Before signing Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the youth ambassador for Dabur Chyawanprash to work along with its existing brand ambassador, Amitabh Bachchan, Dabur conducted some consumer checks to find out which young celebrity represented the values of inner strength and leadership.
“Those are the values that denote Dabur Chyawanprash. The two names that clearly emerged as a strong fit with the brands were those of Amitabh Bachchan and M S Dhoni,” says K K Rajesh, executive vice-president-marketing (healthcare), Dabur India Ltd.
Many other brands however did not consider it fit to tread the middle path and have dropped long-standing brand ambassadors for new ones, who in most cases also happen to be younger.
But it is not easy. One has to worry about the brand’s value proposition in co-relation to the brand ambassador. “If the brand ambassador is overplaying the product value proposition, it is important to change the ambassador,” says Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director, Ogilvy & Mather India.
According to Subhash Kamat, managing partner of BBH, brand ambassadors need to be changed to refresh the brand communication. He cites the example of Tata Tea’s Taj campaign which had Zakir Hussain for 15 years. “The brand got stuck to its association with Zakir and it took them a long time to break out of it.”
A range of brands have taken on board the new generation of celebrities such as Ranbir Kapoor, John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone and Dhoni. Experts say celebrity endorsements surely help in magnifying a campaign, but what needs to be remembered is that celebrity endorsement is a means to an end, not an end in itself. A celebrity is generally used to impart credibility and aspiration to a brand, but the celebrity needs to have a perfect fit with the brand.
Harish Bijoor, brand-strategy specialist and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults, believes the new phenomenon of having multiple endorsers for a brand is a marketer’s archetypal revenge. “Celebs with universal appeal are no longer available and the Shah Rukhs and Amitabhs, by endorsing 30-odd brands at the same time, have led to a disappearance of the single-star-to-single-brand concept.” If one of them were to leave the brand, it will still have some faces on board.
Shah Rukh Khan is no more a part of PepsiCo’s Youngistan campaign. Nor is Sachin Tendulkar, who, along with Shah Rukh, was Pepsi’s face for several years. Youngistan is inhabited by Kapoor, along with Dhoni and Padukone. Some of the other brand ambassador changes at PepsiCo include replacing Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid with emerging cricketers Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma.
Katrina Kaif has replaced Sushmita Sen in Pantene, the shampoo, and Aishwarya Rai for Nakshatra, the jewellry brand. More recently, Genelia D’souza took the Fanta baton from Rani Mukherji.
“A good brand campaign idea and an intrinsic link between the celebrity and the brand message are must for a successful campaign,” says Dabur’s Rajesh. Perhaps that is why Dabur felt that the Dhoni connect with Dabur Chyawanprash and Dabur Honey worked well. “Dhoni is an epitome of a fit body and an active mind, which is the core benefit of Dabur Chyawanprash. So, the brand and the concept are completely in sync with Dhoni’s personality,” he says.
However, an association with consumers built through a ambassador for years cannot be done away with in a hurry. Pepsi used Ranbir and Deepika in a commercial with Shah Rukh for before phasing out the older star. The company has roped in Kareena Kapoor for launching a sub-brand under Kurkure, but retains its old ambassador, Juhi Chawla. “We will not phase out Juhi as she is a part of the Kurkure family,” says Rohit Ohri, senior vice-president JWT who has been associated with Pepsi and has plans to bring back Khan. “We are trying to work out an association with Shah Rukh at a corporate level,” says Ohri.
The association with an upcoming actor or cricketer is usually a judgment call for the brand. “It works very much like the music industry or a film’s casting process, where you go with the instinct,” says Kamath. After all, even the Beatles were rejected at the beginning of their career, as was Bachchan.
The association is also about perception. “Each of our brand ambassadors personifies the brand’s imagery and exemplifies the same characteristic dynamism attached with the brand. They not only possess a great aspiration value with the youth but also mirror the dreams of millions. A long-standing association with our brand ambassadors has benefited us greatly in our connect with the core audience,” says a PepsiCo spokesperson.
The association with younger celebs is also about cost. “Established names cost more and young faces can be a good alternative. The idea behind investing in people is also about the long-term prospects. If that player becomes a star performer, the brand stands to benefit more for having discovered him early,” says Latika Khaneja, director of Collage Sports Management.
