Strategic Brand Management Assignment on Celebrity Endorsement of Brands

Submitted to Dr G. Muruganantham
Prepared By: Taposh Sarkar Roll No- 215110075 MBA 2nd Year

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title
Introduction Why Endorsements Objectives of celebrity endorsement 10 brands endorsed by celebrities. Pepsi Lays Mayur suitings Xylys : It Possesses You Nerolac : Painting A Greener Tomorrow Navratna Manappuram Finance & Leasing The Siyaram Celebrity Endorsement Experience Titan Royal Stag References

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3 5 7 9 9 10 12 13 15 18 19 22 24 25 27

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Introduction
Strategic Positioning and effective communication are the two most important mantras guiding brand success in todays competitive marketing environment. Corporate are ensuring all possible efforts to promote their brands and to grab the customers mind share. The impetus is on attracting the customers attention and developing positive associations not just to influence recall but also to induce trial and eventually effect purchase decisions. In a market where advertising plays a vital role in coordinating consumer purchases, it becomes pertinent for companies to induct all possible measures to influence motivate and inculcate desire to purchase, in the customer through an effective advertising campaign. Theory and practice proves that the use of superstars in advertising generates lot of publicity and attention. (Ohanian,1991). The billion of dollars spent on celebrity endorsement contracts show that celebrities like LIZ Hurley, Britney spears and Tiger woods play an important role in the advertising industry. (Dane Shvary and Schwer,2000, Kambtsis etc al.2002). Think of Sachin Tendulkar-he means PEPSI in soft drinks, Boost in malted beverages, Fiat Palio in cars, TVS victor in two wheelers, Colgate Total in toothpaste, Britannia in Biscuits, Visa in credit cards, Airtel in mobile services and many morebrands.

Who is a celebrity ? Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition by a large shareof a certain group of people whereas attributes like attractiveness,extraordinary lifestyle are just examples and specific commoncharacteristics cannot be observed though it can be said that within acorresponding social group celebrities generally differ from the social normand enjoy a high degree of public awareness (Schlecht, 2003).(Anonymous, Business Standard, Dec,2003)This is true for classic forms of celebrities like actors (ex Shahrukh khan, Amitabh Bachhan), models ( John Abraham, Malaika Arora, Diya Mirza) Sports athletes (ex. Sachin Tendulkar, SaniaMirza) entertainers (BarkhaDutt, ShekharSuman) And Pop Stars (Mika,Dailer Mehndi) but also for less obvious groups like businessmen (ex Dirubhai Ambani) or politicians (Laloo Prasad Yadav) Besides these thereare fictional celebrities like Ronald McDonald, Fido dido, gattu, Amul Girl, Pillsbury
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doughboy and the like. Celebrities appear in public indifferent ways. First, they appear in public when fulfilling their profession example Sachin Tendulkar is loved by millions for his wonderful performancein the cricket fields. Further more, celebrities appear in public by attending special celebrity events ex. filmfare star awards, Videocon screen awardsetc. In addition they are present in News, Fashion magazines and tabloids,which provide second source of information on events and private life of celebrities through mass media channels. Last but not the least celebritiesact as spokes people in advertising to promote products andservices. (Kambitsis et al, 2002, Tom et.al. , 1992) A firm that decides to employ a celebrity to promote its products orservices has a choice of using the celebrity as : Testimonial: If the celebrity has personally used a product or serviceand is in a position to attest its quality ,then he or she may give a testimonialciting its benefits. For instance AishwaryaRai endorses Lux by testifyingthe quality of the product as it forms a part of her consumption basket. Endorsement: celebrities often lend their names to ads for product orservices for which they may or may not be the experts For instance SachinTendulkar has been endorsing the Palio brand of Fiat. Actor: A Celebrity may be asked to present a product or service as apart of character enactment rather than personal testimonial orendorsement. For instance SwetaTiwari of Prerna fame (KasuatiZindagiki ) enacts as a housewife for Nirmas ad campaign. It has nothing to dowith her on screen or off-screen image In fact she just enacts the characterand expectations of a normal housewife from a detergent bar. Spokesperson: A celebrity who represents a brand or company overan extended periods of time often in print and TV ads as well as in personalappearances is usually called a companys spokesperson. (Schiffman andKanuk,1997)The reason for using celebrities a spokesperson goes back totheir huge potential influences. Compared to other endorsers, types,famous people achieve a higher degree of attention and recall. Theyincrease awareness of a companys advertising create positive feelingstowards brands and are perceived by consumers as more entertaining (Solomon, 2002) Using a

