Why celebrity endorsement is always a good idea! | Dhruv Chitgopekar @ Collective Artists Network [#12]

I don't think it was different shade between 85 and 90. People only could fluctuate between 0 and 90. At the top, there's only room for 100. I believe in India 80% of celebrity usage and advertising that I see is not thought. Creating is easy. What to create is a million dollar question. Hi. You're listening to Marketing with Bani, in which I speak to Marketing gurus. Together we decode how Marketing works in the real world to grow your business. Droof Chitko Baker is the founder of Collective Artist Network, a company previously called as Kwan. He spent close to two decades representing some of India's top celebrities and has facilitated over a thousand deals between celebrities and brands. So who better than him to understand how celebrities view brand diops? What should a brand look for? How should a brand make the best use of celebrity endorsement and everything in the world of brands and celebrities? Listen on. Just today I was having a conversation with someone with a potential client, okay? And he was talking to me, fairly well funded, fair amount of money in the bank and big bad agency working with them, making ads and all of that. And now of course, everybody feels that in order to break clutter, one must sign up a celebrity. The question he asked me was, in order to be noticeable, break clutter and get credibility, is signing up a celebrity the only way to go. Wow. If you forgive me, what will you do? Yeah, you know, it's become almost fashionable to hate on celebrity endorsements, hasn't it? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, there's a surgery brand. Have you seen there's a surgery brand doing Rithik Roshan? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh God, oh God. Okay, tell me. Okay, okay. Now, see, here's the simple truth, Vani. The simple truth is that no, you don't have to use this celebrity to break clutter. As is the case that you don't have to do any one thing to break clutter. Correct. There is no silver bullet to breaking clutter because it's a combination of a great insight. It's a combination of a good creative. It's a combination of a very smart media spend. It's a combination of a very voluminous media spend and it's about consistency and in today's DNA, it's about having an ability to take a storyline and to consistently hit your audience with it in different and innovative ways. So the fact of the matter is that if you look back at some of the greatest campaigns that people have loved, then I've been the Zoos and then I've been the amazing come home in the Maruti Diwali campaigns which have been completely bereft of any celebrities. But what these campaigns had, those campaigns have had deep, high spends, high volume, high frequency, cricket based, cricket approached campaigns which have really stayed on with consumers. But there has been an insight there. There has been an intelligent creative there. There's been an intelligent story there. At the same time, there have been fantastic celebrity campaigns which have really done beautifully utilizing the celebrity as maybe sometimes a character, maybe sometimes a celebrity itself or herself or himself. But the fact is that there is no single silver bullet. So the truth is that any marketer or any agency or any agent like myself coming in and saying this is the one thing that you must do and you are going to win is making a full out of themselves and they're and they're client and partner. Brilliant. That's the on the stands. Fantastic. This is a full marketing class. So what you're saying is just signing up celebrity is not the answer. The question is how you use this celebrity and whether you're adhering to the basic principles of marketing in order to meet your brand and business objectives. 100% one, you tell me. You've been a marketer for two decades plus, right? When the same way people will sit and say, "Yah, why don't I do a deal with times of India and buy four front page ads?" The same question, whether you use a celebrity, you don't use a celebrity, will you say that's the perfect answer? Is there a perfect solution to making sure you've broken clutter? Is there a perfect solution to making sure you wait at the top of the funnel? Completely not. So there is no one size fits all the same way if you say, "I'll buy this much amount of PRP on a cricket sponsorship. I can assure you, even that is not the perfect answer. Yes, you'll get a certain order. Yes. But that's not necessarily going to break you clutter because if your content and your creativity and your campaign is not memorable and there isn't an insight that you have found and there isn't some sort of clear, consistent communication that you have hit upon, various touch points such as an audience in touch with, you're going to fail. And where the brand is not meaningfully integrated, the biggest pitfall that agencies and clients fall into is that they would sign up a big name like, let's say, a Shah Rukh Khan. The audience will see the ad in Zee, and Shah Rukh Khan's new ad is a very cool one. What's the start? 