Kinu u can write few pages about this.

just
read.
India prefers film stars over cricketers

Gone are the days when cricketers dominated the advertising scene.
The power balance between sports and the silver screen
for celebrity endorsements has shifted almost entirely to Bollywood, a
fact revealed when ET scanned through five-year data collated by
media tracking firm TAM AdEx.

Surprisingly, this is despite the huge success of the Indian Premier

League (IPL). Here are the hard facts:

The number of brands endorsed by Sachin Tendulkar has dropped

from 10 to 6 over a period of five years, Rahul David’s endorsements
have slipped from 12 to 5 and Sourav Ganguly barely has a couple to
his credit, down from 9 in 2003.

The only exceptions are MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, who have grown
their endorsements year-on-year. The promising younger lot, which
was much talked-about during the IPL debut season, hasn’t found any
significant takers either.

Shah Rukh Khan’s endorsements have gone up from 6 to 18 in the

same period, Hrithik Roshan’s have increased from 1 to 11 and Saif Ali
Khan’s deals have doubled from 4 in 2003 to 8 now.

Even Big B Amitabh Bachchan, who has gone down the power list in
the last two years, has managed 10 endorsements, which is higher
than all the cricketers except Dhoni, who has 15 existing deals and is
still counting. Other Bollywood stars like Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar,
Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham have between 3
and 7 deals in their pockets.
PepsiCo has signed up the maximum number of movie stars this year.
The list includes Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif.
What’s more, the company has dropped Tendulkar, Ganguly and
Dravid from its list. PepsiCo marketing executive director Punita Lal
said: “Pepsi will continue to leverage cricket as a platform; but it’s a
fact that Bollywood is ahead of cricket in terms of endorsements.”
Rival Coca-Cola, a heavy advertiser during IPL, chose Hrithik Roshan
and Akshay Kumar for its summer campaigns and gave cricketers a
miss. Max New York Life, another major advertiser during IPL, chose
to end its contract with Dravid even though he was captaining the
Bangalore Royal Challengers team.

In such a scenario, it is not surprising that talent management firm

Globosport has shifted focus to Bollywood from cricket. CEO Anirban
Das said, “With the exception of Dhoni, it’s the movie stars that
connect with the audiences better across genres.”

Other lower-rung players like Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan have
all but disappeared from the endorsement circuit, while Anil Kumble
hasn’t made any impact. Sehwag and Zaheer, in fact, had as many as
13 and 7 brand associations respectively few years ago. Among
women, while tennis sensation Sania Mirza is left with just a
lone advertiser, Kareena Kapoor’s deals have gone up from 2 to 5,
while the number of brands Katrina Kaif, Kajol, Priyanka Chopra and
Bipasha Basu endorse has risen from almost nil to about six-seven
each.

Even new Bollywood entrants like Deepika Padukone and Vidya Balan
are endorsing 3-4 brands each and more are expected. What’s more,
even senior actors like Hema Malini and Juhi Chawla have multiple
deals to talk about.

And it’s not just Bollywood; even TV stars are a hit when it comes to
endorsements. Some of them have between two-six deals each, much
more than the cricketers. Recently, Dabur signed Smriti Irani aka Tulsi
of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi to endorse its Dazzl cleaner brand.

Dabur senior general manager Girish Kumar said, “She is a well-

respected star and symbolizes the true family woman, a wife and a
mother while managing a successful career. This fits well with the
Dazzl brand and we are confident it will help us reach out to our target
audience, the modern Indian woman.”