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celebrity in advertising is therefore likely topositively affect consumers brand attitude and purchase intentions.

Why Endorsements?
Celebrity Endorsements act as a credible means of money burning.This is because this is a world of products for which the value a consumerobtains from purchasing any given variety. This could be for reasons ofsocial standing-People want to wear the right clothes, drink the rightbeverages and use the right fragrances. Specifically a consumer thatobserves messages for two different firms products, one products messagecontaining a celebrity endorsed and the other not, believes the celebrity endorsed product will have more purchases and so be of higher value. Celebrity endorsement is more likely to be observed for those productshaving a high priceproduction cost margin and on a large customer base.In short, celebrity endorsements are more typical for nationally marketedproducts then for local or niche market products and for products such asrunning shoes, soft drinks and the like for which the price cost marginsare apparently large. Promotion of certain products requires co-ordination over multiple customer groups - different age, income, education groups or groups indifferent location. Example Credit Card. With a product of this sort acommon set of advertising messages communicated to all custom is a moreeffective and coordinates mechanism than messages targeted at separate customer groups with common messages. A customer in one groupreceiving a message knows that customer in other groups are also receivingthe message. The challenge with common message is of significant audiencereach in the various customer groups at low cost. Because the celebrity is recognizable globally, it is a low cost way to achieve cross group coordination.

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Compatibility Of The Celebritys Persona With The Overall Brand Image A celebrity is used to impart credibility and aspirational values to a brand, but the celebrity needs to match the product. A good brand campaign idea and an intrinsic link between the celebrity and the message are musts for a successful campaign. Celebrities are no doubt good at generating attention, recall and positive attitudes towards advertising provided that they are supporting a good idea and there is an explicit fit between them and the brand.

Certain parameters that ensure proper compatibility between the celebrity and brand image are Celebritys fit with the brand image. CelebrityTarget audience match Celebrity associated values. Costs of acquiring the celebrity. CelebrityProduct match. Celebrity controversy risk. Celebrity popularity. Celebrity availability. Celebrity physical attractiveness. Celebrity credibility. Celebrity prior endorsements. Whether celebrity is a brand user. Celebrity profession.

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Objectives of celebrity endorsement:

Defining the objectives of the advertisements is the first step. In general, there are four major objectives for any advertisement. Note that not all advertisements need to have all the objectives.

Establish the product need

Establishing a need for a product or a product category is the necessary first step. This is more important in new-to-world category of products. In Indian context, consider the advertisement for Polio Immunization drive - the TV advertisement featured Amitabh Bachan telling that immunization is a must for every child - while people suffering from polio are shown in the background along with healthy kids. This advertisement used a celebrity to create the need for polio immunization.

Another good example is Toyotas advertisement of Innova in India. The TV advertisement prominently shows Amir Khan playing different roles while travelling in an Innova. The different roles - establish the need for such a big car in India. (Note that Indian car market is dominated by small cars - which can seat only four adults, Toyota wanted to establish the need for a 8 seater car in India)

Create Brand Awareness

Once the need for a product is established, customers must be able to associate the brand with the product category. For example iPod is strongly associated with portable MP3 players, Nike with sports shoes etc.. A classic example of this is Nikes use of Michael Jordan advertising for Nike. This advertisement instantly created a strong association of Nike with basketball shoes.

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Set customer expectations

Brand value comes from the customers experience with the product. If the product meets or beats his expectations, then a positive brand image is created, else a negative brand image is created. Therefore it is essential to set the customer expectations accordingly. This is most common in established consumer products - Beauty products, household cleaning products, food products etc.