100%. But what about the ad? Shah Rukh Khan's ad was a very good thing. Shah Rukh Khan's ad was a very good start. But what was the ad? The one who was the ad, the money was wasted. Absolutely. And I'll tell you, I mean, you're taking an example, right? The two of the matters, you take two campaigns of Mr. Khan, you'll take a campaign of Big Basket and you'll take a campaign of let's say the recent hot star campaign. And the fact of the matter is that in the hot star campaign, there's also Shah Rukh Khan. There's also insight over there to say that a very fine and cute and comical insight that Thun Man Ganga has written, which is to say that they've got hot stars, got all the biggest films of all the biggest stars except Shah Rukh's are not there. And they've made a play on that saying that was Sub-Keyh Khan. So they've actually played on the negative to come out of the positive. But the truth is, if you look at the Big Basket campaign, it doesn't stay on in people's minds no matter how much there was deep amount of media spend because one, you couldn't even make a relatability there. You couldn't relate to the fact that Shah Rukh Khan is actually sitting in ordering food on Big Basket. And if the frequency is mixed with a couple of other ads and the media spend is not intelligent, you've lost your audience. Absolutely. And equally, where you pick up a really big name, hoping to break clutter with that big name, one also has to be mindful of the fact that big names also come with a lot of clutter themselves in the sense that most of these big celebrities have a whole lot of brand endorsements. I have to work much harder as a brand with my creative to make sure that the brand is equally remembered. Shah Rukh Khan will have a whole lot of brand endorsements. I mean, who remand there's a laundry list of brands behind him? How do you make sure that exclusivity, it may be exclusivity in the community, it may be exclusivity in the category, but exclusivity in the mind because a consumer is not looking at categories. The consumer is, you know, the consumer at the end of the day will say, "Do you remember that new year?" What is the message in that ad and like you correctly gave this example, whose ad was it? At the end of the day, that purpose must be served and what is the messaging that they're trying to communicate? Bang on money. It's an art of storytelling, right? It's the art of storytelling. And I can tell you that let's take for example, in every major clicketing season, there will be one category that will end up being the major spending category. A few years ago, it was e-commerce, which continues to be the case in a rotating cycle. Then the middle there was FinTech, then the middle there was Gaming. Now, there's very heavily edtech. The truth is that there are 10 edtech players who are sitting and sponsoring various IPL teams and various IPL structures right now. I can't be able to ask you which of those edtech brands have actually stood out. In the truth of the matter, it doesn't matter if their celebrities are not. The fact that the matter is the quality of the storytelling, the quality of the insight that you've provided, something that has actually stayed with the audience to a certain extent, yes or no. And secondly, sometimes as just the luck of the draw, your category may just be that heavily riddled with so many different pieces of communication from competitors, then you have to think of doing something very, very different. And I think that's where surprisingly, in an era where there are so many marketing innovations, the people thanks to technology, I feel like there isn't enough usage of that technology as one could hope to have given what's available out there. So tell me about this very bit, which is about the usage of technology in order to sign up select disabilities. How do I make sure that it leans more on science rather than just, you know, I like the Sharokhan very much. Let's bring him on. How do we, how does a brand ideally make the right decision on celebrity? See, I think if you've got the time, I think what usually happens is in big asset decisions like this market, we are tend to take fairly knee jerk and fairly late, late decisions, right? So one, I would always advise that before you take any decision like this for a brand, first of all, give yourself six months. And the truth is, one, I remember when you were at Pepsi, you would never come to us saying that I left the case, you were signing, which has now become the norm. At that point, you guys used to make your AOPs and you knew in January, who you wanted to sign in June, right? Correct. And the planning, the discussions, the research, the market intel, the appropriateness, the, you know, and then the logistics of working the rights, the ability used to come in. And I think that I'm on the limit. The government is very critical. That's got nothing to do with technology. That's just good planning, right? But okay, let's put that out of the picture because you're specifically asking about technology. I think today the fact that the matter is that thanks to digital, thanks to insights that one gets about the consumers, utilizing various demographic insights that one has from, you know, the guys who are looking into our lives, namely Facebook and Google, there is enough and more available out there for the market here to be able to characterize and create a sort of persona of the kind of audience that you want to speak to. And then that persona could be linked in some level to what that celebrity linkage could be. Now, here's where there is no one size fits all once again because the truth of the matter is that you're not looking for a celebrity who relates always to your customer. You always have to pay yourself one level above. You have to look at an aspirational aspect many a times or you have to look at something that your audience or your brand doesn't naturally provide. If you're an insurance brand, you want to bring a little bit of youthfulness. Perhaps you want to bring in a little bit of real world characteristics. Perhaps if you're an FMCG brand, you want to bring in a sense of trust. You want to bring in a sense of every man. You want to bring in a sense of am your friend, right? So the truth of the matter is that celebrities today are able to give you characteristics that maybe your brand is not able to carry or if your legacy brand is able to give you a refresher or if you're a brand new brand is able to actually give your brand a little bit of meat and bones and give them something that they don't have and take a leap. Perhaps one year or two years in time because you've attached yourself to somebody who has a body of work and has seen a certain way. So I think that's where technology can play a very smart role in sort of giving you those analytics and giving you those demographic linkages that perhaps a standard