There was a time when actors on the small screen were seen as the poor cousins of those gracing the big screen. Then the boundary lines started blurring. Models turned into big time matinee idols, erstwhile ad film makers started directing Hindi movies and delivering big box-office hits. Amitabh Bachchan, the high priest of Bollywood, finally blessed the small screen with his BPL and then KBC appearance and it opened up the floodgates for Bollywood. Flop, shunted, unsuccessful, cool, not-so-cool tinsel-town merchants found great marketing sense to get themselves associated with the brand world. They suddenly realised that when their latest releases stumble at the box office, a cough syrup ad here or a innerwear film there could keep them firmly planted in junta memory.
Thus, over the years, they found a new cash-rich part-time role for themselves?commonly referred to as that of brand ambassadors. And once brands started sponsoring movies, the brand world became their favourite hunting ground. They have started appearing with such frequency that time has probably come to ask the question whether they are really adding value to the brands they are championing or creating confusion in the limited memory space of highly distracted consumers.
Today a celebrity is seen anywhere and everywhere except at his own work place. The top notch of them appear in countless categories of products. One finds them in almost all branded programmes?be it as a guest/ anchor, interviewer, spectator, performer or even a judge. In commercial breaks of the same show you will again see them endorsing brands of toothpaste, mobile phone, toilet soap, television etc. And if that is not enough, right in the middle of the show they will introduce their soon-to-be-released films along with other media partners/ brands who either co-sponsor their movies, cricket teams , reality shows and talk shows or simply make an appearance for moral support.
Talking about excesses, look at what they are doing in ads these days. Four Aamirs are riding the same car, two Shah Rukhs are engaged in a conversation inside a lift, and an Amitabh Bachchan and his ectoplasmic self are conspiring to get into a girl?s body to have chocolates. Twin Akshay Kumars are climbing walls to grab soft drink bottles, that too without putting their feet down on God?s zamin.
Some brands have unleashed a mass of humans masked as Sachin Tendulkar or Salman Khan in their commercials. The celebrity mania has started affecting even those brands that created the anti-hero positioning for themselves to stand out. Sprite started its initial campaign denouncing celebrities?don?t trust celebrity endorsement. Sprite bujhaye pyaas, baaki sab bakwaas. Today, a Shah Rukh Khan speaks in a Sprite commercial up there from a podium?Tu Sprite pee, Sprite.
If this side of the celebrity advertising looks hot, the flip side does not appear robust for the so-called celebrities. A close look at recent brand advertising shows that across categories brand endorsements are slowly but sure being passed on to extra-terrestrials (ET), animals and animated figures on the one hand, and to very common, imperfect, an ordinary people on the other. We have seen brands such as Dove reject the glamour world of models and divas in its communication. By embracing the ordinary, imperfect people, the brand has liberated itself from the clutches of larger than life personalities.
We are also witnessing brands being championed by various zoo inmates and jungle inhabitants. A crocodile is peddling Alpenliebe, a pug a mobile phone network, a pack of elephants trumpeting the cause of a chewing gum, a bison playing the hunk for a motorbike. There are simply too many of them to be ignored.
The face of machines and gadgets are now becoming the new face of sexiness. With their immense possibility to reinvent the future for us, machines, gadgets, and their manufacturers are fast taking the centre stage. They are the new heroes.
Bikes are dancing like bipeds; cell phones, by its sheer power to play myriad roles, are controlling the lives of celebrities such as Priyanka Chopra and MS Dhoni, making them look vulnerable.
In a sense, we have started becoming fans of technology and gadgets. People don?t have as much time for themselves and their loved ones as they probably have for their gadgets. People are camping outside a hall not to see a Hollywood mega star or to listen to a messiah, but to attend an Apple Worldwide Developer Conference where new gadgets will be launched. ?Intel?s Rockstar? is Ajay Bhatt, co- founder of the USB flash drive. ?Our superheroes are a little different from yours superstars?, its ad says. These are not lip-service heroes, but the forces behind a move-society-forward-by-quantum-leaps company.
Animated characters and mascots are the third powerful aspirants for the slot of brand ambassadors and heroes. They were the fringe operators for ages, an interesting lineage kept alive in our collective memory by mascots such as the Air India Maharaja, Gattu of Asian Paints and the chirpy Amul girl. Now they have a flourishing community?the politician in the Amaron Battery, Chintamani of ICICI, Bajaj Super Agent of Baja Allianz Insurance and the set of dolls with their tangle-free hair endorsing Livon.They are all emerging ambassadors and they belong to the world of paheli.
But the best of the lot made a powerful debut in the recently concluded IPL Twenty20 championship. They have beaten all the stalwarts of the world of willow and cherry, cool icons of the corporate world and the hot babes and dudes of the silver screen, hands down. They have even turned the conventional concept of a hero on its head. The Zoozoos look like ETs and speak an alien language, yet everybody understands what they say. Their fan following has spread across the world wide web. On YouTube they were real sensations. They chirped in ads, cheered from the stadium gallery, plastered computers and mobiles with wall papers, appeared in the commentary box and offered their wise comments on the matches. Unlike real life heroes they were accessible. One could go to the Vodafone site and be a part of their world. It was easy to find out what kind of a Zoozoo you are by simply logging on.
In a world that is witnessing a relentless struggle to hog the limelight they imported a sense of simplicity and earthy emotion. According to their creator ?what made them so endearing is that they are innocent people living in a simple world unlike ours, and who laugh loud when they laugh?. They could also cry their lungs out when they were hurt.
Of course, the so-called celebrities it seems are aware of this three-pronged competition and are already exploring ways and means to consolidate their position in public memory. Some have latched on to the business of cricket, some are trying their luck at politics, and a few have ventured into the web world of chats and blogs and are trying to get closer to their fans.
Blogs! What an idea! Who knows this could be their best bet to champion their own cause and that of the marketers? brands in the near future.
?The author is vice-president, consumer insight, and HFD, McCann Erickson India