The Fault In Their Stars

Some celebrities endorse as many as 25 different brands – do they manage to make every product stand out as brand ambassador, or is there a sense of celebrity fatigue?

- Christina Moniz

Every time you’re surfing the channels on television, and making sense of the flurry of advertisements, chances are that the one thing that will register is how often a familiar, famous face shows up. Be it Virat Kohli, Alia Bhatt or Ranveer Singh, you definitely notice the celebs even as the ads fly by thick and fast, making it difficult to tell one from the other. There was a time when Sachin Tendulkar was almost synonymous with an MRF or Boost, a time when consumers could actually recall which popular face endorsed a brand or product line. Today, most A-list stars lend their image to an average of 15 brands each, which begs the question – are celebrity-led advertisements becoming more about the celebrity than the product? Also, are celebrities diluting their own brand value by endorsing everything - from toothpaste and soap to mobile phones?

According to a report released earlier this year by corporate advisers Duff & Phelps, the overall brand value of the top 15 Indian celebrities was $712 million in 2017. Actor Ranveer Singh today endorses 25 brands across categories, while Virat Kohli, Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan are ambassadors for more than 20 brands each. What can brands do, then, to stand out? And how do the stars keep their credibility intact?

BREAKING CLUTTER, OR ADDING TO IT?

Brands work with celebrities for two main reasons – to create aspiration or to break clutter. However, in the scenario we are seeing today with so many celebrities vying for attention, they have in fact become part of the clutter. And that, in turn, will have an impact on their aspiration quotient. Brands will, therefore, soon need to start putting the filter of believability into their choices, says Rahul