campaign cannot. And then you combine that with intelligent link testing and all the other advertising, you know, technology that's been existing now for some time with the top agencies and top brands have access to them. It's all become so democratized. You combine those two learnings and there's very little reason why you shouldn't win. Do you see a lot of clients also today asking you for personalities on how different celebrities are perceived to be by the common man? The sense let's say if I were to pick up Tapsi Pannu would I would a client ask you for give me the word cloud around Tapsi Pannu or be the word cloud and you know for let's say Radhika Apte or they'd have the word cloud already with them funny. I think clients have become smart in that sense. They would have that access. And what else would you look at? So there's the word cloud you would look at typically the social media numbers. Most clients I've seen would want to see the social media numbers. One of the things that most clients I've seen especially in the startup world tend to be more carried away by are these, you know, offbeat film celebrities so that my brand looks sort of fresh and like my brand looks like it has a different take from the mainstream. And the other big determinant is just the social media numbers. Tell me a little about a lot of these new startup brands who have been recently or who have acquired a whole lot of funding suddenly. I find that there is this rush to sign up a celebrity because it's like a statement to make, you know, I've got a big agency, I've got a big celebrity and now I'm on. I've arrived. See, the most dangerous, the most the death knell to any entrepreneur, marketer or anybody is simply towards Vani. It's called vanity metric. Okay. And I would guard everybody and I guard myself of that, my team, that all the time to say, do not get lost in vanity metrics in your business. And I think a lot of what you're mentioning very rightly so are vanity metrics because the truth is if you're not smart and intelligent about the decisions you're taking and why you're taking them, they can end up biting you in the posterior pretty badly. So I would say to answer your question specifically, yes, if a brand is chosen a particular face or is inclined towards the face, they're asking for deep data which breaks down. Okay, if they're a Hollywood actress, what is their audience breakup? Okay, what is the kind of, and this is the information that many times we provide to them. We will say that, you know, your audience breakup, for example, these people from this part of the country are watching their movies more. People from this part of the country are watching their shows on OTT more. People from this part of the country are relating to them better when the YouTube videos are coming out and you can actually get that data to say, where is the audience really coming from? So I think that's a very important insight. I think just social media following is a vanity metric because the truth is what is much more important than social media following is quality of content which is objective, not, it is subjective, it's not objective, but engagement is objective. Quality of content is objective, consistency of content and having some sort of narrative thread to what that content is is also important from time to time if the influencer celebrity is making a certain statement about who they are in their content. So I think you have to look at all of that and one of the key things that I feel, which is, I feel often missed and it's something that we spend a lot of time on is remember that you are signing a talent for work that's going to come. And today's hyper, hyper, you know, speedy media landscape, the last piece of content is forgotten in as early as a week to two weeks. I'm talking about big, which is so sad. Which is so sad. But it's sad. But it's so sad. But you can't really. Yeah. But I'm saying that's also a function of how hard your creative is working now because if your creative is is forgotten in a week, then all of that money spent, forget production and creative costs etc. the money spent on the celebrities also waste. I mean today, I mean, just think about it. There are so many brands that are signing up all of these celebrities. This is new model. I'm going to talk to you about that as well. Where in exchange for the face instead of cash down, you know, startups are offering equity in exchange. So the financial models on signing up celebrities are also changing. Yes. Over here. You also see that in order to bring on celebrity, bring on a celebrity, where the resources are not as vast as in the traditional age, you know, the likes of the Unilever's and the Lux and the Rin days when, you know, passive contracts used to be signed up for over three and five years and all that. Now a lot of the new age guys are also signing up celebrities with, you know, non-exclusive contracts for only x number of social media posts on only certain platforms with blah, blah, blah, blah caveats so that I can restrict my spends. So that I'm not, I'm not signing up for five crores. I can, you know, this celebrity is now accessible to me for as little as 30 lakhs or as little as even five lakhs depending on the nature of the deal. Do you see a lot of that? It is absolutely going to happen and money is going to only increase because the truth of the matter is that startups are today depending on the kind of startup you're creating also very driven, very strongly by financial models. Ultimately, you must remember venture capital and private equity has a huge role to play in the way startups grow. And while there are some, you know, stellar venture capital organizations out there who balance the need to create value with the actual joy of building a company itself, I think that many of the decisions they had that have taken are based on financial metrics which are purely on the basis of valuation, but that's a completely different podcast. Right. So I will spend my time