Brand Endorser Promiscuity!
By Harish Bijoor
I am confused. All of a sudden there is a Big B Blur on my idiot-screen plasma panel. Mr.Big B is out there plugging Parker pens. An intermission then, when there is yet another advertisement shouting its unique selling proposition from the rooftops! And in comes Mr.Bachchan again! This time round it is hands dipped in paint, passing the Nerolac Paints message all across! A couple of seconds later, it is Mr.Amitabh Bachchan in a natty suit. Reid & Taylor it is!
An intermission again. This time, a longer one. There is some intrusive content amidst all this advertising. A daily soap with its daily dose of “rona and dhona”(“crying and washing”, to those uninitiated to the Hindi language)! In comes Big B again. This time a benign presence for Sahara City homes! And then it is Dabur Chywanaprash! Give a wee bit of a gap, and Amitabh is back again! Once again! This time extolling the latest virtue of the latest in packaging from the house of Cadbury’s!
Amitabh Bachchan is all about on TV! Amitabh the brand-endorser plugs in as many as thirteen different appeals. Every one of these brands seem to depend on the mass pull and mega appeal this star of yester-years has commanded! The quintessential Brand Ambassador is here! Amitabh the mega star of yesterday is today’s brand hero. A brand-endorser you can depend on to create the pull. Somebody who is the sure-shot formula for brand awareness scores to go through the roof. We are not too sure of the buy-scores, but then, who cares? Awareness is it!
Add the total duration of appearances that Amitabh makes on the 'telly' every day. Add the number of exposure minutes up right through the week, and it might just as well rival the best of what a Sridevi gets with her all new tele-serial Malini Iyer!
The brand ambassador is not a new phenomenon for sure. Brands of every category have used it in their quest for mind and market-space. Brands have used the tool of the brand icon and brand ambassador in their quest for success over the years.
What started with a Leela Chitnis for Lux went on to categories that took on brand ambassadors real and animated. A Gattu for Asian Paints became as good a brand ambassador and an icon as any person alive or dead!
The brand ambassador in many ways is meant to do different things for brands at different times in their brand life cycles. While Lux uses endorsers who are reigning actresses of the day, every endorser gives the brand back its key proposition of the beauty soap of the film stars (“filmi sitaron ke soundarya sabun”) position a plug and a boost! There is indeed a queue among film starlets of every kind to be featured in a Lux ad. It is a kind of a sign that they have arrived in Bollywood!
Sachin Tendulkar for every Tom, Dick and Harish category of branded item, our ex-health minister Mr.Shatrugan Sinha for Bagpiper whatever (playing cards, soda or Mineral water?) and every start-up cricketer, macho film-star, a rare ex-election commissioner, a rarer still animal rights activist, and even Mr. N R Narayana Murthy, is a brand ambassador par excellence!
Brand endorsement is a way to go! A way to get your brand noticed amidst all the clutter that brands create in the marketplace. Amidst all the noise and hype that brands indulge in so very freely. Brand endorsement is possibly the best way to get the awareness rating of your brand up there in the stratosphere of a clutter-free terrain, otherwise unattainable with the me-too strategies of the marketer at large.
The key question then? Are brands built by brand ambassadors?
The answer is a yes and no. It is a big yes if the brand ambassador you choose and nurture is one that is solus for your category of ‘dhoop stick’ or ‘doodh’ alike. And a big and vehement “No” if the ambassador you choose is a promiscuous one, focusing not only your brand but also three others! Brand ambassadors must not moonshine! Brand ambassadors who focus on one brand can achieve great results. Focused results that will form part of the brand building strategy of the marketer in question.
Brands that use the promiscuous brand endorser who will endorse a car just now, carburetor oil in the next and a panty hose in yet another piece of advertising blitz, do not contribute much in the brand-building process. At best, these endorsements yank up the brand awareness for the duration of the use of endorser-at-large! Few brand-folks realize this!
The brand ambassador therefore works in categories where the focus is solus. Look at the use of Ustaad Zakir Hussain by Taj Mahal tea. Zakir is today an in-built proposition of Taj Mahal tea! Wah Taj! Wah! Brand endorsement works here in the case of Taj Mahal tea as a brick that is helping build a mega brand in the mind of the consumer.
Peek keenly then at a Pepsi, a Parker, a Palio! Brand endorsement in these categories at best helps spur the awareness ratings of the brand.
The use of brand icons such as a Gattu, Goody the tiger and Choco the bear, on the contrary, is use of good strategy to use the icon as part of the brand on tout!
Contemporary use of brand endorsers forgets to use the endorser as part of the core brand building strategy at hand. Endorser-promiscuity is a disease today! Time to sit up and take notice!
What’s the trend then? What’s out there in the future?
Wait with bated breath for the re-invention of the brand icon. Wait for the re-invention of the brand mascot that will be owned 100 per cent by the brand-marketer at large! Wait for the 3D Brand mascot who will look real. Who will have life breathed into it! So much so that you the consumer will call it a “him” or a “her”! You will fall in love with “her”! You will worship “her”! You will recognize your favorite brand by the personality your 3D Brand Mascot will display and embellish all the way!
There will indeed come a time when this 3D Band Mascot of yours will give every Tom Cruise, Dick Whittington and Harry Belafonte a run for their money! The virtual will rule over the real!
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
E mail: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
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