Celeb circus will get more and more maddening

Sheetal Patel - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Advertising agencies, celebrity management companies, event managers, marketing wizards, in a nutshell, the entire jing bang concede that the magic lies in the way a celebrity is marketed.

Rohit Bal, a non heterosexual fashion designer, sums up the brand-celebrity transaction succinctly when he says, "It's simple. I scratch your back, you scratch mine." Rohit's own price depends on the mileage a particular product gains from him.

Bal says, "There's no minimum or maximum, but the amount has to be in lakhs, for sure. It works both ways. Though I am not paid by the Linen Club, we have other arrangements which makes it beneficial for both of us."

Shah Rukh Khan

Shedding light on the Compaq-Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) alliance, Shubodip Pal, head, marketing, consumer personal systems group, HP India, says, "If the celeb is used right, s/he can convert an un known brand into a known one practically overnight, or help a brand stand out in a crowded category, or convert a brand in a low interest category into something desirable."

The concept of 'using' a celebrity often goes beyond the story board and ribbon-cutting. Social appearances, whether weddings or parties or the ramp, you name it they are doing it. But are all the stars game?

Reveals an industry source, "People like Amitabh Bachchan and SRK are too big to take money to appear at parties. SRK takes money to perform at private parties/marriages, here he charges a bomb (Rs 1 crore plus)."

It is no secret that after five flops a movie star is history, after 10 bad matches a player is as good as dead and after an actress ties the knot, she is no longer hot. And yet they have to continue living life king/queen size. They have to keep the cash registers ringing. How do they do it, and how do they work on that 'saleability'?

Saleability, incidentally, is not about performance alone. It is also about personality. In fact, with some perennial stars, you just cannot tell if it's performance that lends to the personality or vice versa. And the market is clued in to this slippery philosophy and continuously struggling to get a hang of it.

According to Pradeep Srivastava, chief marketing officer, Idea Cellular, "You have to intuit the celebrity's value over the coming years. For instance, when we roped in Abhishek Bachchan as our brand ambassador, he had many flops to begin with, but later three of his films did extremely well. You have to predict his progress, and his prospects when it does happen."

Manuj Agarwal, COO, Percept D' Mark, says it is understood that a celebrity's (in this case a cricketer's) performance curve cannot be constant. "Which is why all contracts come with exit clauses. So for a cricketer, we would consider a change when he has not been picked up to play for the country for a certain number of matches in a row."

"But again a decision like that might vary from player to player. In case of a seasoned player, who has given a lot to the game and with whom we have a long-term relationship, we would wait for him to bounce back." Agarwal adds.

But really, isn't someone like M S Dhoni well past his sell-by date? "Not really. A cricketer of that stature never stales. What changes is the nature of endorsements. His name will unfailingly pull crowds at a motivation lecture, a seminar or even on TV commentary." says Agarwal.

Kapil Kapoor, senior vice-president, Asia Pacific, and managing director, Timex India, says, "If a celebrity inaugurates an event, it creates hype and brings in consumers and the media. If there were no personalities at my event, there'd be no media."

Sabbas Joseph, director, Wizcraft, says, "When we began 17 years ago there were one and a half TV channels and about three prominent newspapers. Today there are so many channels and many more newspapers. You can have the best event and the best product but if there are no celebs, you will not get noticed."

Joseph continues, "No one will cover you. Whether it's TV channel promos or the Commonwealth Games, you need celebs to attract attention. In fact, today we are running short of celebs. So the media is now busy creating celebs, through singing contests and the like."

The general opinion seems to be that a star is a star is a star so long as the star-makers stay on their side. And it looks like the prescription is being taken very seriously.

As image guru Dilip Cherian points out, "Now there are people who are celebs because of their surnames. Because of their surnames they are able to position themselves as social icons and can then become entrepreneurs, glamour queens, philanthropists – they move to larger platforms. This is one way to encash on celeb status."

Then there are celebs who actually perform – designers, writers and what-have-you. As Dilip says, they are celebs because of what they do, but after becoming celebs, the speed at which their books sell increases, or the speed at which they get invitations to sing increases. Which in turn means they can raise their rates, and their celeb status is enhanced.

"Celebrities are going to charge for everything now. Earlier film awards didn't pay the stars for performing. Zee Entertainment was the first to pay stars to perform at their awards function. Today, everyone does it." prophesies Sabbas Joseph.

That sounds like a very busy time ahead for stars and their strange bedfellows. As someone said, "This celeb circus will just get more and more maddening."