Create a purchase intention

These are marketing promotion advertisements - Buy one, get one free, or get additional discounts if you buy within a particular date etc.. The sole purpose of such communication messages is to encourage customers to buy immediately or within a short period after seeing

Use of celebrity endorsements to create a purchase intention has been very limited. This is mainly because such advertisements adversely affect the personality brand value of the celebrity. Being associated with a discount deal is not favorable image for the celebrity and the customer.

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10 brands endorsed by celebrities. PEPSI

When Pepsi came to india it had already created havoc in international market with Micheal jacksons advertisement. Pepsi cashed in Aamir khan, Juhi chawla, Remo Fernandez and mahima chowdhury. They came up with several ads that mainly focussed on the age group 1625. Pepsi is known to target young audience where celebrity have huge impact.

Celebrity based advertising works because of societys subconscious desire to emulate celebrity image and lifestyle, "There's a fantasy we almost want to live their lives," said brand consultant Michael Watras. Using celebrities at the forefront of your company is risky business, as not only can celebrities become superseded by another celebritys stardom overnight, but the continual capture and release process of obtaining the celebrity in their prime and hiring a new celeb who has since become the hottest tabloid target, prompts high acquisition costs for Pepsi to not only fund the advertising campaign, but to secure new consumers. Where a new company would crumble under this sort of venture, Pepsi, an established multi-billion dollar company has a proven track record of succeeding using this high-cost marketing idea. This we can see also. David Beckham, Britney Spears, Shakira, Enrique, Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson and Maria Carey were all picked up by Pepsi when they were at the top of their career. Even in India this fact can be seen, after starting up with Amir Khan as its frontline endorser it changed it to the new fame: Shahrukh Khan who got into the limelight due to his craze in the young audience. Pepsi continued with him for over a decade till recently when his contract was not extended as Pepsi believed that he did not fit into their Youngistan campaign. Besides
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Shahrukh Khan, Pepsi also brought in Indian Cricketers like SachinTendulkar, Mohammed Azzarudin, Ajay Jadeja, Kapil Dev, Sourav Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid and lot of other Indian celebrities like Amitabh Bachan, Ashwariya Rai, Kajol, Rani Mukherjee,

Priyanka Chopra, Saif Ali Khan, Karrena Kapoor, Fardeen Khan and Preity Zinta. The new Youngistan campaign holds the newer generation stars like Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, John Abraham, M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and almost whole of the Indian Cricket Team.

LAYS BE A LITTLE DILLOGICAL

Lays, the worlds largest and favourite snack food brand, has steadily established itself as an indispensable part of Indias snacking culture since its launch in 1995. With its irresistible taste, international and Indian flavours and youth-centric imagery, Lays has established itself as a youth brand and continues to grow in the hearts and mind of its consumers.

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Over the years, Lays has become known for its engaging and innovative promotions and campaigns. The brand known for its No one can eat just one campaign has moved its positioning to Whats the programme? making Lays the main food of every programme! Saif Ali Khan has been the face of the brand for over five years, and has recently been joined by the captain of the Indian cricket team M.S. Dhoni. Both embody the youthful energy and appeal of the brand In 2008, Lays launched the never-before Fight for Your Flavour allowing consumers to vote for the flavour of their choice. The flavour with the maximum votes would continue in the market. The flavours have been selected by the Lays brand ambassadors Saif Ali Khan and M.S. Dhoni with each celebrity rooting for the flavour of their choice. In November 2008, Lays made yet another innovative breakthrough the Chip-n-Sauce pack. This first-to-market pack has been launched for cricket lovers as they settle in their seats to savour the best sporting action of the season. The Lays Chip-n-Sauce large pack comes in two unique flavours Chilli Chinese with a Schezwan Sauce sachet and Chatpata Indian with a Tamarind Sauce sachet inside the pack. In June 2009, Lays launched its new positioning platform: Lays Be a Little Dillogical. The new Dillogical concept makes an instant connect with youth caught between the desire to succeed and the desire to remain engaged with certain moments that offer a deep emotional fulfilment. This friction is like a game between the heart and the head, a struggle between what you want to do and what you have to do. Its all about making things that matter to the heart, happen. The new platform has been launched with a series of ads built around the universal consumer struggle between what the mind asks one to do and what the heart desires. A powerful 360 degree approach supports the new TVC, and has indeed prompted consumers to be a little Dillogical.

