Satyam Marketing

Star model is not a guarantee for successful brand.

Advertising agencies always believe that Star Models or celebrities increase their Ad viewership and companies hiring them for their Ad campaigns too tend to believe that Star Models help in increasing the sells of the particular products they endorse on-screen. But is it true? No it is not true. I believe that Star Models are not a guarantee for successful brands. Do you believe otherwise?

Today every big advertising agency spends millions of rupees on Star Models like Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan, Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, Bipasha Basu and so on. Sometimes they do so because the companies themselves have more faith in Star Models than good ad-concepts driven by non-star models. In fact it has now grown into a tradition in advertising industries that every big advertisement campaign must hire Star Models for the advertises. A brand as Pepsodent that has successfully kept itself in good position for long time without Star Models, now, feels the need to Get Shahrukh Khan on board.

I am taking up a controversial issue for advertising world but here I am giving some points that supports my views that not only Star Models are not guarantee for brand success but sometimes may even be harmful.

Before we start do you remember the television commercial for a Paint Emulsion brand which starred Amitabh Bachchan where he, by mistake, kicks and destroys a small hut made by a child and fills with guilt…? Can you name the Paint brand? No?? May be you can recall the advertisement Amitabh Bachchan did for a Electronics good manufacturer? Hey! He is Amitabh Bachchan whom you know very well and thus you must be knowing the ads he worked for and products that he endorsed! No? Well then do you remember the ad for a detergent powder where a character Lalita-ji played by a non-star Kavita Chaudhary tells you "… ki kharidari mein hi samajh-daari hai!" chances are more that you remember this 20 year old Lalita-ji ad.

Got what i meant to point here? You may love and remember your favorite stars but not the ads they worked for and products they endorsed. Just try to remember the brand name of shampoo which used by Dhoni or Bipasha Basu. It is very hard to recall the brand name of that particular product because we never see television commercial by our conscious mind. Our subconscious mind can not memorize the brand name of star performer advertise because our attention on the star model not at the brand and products. Can you tell me the brand name of  biscuits endorsed by Shahrukh Khan? You May or may not is not a matter but here we can analyze that our sub conscious mind is not ready to grasp brand name of product presented by Star Model.

Try recalling the advertising campaign of Vodafone where no star model or even no human being is available in their commercial. These Vodafone commercials are entirely based on Aliens like characters named ‘Zoozoo’ created by computer graphics. Remember “ Oho Dipika ji aaiye aaiye ye lijiye aap ka saman………………….!"? This television commercial is almost 15 years old but it is hard to forget despite fact that no star model was there but our mind accepted. Parle–G, Hipolin, Rasna, sprite, Mauti car, Glucon–d, Nirma and so many famous brands never had star model in their life cycle but it is still fresh in our mind. People mostly see Star Models in advertise, they get attracted to the model and heroine but not with that brand. That means our subconscious mind is directly biased towards model and heroine not with brand and product.

Consistency and continuity is essential for any advertise to penetrate the customers mind. If any advertisement repeats continuously, automatically customer pursue to purchase .At that time it doesn’t matter for who is brand ambassador of that particular product? Success of any advertisement is dependant on its presentation, theme, background music, repetition and at last the selection of model. Big model takes big remuneration for specific advertisement so advertise agency spends million dollars on remuneration. Vodafone spends nothing on model recently and its success story is here. Big star model is no guarantee of success. Success of advertisement is depends on so many things so expenses on big and star model is definitely loss making activity.

Let’s take another aspect of harm done by employing Star models. Remember the Mobile Service provider associated with Shahrukh Khan? "Airtel" and the DTH service provider? "Dish Tv" (thoda wish karo!). Both are services are unrelated to each other and thus there was no reason that could stop Shahrukh Khan from doing these Ads, at least not until Airtel launched its own DTH services… Shahrukh Khan vouching for Airtel Mobile but preferring Dish TV over Airtel DTH does turn into a negative publicity for Airtel DTH! Agree with me? You must! as the people behind Airtel themselves think so!! and thus Shahrukh Khan is now replaced by Sharman Joshi for Airtel mobile Ads.

Remember the cold drink associated with Aamir Khan? yes it’s "Coca-cola"! Remember the Aishwarya Rai’s first advertisement with Aamir? the one in which she enters the scene and asks "hi I am Sanjana, Got another Pepsi?" you heard it right "Pepsi". while Airtel is an example of Brand switching Models, Aamir is an example of Model switching Brands. If you are an Airtel mobile user and shahrukh’s fan, are you going to stop using it and switch to another mobile? or if you are Aamir’s fan, going to change your cold drink whenever Aamir switches to another cola brand? No!! "Seedhi baat No Bakwas" as a popular ad says, when you shop for a mobile connection you take decision based on call charges, plans, signal strength in your residential/work area, features you require etc and not for Shahrukh/Sharman, Hritik, Kajol or Abhishek Bachchan. similarly taste you like decides your drink.

To summarize why star model may be harmful to brand:
1. Subconscious mind is biased on models and heroine so it is very hard to remember the brand and product name.
2. Remunerations of star models is very high so it increases the capital expenditures
3. Big models and stars are no guarantee of success
4. Models play different role in different advertisements so people can not differentiate their specific role for that particular brand
5. If big model or star flops in his personal life it affects on brand image also for example if Sachin Tendulkar does badly for any test series people’s anger shows up on his brand but if he hits a century it is not going to favorably affect the purchases of that product.
6. We see the television for entertainment not for the commercials so models and heroines are our entertainment, we never treat them as brand ambassador. Above points may be contradictory but I think that big star and models may be harmful for advertisement. Fresh or small model’s remuneration is very low and people are not biased with them so rate of success may increase. Nirma, Rasna, hipolin,Vodafone are best example for it. They say success story by own brand image.