocre perform-
a downslide, there their event, when Sam Palmisano had come
ances. Though, Canon was this humorous visiting. Sun Microsystems had also taken on
Perizad Zorabian for a dealer event. Compaq
has recently signed up quote floating on the has innovated a product placement strategy
Sachin as a brand am-
bassador, but it has been
Internet: “Sehwag ki on the Kaun Banega Crorepati show. Not
at fairly lower value. On maa ko bulao, Sachin ko only is the Lenovo ‘computerji’ replaced by a
Compaq, host Shahrukh frequently requests
the other hand, the ma- Pepsi pilao, Ganguly ko “Compaq daro” (brother in Tamil and other
jestic return of Saurav
Ganguly is landing him
Chawanprash khilao, Kaif regional languages) to check the answers
endorsement deals now. ko Lays khilao, Dravid ko given by the contestants… “KBC is a new
thing we have just done with SRK. Watch
He has recently been Castrol pilao, magar India this space for some more exciting stuff,”
signed up by TCL.
This is a harsh real-
ko jitao..” promises Sarkar.
ity of celebrity endorse-
ments: the performance Selli-brate
of a celebrity dictates his market status. A few years back Coming back to the point where we started from, does
companies would have paid anything to sign on Sachin, celebrity endorsements work for IT products? It does, but
and now quite many are shy of doing so. there is a difference between the kill and the overkill.
When Compaq had signed on Shahrukh, he was in the
Innovative Trends news for an advert for Lux bathing soaps, wherein he is in
If you thought that glitzy commercials were all that were a bathtub surrounded by a bevy of Indian actresses. On
there to celebrity endorsements, then you couldn’t be being queried about the difference between endorsing Lux
more mistaken. A lot of IT companies use celebrities for a and Compaq, Shahrukh kidded, “I cannot sleep in a bath-
small stint, without really signing them on. For instance, tub with Compaq.” Indeed he can’t, but he must be sleep-
Microsoft hosted a Bollywood extravaganza, with stars ing quite soundly after signing the deal with Compaq.
like Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra,
—Shashwat Chaturvedi & Rajneesh De
etc to mark the launch of Vista in India. maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
44 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication