A colleague forwarded a wonderful Nike ad that featured two celebrities and after going home I happened to see some ads featuring Indian Sports and Movie stars, in total contrast to the international ad. This set me thinking on celebrity endorsements and advertisements in India.
We see more and more Indian companies falling into the trap of using a celebrity to get their message across. The culprit in my opinion is the creative agency's' ineptitude. But the client is also to blame for this.
Usually the agency lacks ideas and what is best way to cover it up? A celebrity. I have a personal experience, in the company I work, of the agency proactively coming up with a celebrity creative (with the name of the celebrity of course) way off the marketing task.
Then there is the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) on using a celebrity (he either knows or has already signed one). Most likely this person had fallen into the trap of using a well-known face to stand out when the agency comes with mediocre ideas. Or when attacked by competition with a celebrity, he decides to retaliate with another one.
I have compiled a few ads (thanks to YouTube and the choice of a custom embed player) I have lined up starting with good (first 6) to mediocre (next 3) to bad (last 4).
No doubt a celebrity can get you saliency, make the new brand stand for something and influence purchase intention. But, they don't come cheap and can have a a polarizing effect on peoples opinion. Plus, the brand can sink with the celebrity's reputation.
Here a few pointers on how to make and evaluate good celebrity ad.
- Don't take the fish out of a pond, don't make a cricketer an actor and vice versa (Adidas-Prayers is a good example).
- Don't use a celebrity if he is not adding any value to the brand. (The Acer office ad is something I fail to understand. Hritik is an actor, a damn good one at that. What is he doing in the office?)
- Weave interesting stories around around a celebrity and if possible his star value (Coke-Thanda, Toyota Innova are good examples)
- Have a long term strategy of using the celebrity. You have already fallen into the trap of using the celebrity once. If the celebrity ad was great, rest assured the next ad you make is never going to match up.
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