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MayurSuitings : Stars Ki Pasand

Mayur Suitings is a brand from the Rs 600 crore Rajasthan Spinning &Weaving Mills( RSWM) and is one of the famous Indian textile brand. This 30 year old brand is famous for its penchant for celebrity endorsements. Mayur is having a market share of about 7 % in the 10,000 crore Indian suitings market. Mayur shot into limelight during 1995 when the brand roped in Shah Rukh Khan to endorse the brand. Shahrukh has not reached the stardom during those days but everyone knew that he will one day become the King. ShahRukh endorsed Mayur for 4 years from 1995 to 1999. The ads which proclaimed ShahRukh "Mayur" Khan was a hit which propelled Mayurto the big league. Later the brand was endorsed by Chandrachur Singh, SharadKapoor , Lisa Ray and Virendra Sewag. Mayur is a classic case of Celebrity endorsement which shows both the positive and negative aspects of using a celebrity. Here is a brand that became successful because of celebrity but in the same case, the brand could not make use of the celebrity to its advantage.AfterShahRukh, the brand was not able to sustain the momentum. With ShahRukh, the company hit upon a novel idea of catching the stars with potential to make it big. That may be one of the reason why Chandrachur Singh was roped in. But he could not make it to the big league. Later the brand moved from movies to cricket by roping in VirendraSewag .Sewag was in the peak of the career when he started to endorse Mayur. In 2007, Sewag was dropped and Salman Khan became the endorser. The brand is so addicted to the celebrity that the tagline is " Stars Ki Pasand". On the flip side, "Stars ki Pasand" offers no meaningful differentiation for the brand since the believability of the positioning is minimal. The brand is in the "Value for Money " category which itself makes " Stars Ki Pasand" unbelievable. For Lux, Celebrity is in the brand's DNA. But

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unlike Lux, Mayur could not build that to its DNA even after 30 years of existence. The reason is that Lux is endorsed by all the leading ladies in the Bollywood while Mayur could not afford that luxury. Mayur tend to use only one celebrity at a time ( till the contract expires) . A five or six stars endorsing the brand at the same time could have done wonders to reinforce the positioning but seldom companies can afford that. The failure of the celebrity to perform and excel also has acted against the brand. Chandrachur , Sharad and of late Sehwag has been at the lowest ebb of their career graph. The lacklustre performance of these stars have a huge negative impact on the brand equity of brands like Mayur who solely depend on the celebrity for the strength. While brands like Lux, Pepsi and the like uses celebrity, they do not derive the strength from the stars. The stars usually amplifies the already strong equity of these brands. But in the case of Mayur, the very existence of the brand is dependant on the celebrity. There is no innate differentiation for the brand. In other words , the brand fails to stand on its own. The question to ask is why do customers buy a brand ( Mayur) .People buy for its quality and value for money proposition which are the brand's innate strength. But all the ads of Mayur shows the celebrity and the brand and the celebrity will say " Mayur Celebrity Khan" .

Xylys : It Possesses You

Xylys can be termed as India's own premium watch brand. The brand created by Titan Industries is taking on the iconic premium watch brands like Omega, Rado,Patek Philippe, Rolex,Cartier etc. The brand was born in 2006 gain rapid acceptance in the Indian watch market. Indian luxury watch market is worth Rs 500 crore and is dominated by Swiss and other European brands. There is

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virtually no presence of any Indian brands in that segment. The rising affluent Indian consumer class and the trend towards more expressive lifestyle accessories prompted Titan to seriously look at this segment. Xylys is currently targeting the lower spectrum of the luxury watch segment. Xylys was initially launched as a flanker brand for Titan. Titan which is the market leader in the mid-price segment felt that the upper end of their target customers were moving towards iconic global premium brands. With that intention of blocking any such migration ,Xylys was introduced at the price range of Rs 8000- Rs 33,000.

