The Hindu Business Line : No cause for celebration

DOES celebrity advertisement push up sales or add to costs? All the celebrity endorsements of products from cars to edibles that we continuously see in the TV seems to serve little purpose except bulging the pockets of the garishly rich superstars and overpaid cricketers.

Naive corporate businesses are goaded by advertising agencies into believing that their brand building fills their coffers to the brim and set their cash registers ringing all the time.

Corporates fail to note that just because an individual is famous and considered a celebrity he is not necessarily an ideal endorser. There is the drawback of celebrity overshadowing the product defeating the purpose of the ad and the cost. Further, the famous endorse innumerable products from cars to soft drinks rendering it difficult to distinguish the different products they endorse but also push the products to the background.

In the graded scale of importance of areas that help the business grow, advertising ranks at the end, just one step ahead of the legal department despite all the hype about this wonder tool. This is not wholly acceptable. Advertising, per se, is an essential component of marketing and in making the product and its virtues well known.

No matter what forms advertisements take, the ultimate objective is to obtain consumers' attention and secure them as customers. No business can thrive without some form of advertisement to reach the masses. Who advocates what product is crucial and often ignored in the euphoria of the halo around actors and players who endorse.

The endorser's profession and expertise should be relevant to products they endorse. A reputed dental doctor speaking on the merits of a toothpaste or well-known chef of a five-star hotel recommending the use of particular edible oil carries conviction.

For carrying the message forcefully and to impact on the minds of the viewers, the advertisements should be ingenuous and novel as in a famous adhesive. There are no celebrities but the message is funny and forceful. But personalities not even remotely connected with the products nor having the necessary credentials to speak on the subject save their fame, championing the product solely on pecuniary considerations fail to evoke any liking.

It is surprising that many big business empires that have grown by dint of hard work and business acumen have given the responsibility for establishing their brand identities to their advertising agencies. Advertising alone does not build big brands unless the products are inherently good.

The average person is too astute to believe an advertising message unless he has personal knowledge of the product. He goes around checks with friends, the market and other users before plumping for the item. Advertising campaigns are generally perceived to be biased and intended only to lure the consumers.

There is a hard lesson in all this for the corporate world to learn that the information presented in advertisements should not be one-sided or misleading.

Big businesses should seldom trust their ad agencies to help them make vital strategic decisions. They should decide what is good for them. With the phenomenal rise in costs of production of ad commercials and the price of these for TV slots, the cost-benefit analysis of any massive campaign is a must.

However effective and attractive the ads are initially there is a diminishing return in a short period. Does not the surfeit of ads in the visual media of a host of products that the viewers are exposed to with no interruption reduce the recall effect?

Does the promotion of a product by a crorepathi relate as well with the common man as one done by someone closer to him economically. If one product engages one celebrity, its rival makes use of another celebrity.

Where does this all end? The visibility of the product sans the celebrities will have the same recall effect minus the high endorsement fees.

It is time corporate companies introspected on the utility of the rat race where the gainers are only the ad agencies and the celebrated endorsers. Ordinary models with `a next door neighbour ' image will carry greater credibility than high paid superstars.

(The author is a Chennai-based

freelancer writer.)

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