Endorse, but of course

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Some years from now, they will add a new course in advertising schools and management institutes - the new breed of Mad Men, the smart MBA-ites, who emerge from these prestigious institutions with their formulae and fundas and foolproof theorems, wide eyed and bushy tailed.

And so, they will sit around plush boardrooms, cheek by jowl with their gurus, veterans who have the sharpest minds in the business, who've launched brands of Sunflower cooking oil, SUVs, soaps, soft drinks.

"How do we reach the consumer?" "What's the big idea?" "What great new feature shall we place before the buying public?"

This new course will be titled, Pick your celebrity.

That your brand doesn't need a feature, all it requires is a film star, is the new marketing funda.

Their MBA degrees (Master of Business Administration) will have devolved into Most Bestest Actor or Most Budget (Friendly) Athlete.

So MS Dhoni, way past his sell by date, pops up as a Tibetan monk, or the head of the Boy Scouts troupe or eating some brand of Godforsaken cornflakes that has no chance of being remembered because it doesn't bother to tell us what its got that Kelloggs doesn't. A month from now, all the marketing team will be left with, is Dhoni's bill with no one remembering their brand.

"How do we sell our tyres? More treadaibility? Thicker base?" the MRF marketing team asks themselves.

"No no!"Mr Head of Marketing says, "Virat Kohli dressed up as James Bond will sell us a million tyres…"

Last year, Akshay Kumar went blue in the face selling us Dabur as a preventive against COVID-19 - boom - till he tested positive and the trolls went ballistic! And Dada, with his smug cheesiness, selling us everything from fantasy teams to Fortune cooking oil, blam, ended up with coronary issues. The ad was pulled, and that was the end of Sourav's modelling career.

And this year there's Ranveer Singh, an assault on our senses, bounding all the way to the bank, dominating the screen even on mute while he jumps around for Jio Fibre, and spouts an appalling Bengali accent for some other brand. One can only ask of these clients, "You guys sure of the return on investment? Is Ranveer really worth all that moolah?"

So yeah, you can guess, dear reader, I'm not a fan of celeb endorsements, a total waste of the green stuff, but equally of the grey cells.

But last year, a company called Cred did something unusual - they used has-been celebs, like Madhuri and Govinda, audition for their commercials. I remember admiring the ad agency: how did they sell these ads, don't even know what Cred does.

A 1,000 ads later, I still haven't the foggiest idea.

I'm always very respectful of ads that are very creative or very crazy, either way they took some selling to a client. But, this year Cred took a leap further - Jim Sarbh talks to the camera, about Cred and that you'll get Cred Gold Coins, blah blah… and then he says, "I know it sounds ridiculous, it's like saying Rahul Dravid has anger issues."

And boom, next you see the former gentleman batsman going ballistic, yelling at fellow motorists, calling himself ‘Indiranagar ka Goonda', bat in hand. It's been a while that an ad has surprised me, that too one with a celebrity, and still makes me laugh with repeated exposures.

Do I know anything about Cred? Or I should buy the brand?

I still don't know what CRED can do for me, but it sure makes me see a humorous side of my hero.

In-CRED-ible actually.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com