Who’s bigger? Brand or celebrity?

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: Recently while chatting casually with my wife, who in all these years has never expressed the slightest interest in cricket, I realised how keenly she has been following the entire IPL saga as if it were a reality show unfolding on national television. Ask her any question related to the individual teams, and you will be amazed by the speed at which the response is delivered, to the extent that she even knows the slogan of Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata team. Maybe it’s the effect of SRK on women. Whatever.

Knowing very well that India is a cricket-crazy country, one would not be surprised by the extent of coverage these new teams are getting. What does surprise me, though, is how each of these teams has become a household name. Once a gentleman’s game, cricket has become a topic of household discussion, thanks to the over-powering presence of celebrities like Shah Rukh and Preity Zinta. Just proves how celebrities have the power to make something as big as cricket even bigger!

If cricket, which is considered to be second religion in India, can become bigger thanks to the sheer eyeball-grabbing power of celebrities, why shouldn’t brands? Hence, the deluge of celebrity-endorsed brand campaigns.

Celebrities have been involved in endorsing activities since the early 1980s. The advent of celebrity endorsements in advertising in India began when Hindi film and TV stars as well as sportspersons began encroaching on a territory that was, until then, the exclusive domain of models. One of the first sports endorsements in India was when Farokh Engineer became the first Indian cricketer to model for Brylcreem.

From then on, there was a spurt of advertising featuring stars like Tabassum (Prestige Pressure Cookers), Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), Kapil Dev (Palmolive shaving cream) and Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings).

Moving on from there, one started seeing celebrities take along the brands that they endorsed on the small screen onto the silver screen. Whether it was Aishwarya Rai swigging Coke in a scene in Taal, or Shah Rukh driving around in a Hyundai in Don and Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, these brands became extensions of the celebrities endorsing them.