Brand Shah Rukh takes Ad Asia by storm

Move over advertisers! The Badshah of Bollywood showed the 1,200-odd delegates at Ad Asia 2011 that he could be a more consummate seller than them, as he unveiled Shah Rukh the marketer.

Ad-libbing away furiously, he turned every false step (the flag refusing to hoist and the music refusing to play) into a moment of laughter, bringing the house down with his witticisms. As the Ad Asia flag failed to hoist properly, he quickly turned to the audience and said, don’t vote me as prime minister please, as I could screw up things at Red Fort.

SRK spoke on himself as a consumer, an endorser, a seller of his own properties, including his IPL team and lastly as a marketer of brand SRK. Spoofing on his role as brand endorser, he said in his incorrigible way: “I wake up to the beep on my Tag Heuer, check my Nokia phone for alerts which signals I get from Bharti Airtel, put on my Videocon plasma TV, write notes with my Linc pen, wear my luxuriously Cozy vest, call for my Hyundai Santro, admire my glossy Nerolac wall and then gobble up my Emami chyawanprash to give me energy!”

As the audience dissolved into laughter, he quickly added, “One of you can sign me up now for a computer or a cola category as those slots are still free.”

Shah Rukh said that film stars endorsing brands began as a trend only around the time he entered the industry. “Till then, it was thought that an actor loses enigma if he endorsed a brand.”

He said that projecting SRK the brand and how the world perceived him is back-breaking work. (“I have a Titanium disc in my c6 vertebra to prove it!”) . “In this changing world, where everything is maya , it is tough work to create and keep alive a brand’s mystique. One has to constantly update one’s status on social media and keep tweeting,” he said.

“Like you all I believe marketing and advertising is not about fun and entertainment, but about informing people about choices and creating awareness,” he told the audience.

But, as a consumer, he said, he also falls prey to advertising all the time right from the brand of milk he drinks. “Of course, I am lactose intolerant but I fall for the berry-flavoured milk the dream-weavers ask me to buy!”

Ad-libbing further, SRK said he would have retired from it all to a remote island, except for the fact that it’s advertised on the Caribbean brochure being pitched to you.

Ending his laugh-a-minute talk, SRK said his motto is early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise! On popular demand, he closed his talk with a small gig from his Ra.One blockbuster song.

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