Star-studded pitfalls: When brands overdo the celebrity hype

New Delhi: The story begins in 1941, when Leela Chitnis dazzled in a Lux soap ad, igniting India's love affair with celebrity endorsements. 

Fast forward to today, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. Over the past decade, brands have increasingly relied on celebrities, capitalising on their massive fan following and trusted personas. 

As per reports, from 2007 to 2021, celebrity branding in India grew at a steady 10% compound annual growth rate. The Celebrity Endorsement Report 2023 by AdEx India reveals that over 25% of TV ads last year featured celebrity endorsements. Leading the pack, Bollywood star Akshay Kumar dominated TV ads with a 10% share of all celebrity-endorsed ads in 2023, followed closely by Amitabh Bachchan. 

However, this raises the question: are we prioritising celebrity endorsements over storytelling and creativity?

Prasoon Pandey, Founder of Corcoise Films, believes that the increased reliance on celebrities in advertisements constitutes the industry's biggest disaster. "Everything has become celebrity-centered," he lamented. "In such a scenario, the idea takes a back seat. We face pressure to generate ideas that align with the availability of celebrities. We are also forced to search for stories that can fit into the limited time they have allotted for the ad shoot."

In India, the blend of product, celebrity, and emotion seems to form the formula for garnering eyeballs via advertising content. Rajesh Ramaswamy, Founder of The Script Room, said, “Celebrities are predominantly used because of the increasing media rates, shorter attention spans, and general bombardment of content. So in a short format, the celebrity completes half the story. You don’t need to establish the protagonist.”

Bobby Pawar, a creative veteran, acknowledged that celebrity usage is a safe bet that brands rely on.  

Another reason for the celeb craze in ads? The marketers' FOMO! As one creative head (who preferred to stay anonymous) put it, “Marketers see others using celebrities and think, 'We gotta do it too!' Sometimes it's just an ego trip.” 

Most times, brands get caught up in the frills and fancies of using celebrities, and the brand, in itself, gets left behind.  

Pandey remarked, "So many times, clients are so focused on celebrities that they neglect whether they have a great idea or not."

Abhik Santara, Director and CEO, The Atom Network, further emphasised that when celebrities are used to infuse a personality into brands, there is an ample amount of storytelling that is employed. It is only when celebrities are used for quick reach that many brands falter on the narrative and rely solely on star power to drive memorability. 

“Nothing can be more misplaced if we see it from the consumer's lens,” he said.

On top of it, with the growth in the velocity of ads by D2C brands, the usage of celebrities in ads is only increasing.  

Santara said, “As every D2C brand needs to scale up faster to please the investor and get faster exits, using star power is an easier shortcut,” while emphasising that to create long-term equity, commitment to the celebrity needs to be substantially long. 

While Pallavi Chakravarti, Founder and CCO, Fundamental, acknowledged the sad reality that today, brands view celebrities as interchangeable with ideas, Garima Khandelwal, a creative leader, added that the challenge is not to make the star bigger than the idea; that's where the power shifts.  

Chakravarti dissed the overuse of celebrities and noted that if everyone is breaking through the clutter using the exact same device, then no one is.  

Khandelwal emphasised that a celebrity is not an idea. A celebrity can only be a means to ensure the idea reaches a wider audience.  

She added, “The celebrity of today more than ever needs an idea that creates the ROI the brand needs. So that it is not just ‘another celebrity in yet another ad.’” 

Santara believes that the overuse of the same lazy formula will diminish enduring brands in the future. There will be brands that will have a short-term impact and will vanish as fast as they arrive. 

Often, advertisers lose sight of the big picture when choosing to coalesce their brand with a celebrity who is a personal brand in themselves. 

Awasthi is in tandem with this belief and added that celebrities enhance the idea but an initial idea is necessary before roping in one.  

Most often, brands don’t ask the tough questions and end up depending on a celebrity as a ‘crutch.’  

According to Chakravarti, questions marketers and agencies don’t end up asking themselves are the ones that are tougher to answer but will definitely reap richer rewards if answered right.

To add to this, Santara emphasised that breaking the clutter using a celebrity and gaining immediate reach are two different KPIs. He believes that strong storytelling and endorsements need to be married in order to break the clutter. 

In fact, a recent survey by IIHB revealed that after the T20 World Cup finals, the most memorable ads were Birla Opus and Parle-G, neither of which featured a prominent celebrity endorser. This underscores the true power of celebrity endorsements.

Birla Opus ad:

Parle-G ad:

Emphasising more on this point, Chakravarti said, “Is there a human insight we can work with? What can we say that will actually make a consumer want to stay with the ad? How is my product or service story different? Will bringing a celebrity on board strengthen the story that I want to tell? Is there an organic fit between my brand and the person(s) I am signing with, or am I just shelling out millions without any hope of commensurate ROI? And lastly, if it’s not different, how can we say it so that it hits differently?” 

She added, “The right response to all of these is seldom going to be, Hey, there’s this hot new celeb so how about we grab them before the competition does?” 

How brands can make the best use of celebrities in their ads 

Relatable ads: Brands that don’t use a glorified narrative to put their products and celebrities on a pedestal and deliver them the human way are the ones that sustain the storm of celebrity-infused ads. Interesting instances include the flurry of Dream11 ads aired during the IPL, where the brand uses the two spectrums of celebrities—athletes and actors—to combine their universes into relatable films.  

Another ad that humanises the celebrity is the Bangur Cement ad featuring Sunny Deol, which leverages his catchphrase ‘Daayi kilo ka haath’ and humanises it as he is unable to break the strong walls made with the cement.  

Attention sustenance: Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt’s MakeMyTrip association is recalled by Pawar and so was The Great Khali’s association with Ambuja cement. He commended them for capturing the public’s attention in times where the lifespan of an ad can be quite short. 

Borrowing from the star’s life: Khandelwal cited the instance of Virat Kohli endorsing Too Yumm, right after he declared a break on junk food. She added, “The brand launched at a time when Kohli had publicly said no to junk; it was a seamless fit and an impactful one. While this is an example of borrowing from the star's life, where this becomes unbearable is when there is only reference to the star's life, without an insight attached to it.” 

Interest factor: Titus Upputuru, filmmaker and Chief Creative Officer, The Titus Upputuru Company, shared his experience and said that one needs to have something interesting to tell, and an interesting way to use the actor.  

He added, “When we had cast Akshay Kumar in the Honda Motorcycle ads, I remember making this presentation on why he fits the brand. We drew a parallel between the journeys of the actor and the two-wheeler in India. But we did not stop at that and told stories about dreams that connected with the mass and rural markets.” 

Upputuru believes that, in the rush for eyeballs and garnering attention, if at the end of the day, people remember the celebrity but not the brand, that defeats the purpose. 

While most people think brands need celebrities to sustain their promotions, the reverse is possible too, with the brand’s films creating a celebrity out of a particular character.  

Khandelwal recalled Swiggy’s ads that created a celebrity out of the ‘gulab jamun uncle,’ still leveraging him for their latest campaigns. This follows the long-lost ‘Airtel girl’ featured in a string of their earlier campaigns.