Titan while carefully analyzing the consumer behavior of premium watch customers, it found that the consumers were highly influenced by the "Country of Origin" association. The consumers loved the Swiss Made proposition and there is a huge association between "Swiss Made" and quality, precision , premium etc. The insight was that it would be difficult for an "Indian Made "tag to impress upon the target segment. Titan thus made Xylys - a Swiss Made watch. Xylys is manufactured at a state-of-the-art factory in Switzerland which has a rich heritage of 80 years in precision watch making.

During the launch phase, Xylys was endorsed by the Actor Rahul Bose, tennis player Carlos Moya and super model Saira Mohan. The basic theme of the launch campaign was the story of how these people tread their own path and became successful. The brand at that time had the tagline " The power of X " . The brand used " X" to symbolize the differentiating factor in the highly successful people. X also denotes Xylys-the brand.

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In 2010, the brand changed its positioning from " Symbol of Success " to " Feeling of Love ". The brand now is talking about falling in love with Xylys. Xylys is currently running a campaign reflecting the new positioning. The brand have also adopted a new tagline " You do not possess Xylys , it possesses you ". The new campaign is a significant deviation from the core positioning of the brand. The entire brand personality of Xylys was changed in the current campaign. I wonder why a brand which is growing should try to change its positioning at this critical juncture. The earlier positioning of Xylys were talking about the highly individualistic expressive nature of successful people while the current positioning talks about how Xylys takes control of such a person. If you look closely the brand is totally off the mark regarding the core values that it stands for. I feel that the agency has not read the brand charter before creating the campaign. The purpose of creating a brand charter is to protect continuity in the communication. The product managers should use the charter as the basis for devising their communication strategies. The current campaign is very difficult to fit into the brand charter.

Nerolac : Painting A Greener Tomorrow !

Nerolac is an interesting brand story. This brand which has a rich heritage of over 97 years is on an aggressive mode in the Rs 2.1 Billion Indian paint market. The company which created this brand was born in 1920 as Gahagan Paint and Varnish Co in Mumbai.In 1957 the company was transformed to Goodlass Wall PvtLtd later to Goodlass Nerolac Paints Ltd . The company was a part of the Tata Group till 1999 when its technological partner - Japan based Kansai Paint Co Ltd took a controlling stake in the company from the Tata Group. Now Nerolac is a subsidiary of Kansai Paints and the company has been rechristened as Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd.

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Nerolac is a leader in the Industrial paint segment of the Indian paint market. The Indian paint market is huge with an estimated market size of over Rs 17000 crores of which decorative paint segment constitutes over seventy percentage. The market is typically Indian which means that it is fragmented. According to a report by the brokerage firm Equity Master, the unorganized sector commands around 35% of the market. In the organized decorative paint segment, Asian Paints is the market leader with a share of 30% followed by Nerolac with 20% , Berger Paints with 19% and ICI with 12%.

Nerolac from the beginning of 2000 has been trying to attain leadership position in the decorative segment and the fight makes it a really interesting brand story. Nerolac had to fight the tremendous brand equity of Asian Paints in that segment. Nerolac is a brand which never hesitated to invest in promotions and brand building. The brand has a really commendable awareness which was created through heavy brand promotions. The jingle " Jab Khar Ki Raunak Badhana ho, Deewaroanko jab sajanaho, Nerolac , Nerolac " still lingers in the memory of the public. Such catchy jingles and campaigns lifted the brand to double digits market share levels but could not bridge the gap with the market leader. It was in 2003 , that the brand made a huge plunge in celebrity driven promotion by roping in Amitabh Bachchan. The endorsement from Big B was a big news at that point in time. One of the major positioning move for Nerolac also happened at that time. Nerolac was originally positioned on a beautyenhancing proposition. The brand talked about decoration and in a plain speaking style successfully associated itself with that proposition otherwise that jingle could not have survived this long. In 2003, the brand tried to emulate the Asian Paint's positioning based on colors. The ads featuring Big B had the tagline " Ye Rang Jo Hain, Zindagi ko Choothahai " ( This color touches

