Hey folks any gusses how many brands did BIG B endorse last year??? A dozen, two dozen??? Nah dear its more than three dozens. Yes, BIG B had endorsed 39 brands in the year 2005. Well, its not only BIG B who is being hooked by marketers, there are many others like Shahrukh Khan (endorsed 21 brands in 2005), Amir Khan, Preity Zinta, Sania Mirza & the list is endless… from Bollywood, Sports or Television who are being used in n numbers of commercials these days. As per Adex India, in 2005, the top seven entertainment stars, Amitabh Bachan, Shahrukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Aishwarya Rai, Smriti ‘Tulsi’ Irani, and Paresh Rawal endorsed a whopping 111 brands between themselves, featuring in 202 creative executions for 67 advertisers (Source of this info: Economic times).
Infact the easiest way out to advertise any product these days is just to get the product endorsed by some celebrity. So what if your commercial is having no message, nil creativity & absolutely no meaning, still it will be able to catch attention of consumers because of some glamorous celebrity singing & dancing in the commercial. For ex., the concept of “PEPSI TV”…Has anyone understood the same(If yes, plz explain me the same)? I think that’s the worst ad which any agency can make & I sometimes wonder on the marketing team of the company who approved such commercial. That ad makes no sense at all but the noticeable thing in that ad is the presence of three famous bollywood stars viz., Sharukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra & Kareena Kapoor. I wonder if that ad has made sense to anyone at all??? Wasteful clutter of celebrities, zero brand message & total bakwaas!!!
Now imagine a bollywood king like Shahrukh Khan using Navratna Talc as a substitute of AC!!! I wonder what Shahrukh Khan is upto – Pepsi TV, Chota AC!!! Lets see, what else will come from him. This ad is a total misfit between the product & the celebrity endorsing it. Come on guys, you are playing with the concept of celebrity endorsement itself as no consumer is foolish enough to believe that SRK will be using Navratna Talc & hence using him as your endorser is again a total waste.
Similarly there are ads like Navratna Oil, Boroplus etc. being endorsed by BIG B. These are the ads which have really misutilized the concept of celebrity endorsement & because of this nonsense & meaningless use of celebrities in advertisements, the concept of celebrity endorsement has lost its meaning at all. I can still understand BIG B endorsing Parker but why Navrtana Oil or Pudin Hara where the ad makes no sense at all except for the fact that BIG B is present over there.
The concept of Celebrity Endorsement has undergone phenomenal changes since 1936 when Addidas gave free shoes to Jesse Owens during Berlin Olympics. After that many marketers used this concept as a sure shot way to make their brands successful in the market. In India, perhaps the first brand to use celebrities was Lux but this concept picked up its pace in the field of advertising in 1980’s with Kapil Dev & Vinod Khanna endorsing some famous brands. However, those endorsements were quite appealing because of the right fit of the product as well as the right message being communicated to the consumers. But slowly-slowly the concept of celebrity endorsement started getting over exploited because of the myth of the marketers to consider it as a sure shot way to success. The consumers have evolved & now-a-days we all know that so & so is endorsing that brand not because he believes in that brand or has used that brand rather because he is being paid a heavy sum of money to do so.
Now-a-days celebrity endorsement is being used as a substitute to creativity & right advertisement ideas. Despite the presence of some very famous celebrities, there are advertisements which are total disaster & make people change the channel immediately & at the same time there are advertisements which are not using any celebrity at all but still manage to leave a smile & impact on consumer’s mind like Fevicol, Hutch etc. This over-exploitation & misusage of celebrity endorsement is slowly & slowly leading to the death of creativity in ad world. Its high time now that advertisers should wake up & relook the usage of celebrities in the ads!!!