in telling you that yes, those models are becoming more and more innovative, they're becoming more and more, you know, diversified. And the truth is that they can provide a tremendous amount of disproportionate value. Vani, I'll tell you why won't it happen? If you remember a decade or a half ago, do you remember every single startup was running towards times of India to do brand capital deals? Correct. They were picking up anywhere between 10 to 20% and offering time based times of India. How is this any different? It's a phenomenal media asset. It's offering you disproportionate ability to reach out to an audience. It is something that will open. Remember when you work with the CW or influencer, you're not just opening that door to their content because they have a flywheel effect to everything that they do, right? When you come out with a movie and effects radio or if it's satellite effects, OTT effects, it's screened, it's every single media asset and once you have that asset in your disposal, you will get better deals with every one of those distributors as well. So actually it's a fantastic thing to have in your database. Yes. And that's what you're doing. Is there any one brand that you can think of that did exactly what you've just described really well in the recent times? You know, I think that you will find, I don't know if you're reading about the phenomenal sort of, I won't call the acquisition spree phenomenal because acquisitions are a function of access to capital. But the way that the Rpn and Myglam are approaching the entire personal beauty care market and what you're going to see coming out from the work that doing with Shadda Kapoor is going to be really interesting. They're actually activating every single part of our life. I can't see the one that is in the mouth. It's absolutely out. But what's again very interesting is they're not doing a conventional approach to brand endorsement. They're actually saying that for every woman's skin type, the way that their science is coming out, they're saying that Shadda's new line is catered to and is actually customized to every single woman individually. So what was happening with Ayurveda and what was happening with medicinal skin care? Now in beauty also it's starting to happen where Myglam is saying that we have a shade for you irrespective. We are going to do this proposition. But how are they using Shadda? They're saying that they're going to integrate into her social media content, into her movie content. She has a bunch of other initiatives that she does personally which is something that you're going to see about. They've actually activated her entire personal friend circle who are also celebrities and influences and found ways to create interaction points there. So the point I'm trying to make is that they didn't approach that association. I say this is an endorsement. It's actually Shadda owns strategic equity in the company but what is more exciting and interesting is the way that they're opening up her entire world. It's very new. So you'll start to see it. But it is an example of something. I'm trying to think of a couple of more examples that there are actually lots of them. It's just that this space is relatively new right now. The intelligent activation of celebrities by brands who have own equity in their companies is something that is now starting to become more and more diversified than just the state print campaign video so on and so forth. Very nice. Very nice. I can't wait to see it. Tell me, I'm shifting gears a little bit through. What does one do as a brand when a celebrity lands on the hotbed of controversy? We've had so many in the past. In the recent past there have been so many. So I'll tell you the non diplomatic answer, one is since you know, you should be of use to everyone that's listening to it. I think the truth of the matter, the broader truth is that in our country you cannot celebrate or you cannot celebrate. You cannot separate celebrities from controversy. And the truth is and the reason for that is and the truth is we're not unique to that. It's the same in the US. It's the same in the UK. It's the same in various parts of the world where there's a free and active democracy and a free and active press is that the flip side to a very active celebrity culture is that there will be a negative expression of that of that fandom. And that has a has a has a role to play in the kind of access and the kind of things that anybody on the new mediums like social media or in the mediums of our judiciary can take advantage of. So I would actually say and you know, I'll try not to make this too detailed, but I would actually say that for any brand that has got a celebrity who's landed themselves in the hotbed, it's always a good idea to wait and never get into a knee jerk reaction. Because the fact is that you have to surround yourself just like you would do with any other legal decision, get yourself the best advice as to how this is impacting your brand, get as best advice as to how this is affecting your contract, right? And make sure that you're biting your time because just as fast as controversies come, controversies go. And the truth is that the new one will come up and there will be a new celebrity who will lose a little bit. You know, it's just up in the middle. Yeah, and you don't want to find yourself in a knee jerk reaction because the truth is once again, why do we block ourselves out to say, oh, this only happens with celebrities, boss. When the top FMCG brand in the company finds a worm in their chocolate, right? They don't go and shut down their brand or they don't go and shut down 100 factories. They go and do their research, they go and understand what has happened. They go to the law and say we will fix this. Why is that any different? It's just an emotional knee jerk reaction because it's a human element to it, right? Take it. So we do watch. Don't do knee jerk reactions for anything in life. Forget celebrities. Anything in life. Now