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your life). In my personal opinion, the adoption of a positioning similar to Asian Paints confused the consumer. Although the endorsement of Big B put the brand on a high awareness state, the similarity of positioning had a negative effect on the association of brand and celebrity. I remember reading a report which mentioned that during the Big B endorsement, when consumers where asked about the brand which Big B endorsed, rather than Nerolac, they mentioned Asian Paints. During the late 2008, the brand still felt that it is not able to close the gap between itself and the market leader. The association with Big B was discontinued and the brand went for noncelebrity campaigns.

This year, the brand decided to make another high profile attempt using none other than Shah Rukh Khan to endorse the brand. The brand is now running lot of TVCs featuring the new celebrity ambassador. In a significant move the brand has repositioned itself. In tune with the global positioning of its parent Kansai Paints, Nerolac also adopted the positioning based on environment -friendly attribute. The new campaign positions Nerolac as a healthy paint with no lead content and Ecoclean property. Shah Rukh sells this idea through the TVCs.

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Navratna
Navratna: A very successful therapeutic oil meticulously prepared from a combination of nine ayurvedic herbs for a pure sensorial cooling leading to stress relief, relaxation & a sense of rejuvenation. Navratna Oil is the undisputed leader in its category providing multi-purpose benefits to its set of satisfied and ever growing consumer base. It not only solves specific hair and body related ailments, but delivers superlatively on all desired benefits, like beauty & nourishment, traditionally sought from hair oils. Its unique combination of 9 natural ayurvedic herbs renders optimum cooling and relief from daily mental & physical stress and its related syndromes like tension, headache, fatigue, insomnia, body-ache etc. Navratna brand enjoys very strong association with its brand-line ThandaThanda Cool Cool having found a place for itself in the popular Indian parlance. Navratna oil is available in three variants -Regular oil, Extra Thanda oil and Lite oil. The Rs. 300-crore plus Navratna cool oil brand is already an established market leader in the cool oil market with more than 48% per cent market share in Rs. 600 Cr cool oil category and enjoys the equity as a stress reliever, relaxant and rejuvenating oil. The product extension of Navratna is a part of the brand strategy to grow the brand and add more fizz by its stride. Emami has had a history with celebrity

endorsements. The power brand Navratna itself has celebrities endorsing the brand in respective regional zones. Besides Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, Suriya, Mahesh Babu, Jr NTR, Chiranjeevi have all been associated with Navratna ThandaThanda Cool Cool brand. Emami is stepping up focus on regional markets and chasing higher returns and efficiency on investments in marketing and advertising. Besides hiring regional actors and adopting out of the box ideas to endorse brands, Emami aims to reach to its fragmented consumers with intelligent, unique and smart ways
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Navratna Cool Talc, first of the many brand extensions of Himani Navratna cool oil, built on the characteristics of the mother brand; the USP of Navratna Talc is its coolness. It is also known as Duniyakasabsechota AC,. Navratna Cool Talc protects the skin from unbearable heat in the summer. The brand has been endorsed by ShahRukh Khan once again with the tagline ThandaThanda Cool Cool.

Manappuram Finance & Leasing

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Headquartered in the State of Kerala, Manappuram General Finance and Leasing Ltd (Manappuram) is the second largest listed gold loan company with 7% share of the organized market. Initially registered as deposit taking NBFC, company has changed its status recently to become a non-deposit taking NBFC. Manappuram, a flagship company of Manappuram Group, is primarily engaged in providing loans against household used jewellery pledged by customers. MAGFIL is the first NBFC in India to get a short term rating of A1+ from ICRA (the highest short term rating awarded to any corporate in India by ICRA) and a long term rating of LA+ from ICRA for its working capital limit of Rs. 6 billion under BASIL II norms. MAGFIL has over 1,0o0 branches across 15 states, a staff strength of over 6,500 people, customer base of over 550 thousand. The Star Factor The most popular stars endorse brand Manappuram in every region of our operations. To enhance and reinforce the value and credibility of brand Manappuram, we have budgeted extensively for advertising campaigns with strong regional appeal. The standing and strong massassociation of our ambassadors helps to educate the people about gold loans, in their own mother tongues. The Company has signed on top stars from film industries in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal. Over the year, the campaigns have succeeded in generating sharply higherbusiness in the gold loan category

