How Has the Indian Brand Endorsement Landscape Evolved?

By Dr Kisholoy Roy

This book can well be considered as a sequel to my authored book published in 2017 titled How To Execute Celebrity Endorsements to Enhance Brand Preferences? If my first book on celebrity endorsements was more academic in nature and content, this book of mine is more industry oriented and analytical that can well be considered as a documented commentary of the way Indian brand endorsement space has evolved between 2015 and 2020. During this period certain redefining moments happened to the celebrity endorsement stratosphere like the Maggi controversy, the demonetization drive and the digitization of the Indian media and entertainment business. Lot of tectonic shifts in Indian celebrity endorsements have been observed that have been covered in detail in this book along with offering clear indication as to what more can be expected in times to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr Kisholoy Roy
• Release date: Feb 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463909454

Dr Kisholoy Roy

Dr. Kisholoy Roy is a PhD in Management from IIT (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad. He is a certified Accredited Management Teacher (AMT) who has been into teaching Management for several years now at the post graduate level. Dr Roy has authored several books on management apart from authoring various case studies, articles and research papers. He is presently engaged as an independent trainer and consultant in digital marketing and brand communication apart from his engagements as a faculty in Marketing with various B-schools.

Book preview

How Has The Indian Brand Endorsement Landscape Evolved?

Dr Kisholoy Roy

Copyright 

© Kisholoy Roy

   Year 2020

No part of this book is to be reproduced or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the author

Dedication 

To all those who glorify brands for us and make consuming advertisements a gratifying experience. 

Preamble 

In the year 2017, I authored a book titled How to Execute Celebrity Endorsements to Enhance Brand Preferences?  It was a book that introduced readers to the concept of celebrity endorsements and its roots in India. Various theoretical aspects associated with brand endorsements were discussed apart from of course deliberating on the ingredients that contribute to the successful and effective execution of celebrity endorsements. By and large the book was a product of nearly a decade of empirical research work undertaken by me till 2014 in the above said area. 

However in 2015, the controversy surrounding Maggi, the instant noodles brand happened that grabbed news headlines like wildfire.  The episode was not just about product recall and about the image of one of India’s most revered brand getting dented but it was also about ushering significant changes in the approach and execution of brand endorsements. The controversy exposed certain fallacies in endorsement deals and it made marketers, advertisers and celebrities become more accountable in the context of endorsements. The demonetization episode in 2016 and its impact on the overall economy coupled with the proliferation of digitalization in the Indian media and entertainment space heralded further paradigm shifts in the endorsement space. 

This book titled How Has the Indian Brand Endorsement Landscape Evolved? can well be considered as a sequel to my authored book published in 2017. If my first book on celebrity endorsements was more academic in nature and content, this book of mine is more industry oriented and analytical that can well be considered as a documented commentary of the way Indian brand endorsement space has evolved between 2015 and 2020. Lot of tectonic shifts in Indian celebrity endorsements have been observed that have been covered in detail along with offering clear indication as to what trends can be expected in times to come. 

As an author of this book and as someone who has been diligently covering and analyzing this field for the past 15 years now, I am sure that readers of this book will derive lot of insights and inspiration and for more wholesome understanding of the subject, it will do them a world of good if they go through both my books on celebrity endorsements.

- Dr Kisholoy Roy

                             Year 2020

Brand Endorsements in India: 1970s – 2014

Celebrity endorsements as we see it in India today has a long and illustrious history to tell. The process of celebrity endorsements where a personality well known in the public domain through his or her work is found to spell about the goodness of a product and thus directly or indirectly cajoling the audiences to consume the product started in India sometime during the 1940s. Lux, a brand of bathing soap bar was perhaps the first major brand to execute brand endorsements where the brand relied on the glamour quotient of the reigning female superstars of the Indian film industry to propagate itself in the public domain. For the first time, Leela Chitnis was found to endorse the brand and then few years later, Meena Kumari was found to endorse Lux and over the years, the saga continued. 

One thing over here worth mentioning is that endorsements of brands by popular personalities of the day were found to happen in this country for many years prior to 1947, the year India got its Independence. Freedom fighters and literary icons like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore and many more were found to lend their thoughts to brands that were Swadesi or that were indigenous to this country to promote the Swadesi cause. However such efforts have not been included in the annals of brand communication in India as celebrity endorsements simply because they were not done with the motive of earning money but were more to do with patriotism and for a cause. However coming back to the concept of brand endorsements, this technique of advertising brands in the mass media gained momentum sometime in the 1970s and that is the era when we as a country collectively became aware of celebrities endorsing brands and the effects of such actions. There were celebrities like Jalal Agha, Tabassum, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and many more who were endorsing brands of pan masala, pressure cookers, suiting and shirting, shaving creams and many more. The passage of years between the mid 1970s to 1990 can well be called the ‘Growth Phase’ of the Indian celebrity endorsement business. One major reason that catapulted the emergence of this form of brand communication was the penetration of television sets in Indian homes and thus along with newspapers and magazines, television was the medium where advertisers flocked to this medium to showcase their brands via the endorsement route.