you tell me as an insider because you're in this business, what would you say now assume that you're on my side and the client side? Yeah. How would you recommend that one sign up a smart contract that I'm able to get the, you know, one of the big celebrities in a way, what can I do on the contract? Give me some smart offbeat ways of crafting a contract such that I can get bigish names at small costs. So I'll tell, okay, let me, let me change the question around a little bit, one, to help you understand. So what does a celebrity want out of a endorsement contract or an engagement with the brand? Maybe brand marketer will tell you who's not super seasoned, but you'll understand this. They will tell you that it's all about the money and let me tell you it can't be further from the truth. Maybe when you're absolutely new in your career and you're fresh off the blocks, maybe it's important, but the truth is that most of the celebrities out there that you work with, money is the third or the fourth criteria. What is really important is what is the quality of the relationship? What is the quality of the kind of work that you're talking about? Of course, of course. The quality also wants to be associated with something that makes them feel correct. Correct. For a celebrity, you would rather be associated with a big brand that is spending shit loads of money behind that celebrity. We know, for example, Lakmay actually created celebrities out of a lot of the models that they picked. It doesn't even have to be big money, Vani, I'll tell you what's really fun and interesting is that it can also just be really interesting, really great. I mean, look at, yes, sure. Cread spent a hell of a lot of money on their campaign with Rahul Dravid. You think Rahul Dravid cares about how much money Cread paid him to do that campaign. Now, whether you like it or don't like it, whether you think it worked for the brand, doesn't think it worked, the fact the matter is he was part of popular culture for like six weeks straight and part of a way that almost like it put him back on a pedestal which was so core to his personality. It was a beautiful campaign that just happened off the back of a great career. I can't disagree with you. No, so my okay, but you may disagree with the value of what your Cread was. The point I'm trying to make is let's go back to the point that you make and we'll disagree together after a bit. The point I'm trying to make is a smart contract is one where you sit with a celebrity and say, this is what I want or you sit with the agent and say because you won't interact with this celebrity. Sit with the agent and say, this is what I want to achieve. I understand that I have certain assets in the terms of time and in terms of number of hours in terms of amount of social media that I want to get out of this celebrity, help me maximize that. But this is the way I'm going to ensure that your celebrity XYZ is getting what they also want out of the association. What is it that you want out of the association? Let's discuss that. A celebrity might say I want a certain amount of media mileage here. A celebrity might say, look, I want to be part of a campaign that's a little memorable. A celebrity might say, look, I want to do something which is different. Can you put me in a music video instead of creating a standard TVC? And you'll never have those conversations if you don't actually engage with the talent. The problem is that brand marketer sitting in the look at celebrities like they are work for hire. What you have to realize is that they have an ability to drive popular culture. If you get there inside and if you get there because they're also building communities and they're also building fans and they understand the nuance of their audience very intelligently. That's how they pick scripts. That's how they pick directors. That's how they pick producers. There's a method to that man. It's trust that a little bit. And if you go into that inside and say, okay, this is what I'd like to achieve. What is the job you're looking at? You'll find innovative ways to come out with it. So now to make it super tangible, you should have social media on your contract so that you're getting some value out of it. Some celebrities will ask you to pay for it. You are 100% should pay for it. The other problem that I see and you'll realize is that brands today just expect that the personal social media of a celebrity is theirs to own. It's not. It's an asset that the celebrities have built. You have to respect it. Now in that respectfulness, if you get some value out of it great, but don't say, this is what I want to get. This thing that comes out of the way you go to sell and go to create something, that's where all the straight hits the fan. So number one, have the understanding of what you need. The other thing I will say is that today as opposed to five years of Gowani, when you and I used to do endorsements together or before that, today you can do a much smarter contract but you don't have to buy a large amount of inventory. You can buy less amount of days and then you can do a pro-reta acquisition of more time from them over the course of a two year, three year contract. I do advise brands to do longer term contract. Yeah, so talk to me a little more about this. Tell me a little more about this. See, wildstice, wildstime market is moving towards shorter term contracts in the form of endorsements. I have always believed that you should have longer term contracts because exactly what we were discussing earlier, celebrities and media is moving so fast that it's very difficult to build that brand equity and build that linkage in the audience's mind that this celebrity is equal to this brand. But if you do consistent smart communication utilizing that celebrity and utilizing that brand, there is a certain affinity that gets built that you want to ride a point. And when you can purchase that time without having to lock in four days, five days, six days, if you can do a two