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The Siyaram Celebrity Endorsement Experience

The Cronje Scandal
In April 2000, the New Delhi police unearthed one of the biggest scandals ever to hit the world of cricket. While investigating a local corruption case, officials recorded phone conversations between Hansie Cronje (Cronje), the captain of the South African cricket team, and SanjeevChawla, a London-based Indian businessman. The conversation in the tapes seemed to implicate both men in illegal betting on a match played in February 2000 in India. After initial denials, Cronje conceded that he had accepted $ 15,000 to fix the match. The news shocked both cricket fans and the media alike - Cronje's face was smeared with black paint on posters across the country. Siyaram Silk Mills Ltd. (Siyaram), one of India's leading textile companies, was also affected badly by this controversy. Hansie Cronje was one of the key celebrity endorsers for Siyaram's J.Hampstead brand of clothing. The campaign featuring Cronje had been running on the print, electronic and outdoor media from March 2000. Siyaram and its advertising agency, Percept, watched in dismay as their celebrity endorser turned into an internationally hated sportsman overnight. The issue raised a heated debate in corporate and media circles regarding the perils of using celebrity endorsement. Percept sources commented, "This mess is horrible." Siyaram pulled down all the billboards featuring the entire South African team across the country. The J.Hampstead campaign was completely withdrawn, almost 20 days before it completed its scheduled run on hoardings and television. The 'match-fixing' scandal seemed all set to force Siyaram and other Indian companies to rewrite the rules of using celebrity endorsement as an integral part of their media plans. Background Note Siyaram was a part of the SiyaramPoddar Group of companies, which had a turnover of $ 209 billion in 2000-01. The group, founded in 1954, was into the textile (yarns, fabrics and garments), paper/paperboards and tyre (rubber tyres and tubes) businesses. While Govind Rubber Ltd. (GRL) was into the auto and bicycle tyres and tubes business, Balkrishna Industries

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Ltd. (BIL) was into the manufacturing of paperboards, tyres/tubes and synthetics. Siyaram's businesses comprised fabrics and readymade garments. Its popular brands included Oxemberg (shirts, trousers and jeans) and J.Hampstead (wool fabric). Siyaram was incorporated in June 1978 as a private limited company and was converted into a public limited company in 1980.

The J.Hampstead Story J.Hampstead was a very popular suiting brand in Europe, renowned for its premium 100% wool suitings woven from rich natural fibers like merino wool, cashmere and woolsilk. In 1995, Siyaram tied up with J.Hampstead for marketing its suitings in India. The company imported the fabric from Italy. It was priced in the range of Rs 1,500-1,600 per meter. In September 1997, Siyaram decided to begin manufacturing the brand at its plants with technical assistance from J.Hampstead. The product was slightly different from the imported version and was priced in the range of Rs 275-1000 per meter. Explaining the reason for the decision, Gangadhar said, "The imported J Hampstead faced two problems: that of maintenance and price. The imported product had to be dry-cleaned and steam-ironed. The Indian fabric can be hand washed." Siyaram earmarked around Rs 50 million for the marketing, sales and promotion of J Hampstead. The first phase of this promotion was in the form of commercials featuring Indian tennis superstars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati. These commercials with the positioning line, 'The finest fabric in the world,' were aimed at positioning the brand in the premium segment. In September 1999, Siyaram held a tennis carnival to promote J.Hampstead, where several Hindi film stars were invited to play tennis with the brand ambassadors.

