The end of Endorsements

Suggesting a solution to combat overkill in advertising featuring celebrities leads to a near fatality

BY SUNIL GUATAM

I met up with an old friend on my recent visit to Mumbai. I was seeing him after a long time, but I could still see that something was amiss. My friend was not in his usual spirits. He seemed a bit lost, like a health-food fanatic at a junk food outlet. As old pals, I knew his vulnerability to seemingly ordinary issues of life. He was the kind who would get upset about political unrest in Peru, for example. Once he went on a hunger strike to save the partly-orange-tailed parrot from naughty children at a local zoo.

So though I was not worried about him, I still wanted to know what his problem was this time around. After much cajoling, he started to talk.

“You know how much I love advertising,” he said, “We have been discussing different campaigns through the years.”

I agreed that he had a very keen interest in the industry and loved analyzing different ads and their strategies.

“But now I am not so sure. This use of celebrities is not sitting well with me,” he said.

I tried to explain how it was nothing new and celebrities had been used in advertising all over the world.

“But things are different now. Earlier 3 out of 10 campaigns used celebrities, now 10 out of 10 do.”

“So what’s the problem,” I asked.

“I don’t know who to trust any more!” he said. “Everybody is selling everything to me. Every star wants me to sign up with his telecom company, buy his soap and wear his watch. He is there on TV when I am at home, on billboards when I am on the road, in magazines when I am trying to relax.”

“So you find all this a bit overwhelming?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you?” he retorted, adding “There was a time when we made the choice of when to go and see these celebrities in action. We chose the time and the location. Now we have no control over it. They are all over the place! What’s worse, they are trying to tell us what to do! ”

“But you can ignore all this,” I thoughtlessly offered.

“That’s not the only problem,” he said, revealing his old brooding self, “I don’t know how to react to these people in movies anymore. I am not sure where the actor ends and the salesman begins. I am afraid that one day, in the middle of an emotional scene, John Abraham may just take his jeans off and say, “Hey guys, while I mourn the death of my screen mother, why don’t you take a commercial break and try these chaddis?”

“That is just your anxiety getting hold of you.” I tried playing the cold shrink.

“It is not just the movie stars!” he lamented. “What about our cricketers? Why do I need Dhoni to tell me which phone to use? Who is Zaheer Khan to decide my brand of T-shirt?”

“Well, they don’t force you to follow the brands they endorse,” I tried to explain, “You are free to decide what you want to buy.”

“Bah!” he said. “Free? I am only free to decide which celebrity to follow! There are no ads without some celebrity or the other! I miss the days of real models. They seemed so genuine compared to these actor/

“Gambhir has been getting run out more often ever since he and Sehwag did a commercial together. Now they start giggling in the middle of a run and India lose a wicket!” he said indignantly.

“Isn’t this a bit of overreaction?” I asked.

“Raavan didn’t work because people have already seen Abhishek and Aishwarya sharing a bar of soap in a TV commercial. So the whole abduction and forced staying together had nothing new to offer,” he fumed.

“And?” I pushed my luck.

“Hrithik did MacroMan Baniyan ad and see what Kites left him with?”

“A baniyan?” I tried to guess.

“Salman featuring in a detergent ad, Shah Rukh endorsing a small car, Hema Malini pushing a water filter….where will it all end?” He demanded an answer.

“I have heard that it is all going to end soon,” I said, daring to offer a solution.

“How?”

“There is soon going to be a campaign against the over-use of celebrities in advertising.”

“How are you sure it will work?” he asked.

“Come on pal,” I said, “the campaign features Amitabh Bachchan, how can it fail?”

I still have my friend’s fingerprints around my neck.