year, two day contract and say I'll purchase your day three and day four from this celebrity on a pro-reta basis, perhaps in the latter half of year two, where I have one more media cycle to choose from. Why wouldn't you? You're protecting your cash flow. You're ensuring that if things don't go well, you've not spent beyond a certain point. You have the option of moving on to somebody else or dropping a celebrity and master strategy altogether. And you're ensuring that the celebrity is also feeling like boss, these guys are willing to back me and do something with me over a period of time. So if the celebrity's value goes up, remember you don't pay more on the pro-reta amount. You still pay what you paid on the day one when you signed this celebrity. So you're actually hedging your bet very intelligently that if the stock goes up, you should immediately cash in on it because that's what it will look like. And that's the way you should go. What we're saying is, don't do, for example, eight days in one year. No. Let's say two days per year and do it over three years. Yes. Do it three year contract with two days in a year or one day in the year. You would be able to bring down your absolute outlay and you'd possibly get a lot more from the celebrity while still meeting your brand objectives by being able to use the celebrity smartly within that one day or two days that you're accessing her for in that one. Absolutely. You may have seen it. Absolutely. Yeah. All the secrets and I'm probably being able to do this, but only for you, Vani. Only for you. Only for you. I don't need for me. I just tell me what else? What else are the new age brands doing that is different from what's been done before? I'm talking about what do traditional brands, for example, let's say the way a diver might negotiate. I'll do this again. I've got. Okay. I'm saying. So you tell me if there is any meat over here, otherwise we can even skip this part, which is there was a traditional way of signing up celebrities, which was, you know, do long term contracts, a whole lot of number of days, long TVCs or lots of TVCs and typically used for a lot of outdoor, a lot of POSM, possibly even packaging. Now the new age brands are looking at shorter term contracts, lesser number of days, non-exclusive, probably inclined more towards social media, like you correctly said, probably inclined more towards where the celebrity's natural fandom is also inclined. For example, if I were to sign up a celeb in Punjab, you know, I'd more likely do a music video. We know that all of those, you know, the most Punjabi influencers, most of the community over there is naturally inclined more towards music. Are there other such regional nuances, number one and number two, what would be the other ways that the new age contracts that you're seeing as of now in the last two years or the last three years been different from what has been done, let's say seven or eight years back? That's a great question. I think I think I'm seeing four or five trends which are interesting. I think number one area that I'm seeing is that there's a very strong movement towards collaborations, lines, merchandising, partnerships where the association is not just an endorsement, but there is a sense of the celebrity's personality that is coming into the brand even if it's for a short period of time, to get a marketing spike. So, you know, if you're a brand and you do a brand X female celebrity line of make ups, right? And you get that right in the festive season and there's something unique to that SKU and something unique to that product proposition, writing that way for an extensive three month period showing the celebrity a disproportionate amount of media value from there and seeing how that marketing spike works for you because a big play in D2C brands, which is a lot about your talking about, is about customer acquisition and this is a new risk of all should customer acquisition. Then the game goes to customer attention, which is though is, you know, from whatever I've heard in certain certain categories, it's harder for, it's harder to acquisition than it is due retention, right? So, and of course that changes from brand to brand, but I'm giving you an insight there. So, I think these collaborations are of very interesting paths that brands are taking now and they're looking to agents like us and agencies like us to sort of give them that advice and what they can do. The second piece that I'm seeing, which is very interesting, is that brands are looking to, when they're activating on social, they're looking at sort of, I go back to the flywheel effect, right? They'll take a sponsorship of a core IP. The worst example of it is that you do a sponsorship of Big Boss and then if your celebrity is on your brand, you make sure that your celebrity actually has a play in Big Boss related to your brand, right? That's the worst example, but the better examples of that are that if you've, and I say worse simply because not that I have a problem with Big Boss, I think it's a mass-reaching phenomenal, super-acidant, television, but I say worse simply because that's the, that's the, I think the no-brainer, right? It requires no thinking whatsoever. It's a simple plug-in play and it's about having the media dollars to make it happen. But I think what I find interesting is to see how if you, let's say, you're a sponsor of a cricketing tournament, right? If you're a sponsor of, let's say, a really interesting asset like, let's say you're a sponsor on a, on a big on-ground festival, like an, like an NH7 Weekender. How do you make sure that your celebrity is activated in an interesting way in that particular asset rather than utilizing them for a traditional way? I'll tell you my favorite example from last year was Puma, signed Sara Likhan and their entire campaign was, if you remember, I'm forgetting the actual tagline, but it was this wonderful, empowered, you know, focused on women campaign and instead of utilizing Sara for like a big