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Titan
When the first Titan quartz range was launched in March 1987, it was accompanied by heavy advertising. The first advertisement described the Titan quartz as the international watch one could pay for in rupees. Later campaigns emphasized that to find such watches it was not necessary to go to Europe, Japan or America.

The Aamir Effect

Titan announced mega star Aamir its Brand Ambassador, who will be endorsing the range of Titan watches on October 15, 2004. Though the decision had been made to use Aamir, the company was apprehensive that the actor might dominate the brand (Titan) or the message (multiple ownership).

The marketing team at Titan wanted to keep the focus on the brand and the message. A TVC created by O&M was launched in October 2004. With this tie up, Titan has launched a new concept to promote the latest trends in the industry and will focus on watches as an important accessory of style and fashion. It is for the first time in India, that a watch manufacturer is taking this step towards educating its consumers on the different aspects, both in terms of look and feel for time wear. Style today is not restricted only to clothes but has been redefined in the context of accessories that complete grooming. A watch is no longer a time teller but a style statement. Recently Titan has launched a collection of self energizing, light powered watches under the HTSE (High Tech Self Energized) series. A multimedia campaign has also been unveiled surrounding the launch. Ogilvy & Mather has worked on the television commercial, while

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Media2win has created the digital campaign which includes a light-powered website as well as a Facebook app. In the TVC, Khan collects light in a bottle from various sources: at a party; the tail lights of a car; at a lighting store; inside a swimming pool; and from his wife/girlfriends phone. All this light goes to charge his new Titan HTSE watches, which runs on light. On the creative thought behind the TVC, an Ogilvy spokesperson said, How does one make technology warm, quirky and interesting? The creative idea is born from the thought that someone could be in love with light and creates something magnificent and unique from the various sources of light he encounters.

Royal Stag
Saif Ali Khan endorses a liquor brand, Royal Stag from Seagram. The `Hum Tum' star is the first Bollywood brand ambassador for the global brand. He joins the list of illustrious brand ambassadors for Royal Stag, which includes cricketers Ricky Ponting, Stephen Fleming and Bret Lee. Meanwhile, Royal stag will use it's association with Saif for a range of activities, which includes two television campaigns produced by Red Ice-Sujit Sarkar and a print campaign shot by famous lens-man Atul Kasbekar. Seeking to create further brand recall and address an expanding target group, Seagram India has launched a television commercial (TVC) for its brand, Royal Stag with Saif Ali Khan its brand ambassador and a few cricketers in the year 2007.

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In the TVC, Khan will be seen along with well known Indian cricketers such as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, and Robin Uthappa. In the past, Royal Stag has used several cricket stars such as Harbhajan Singh and Ricky Ponting for its print and outdoor campaigns. Basu says further, The TVC intends to further strengthen the brands positioning of Make it Large. The campaign defines the larger than life attitude associated with Royal Stag. It targets the party loving youth of the country, who aspire to make it large in every aspect of their lives and communicates the brand message in a truly fast paced and international way. The film features Khan and the cricketers as members of a rock band. While they are jamming, they feel the need to do something to make their music larger than life. Next, we see the cricketers strolling into a mall. Just then, a masked robber snatches Dhonis bag and runs away. The cricketers run after the masked man to retrieve their bag. As they chase the thief across town, more and more people join them. The thrill quotient increases as the masked thief evades the crowd, runs through heavy traffic and overcomes other hurdles using heavy duty stunts. Finally, he reaches a rooftop and the cricketers surround him. The thief removes his mask to reveal that he is Khan. The Harbhajan ad for Royal Stag has the punchline, "Have I made it large?" In the original commercial, Harbhajan talks about the struggles of his life and working in his late fathers ballbearing plant, and contemplating: "Have I made it large?"

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References
marketingpractice.blogspot.com http://www.titanworld.com/ http://www.theubgroup.com/ http://pepsicoindia.co.in/ marketing-expert.blogspot.com/ fmcg-marketing.blogspot.com/ jimsmarketingblog.com/

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