A starless sky

The ongoing doldrums that the major brands are in due to India's, well, unfortunate and apalling performance in the Cricket World Cup has made me analyse the advertising industry in a different light.

The advertising in India is heavily dependent on Cricket and cricket stars. I am not saying that it was foolish of them to invest such huge sums in the ongoing World Cup. But that there are very few as lucrtaive alternatives (apart from the saas-bahus of course).The brands which had put their money in KBC-3 would be sporting a coy smile and would also be having a sense of relief that they did not buy the space on WC.

There are always good decisions, bad decisions and a few unlucky ones to; but what is most discerning is, now that India is out of the WC, the brands are doing disaster mangement. Dhoni ads off air, ditto with Rahul Dravid and others. There are a few brands who have revoked their contracts with the cricket stars. All kinds of possibilities are being looked into, even Sachin retiring!!!!! I will use the word which both Bangladesh Captain Habibul Bashar and Muralitharan used for the Indian team, "rattled".

Yes, we were rattled then and it seems that the ad industry is also "rattled". Taking ads related to cricket off air does make sense, no doubt, but the point is, there are no back up plans...no one to fall back upon(similar to team India, they had no back up plans once the bangladesh batsmen decided to charge the bowlers). Now, they'll rush to find an SRK, an AB to be the makeshift brand ambassadors. And it's a very evident fact that a Dhoni or a Yuvraj are bigger stars than say a John Abraham. They carry a higher brand equity, so it would be difficult for these brands to find suitable replacement for them and that too at a similar price.

One might argue that the TRPs of the soaps are fetching good returns. But that is not the point I am trying to make, I am saying that the ads themselves fall back upon the same names over and over again to carry their brands. For the record, both SRK and AB endorse 32 brands each.

Another point is, that it is quite possible that the brands might not get so much leverage while the star is performing and the team is doing well, as much as the bad name they earn while the team is not doing too well. As an example, just recently I went to watch a movie and during the interval this ad of Rbk played with our major cricketing stars in it.There was loud murmuring throughout the theater followed by a spontaneous sarcastic applause by the audience.

It is quite obvious that India lacks stars and so whoever are there, are given demi-god status. Hence there is too much dependency on Cricketing stars and movie icons. There is one Sania Mirza and it seems that the whole world revolves around her. We have no rock stars, no formula1 stars.....it's a starless sky with a number of moons. Ad people have to gear up and make a few of their own. learn something from Mark Mascarenhas.

It is a coincidence or what but I came across this article in the Economic Times, while I was writing this article and thought that I better include this comment before I am accused of plagiarism--The diversified portfolio, according to Blah, should be a boutique of young talent, not necessarily from cricket: “Now is the time for marketers to look for other sports which can give them the same brand leverage instead of betting completely on cricket.”