press conference or for like a big dealer meet, which would have been the standard we have activated and motivating sort of, you know, one part of your distribution network that Puma could have done. Puma actually invited Sara to actually attend what is today, one of India's, if not, if not India's biggest youth festival called the under 25 summit and they actually had a conversation between Sara, two other influencers and the marketing head of Puma in front of 20,000 young people and they actually sat and spoke about concepts of gender, sat and spoke about concepts of women equality and women empowerment, sat and spoke about examples of Sara's own life where she spoke about her own body positive issues in a manner and I thought that was really interesting because that's significant amount of money that you put in a one hour event that's not necessarily televised and will have a digital footprint. But for Puma's audience and for the kind of brand equity that they wanted to build, that was one of the market's ways for them to activate it and then I found out later that one of the highest sale markets happens to be Bangalore, this event was in Bangalore. So it was a very intelligent activation from point to point to say here's how we go to engage with our celebrity because we want her to be real which is one of Sara's most, you know, enduring aspects that she's a very real celebrity and we want to bring her touch and feel right in front of our audience rather than just keep, you know, two screens distance from her and her entire audience and that's what Puma wants to be. Right and I think that's another really interesting way that brands are sort of, I think, finding disruptive ways to utilize talent and I think what's going to happen, Vani and I'm talking a little bit into the future now, I think that the digitization of a lot of interesting assets like I think what's going to happen with NFTs, right? We're going to find some really interesting brand X celebrity assets come out from there because what's happened is and you'll remember this is that ultimately there are only three or four things that a brand can do with its celebrity. There isn't really that much. You can only extend it out to that many ways, right? But I think that with many of these digital assets coming out and with the future being a virtual world that we're going to live in along with believing in our physical world which is what the metaverse, etc., is at, I think that this is going to be a very interesting new way for celebrities and brands to come together and put out assets and put out ways for consumers to own a piece of their favorite brands while showing a piece of their favorite celebrities. In a collaboration that's that's that's short lived that has scarcity attached to it and will be gone tomorrow which is where the entire tradability aspect comes in. It's very early, even I'm learning to understand it but this is going to be upon us in as early as 12 to 18 months within India itself. No, but you're over here you're talking about what through what you just described. What exactly does Puma do with Saradikan? Did this event where they talked about women's empowerment you said? So it was an event for 125 largely 125 audiences which was it was a three day event that takes place every single year. It's called the 125 summit. The theme of that summit, Vani, is celebrate confusion. So it's a it's an event that comes in which tells young people do not be afraid to say that I don't have a single linear path of where I want to go. That's the core theme. They curate this event curate some of the best speakers sort of intellectuals as well as content creators from across the country and across the globe and brings young people to attend. It's like an edu-tainment event, right? That's the event itself. Now Puma was a sponsor of that event. Now at that event they could have done a hundred things. You know how celebrity contracts work if they have a two year four day contract with Saradikan. You know how much rich may of that is worth and when they use Sarath for one event they actually using her for a full day because that's how celebrity contracts work. You don't say I'll use one hour and I have 23 hours left. Yes, yes. If you use one hour you've utilized the day. So what they did at that particular event is they actually got Sarath to come down and through conversation reinforced the core theme of what Puma's actual endorsement engagement with Sarath was all about in front of a 20,000 core audience that was sitting in front of her and then utilize the snippets of that piece of content in various social media channels across the country to make sure that they had digital footprint that was not pure advertising because Sarath sitting in a press conference is a very different, very engineered sort of event but Sarath in front of 20,000 young people sitting and talking about her own insecurities and how she overcame it in Puma gear in a way where she's laughing at herself in conversation with young people herself is a very different form of advertising. So you understand it's still storytelling. It is still we have seen that boss I'm a Puma face but it's a much more organic, much more real far more interesting sort of way in which that communication is done and I have not seen a lot of that take place with brands otherwise where everything is super engineered and I would say very, very structured you know what I mean and I think that's where these different things are like it's a great example, it's a great example when should one not sign a celebrity when one is out of ideas and one is looking for a lazy approach. When one is looking for a lazy a very good very good and and what would be your what would be a great example but you just talked about that actually. Would you openly talk about examples of brands that have made an absolute mess of celebrity usage? I think not take brand names. I think that there's a lot of laziness that I have that I can sustainally see in communication out there and then who's to say I think ultimately it's not just people say that boss I wanted to create an awareness and my campaign awareness created and there are 1.5 billion people in this country with their only 100 celebrities of note and if that celebrity helps my brand even get a little bit of disproportionate awareness then why not the money I've spent versus the ability to do that is far out reaches it and also just sheer disregard or not required to then do anything truly disruptive. That's done that's great it's over but you've lost an opportunity I think that's the only thing I will tell market is that don't lose that opportunity and the truth is that there are people like us there are people like the agencies and they're who are who are very very keen to scratch the surface and understand your brand and help you find that insight that will allow you to be differentiated in the market and I think searching for that conversation making that little bit of additional effort I think can really really go a long way you know I think that's you know I'll tell you about a really interesting campaign that's coming up there's a there's a legacy insurance brand that wants to talk about the fact that even though they are they've been around for as long as they have they still work hard like they like they are an outsider or they are a complete like they don't have the name that they do and what they've done is they've tied up with a celebrity who has had one of the longest legacies in the business I can't take names but they basically said we are we are we understand respect each other because we're willing to go the extra mile no matter who we are and no matter what our legacy is because we believe in a maintain in that legacy and we never take it for granted and I think that's a beautiful insight it's wonderfully done it's it's it's playing on the fact that listen we are who we are because this is our name and we're proud of our name but at the same time saying that we don't take it for granted and we're starting to go do it and I think that's I'm going to see that campaign very soon it's done by yours truly and it's a beautiful insight it's simply put it's got a bit of tongue in cheek to it it's with a mega celebrity who is super loved in this country and I think that that's a very smart way of doing it and the great thing about great creative money is that once you see it it feels really simple but there has been thought that's gone behind it which allows you to get to that particular point. I shall listen I want to ask you one other question which is do you think the lines between the way we traditionally saw celebrities and what we're calling influencers now are blurring what is an influencer influencer today as we are signing them up every new age brand is talking about influencer marketing is a big big big hot topic and everybody is talking about influencers getting influencers and everybody first looks at the numbers just as we did for celebrities as well right you wanted one of the top five of the top seven and you looked at numbers and you looked at how many movies and how many you know TV series and blah blah blah similarly so for influencers now in this internet age they're all looking at social media numbers how are influencers today different from celebrities in the sense that today with the new ASCII guidelines in any case influencers are also required to announce this is concert post you think the lines between the two are blurring you can buy an influencer for money you can buy Amitabh Bachchan for money yeah it's absolutely true and I think that it's the democratization of fame at one level the second thing that it's done is that all of this has only been possible because of the share amount of access to the internet that the geofrication has done to this country so this is only going to increase because there's a large audience still a waiting to get on to access on mobile and be the amount of communication that get will will further amplify I do believe I need that in the last year and a half outside of you know cricket has still been in front of our eyes as audiences but Bollywood has pretty much been shut down from a theatrical perspective so it's going to be interesting to see what happens when you know cinema is reopened and there is auditions that come in front of audiences to go back and actually watch their traditional stars in front of them but having said that our ability to consume celebrity culture as human beings is it's uncapped right so the truth is that I could enjoy and watch a big celebrity stars movie at you know 7 pm in the evening and I can come back and binge on tick tock or sorry I've given binge on reels from 11 pm to 1 am in the morning because I'm just having fun getting entertained 10 seconds at a time so I think there is space and value at every single level yes the lines I won't say the lines are getting blurred but I will say that there is more and more access to be able to influence your consumer in ways beyond standard celebrity culture which means that what I love about that is that if you look at it like a funnel or if you look at it like a pyramid forget funnel if you look at it like a pyramid there is a way to touch each element of your audiences sort of thinking depending on how you want to approach them so celebrity can make you aware of your product but an influencer can perhaps add a certain layer of relatability to them and that's where I think the big conversation now is that you know over our influences also trust was it today because they're also you know available for sale on everything yeah I think that there will be a consistent range and number of content creators the word influencer is starting to get a bad name creator storytellers that's where they're going towards people who love their craft and water tell great stories or utilize their social media those will be the ones that brands will ultimately have long term relationships with and those will be the guys that they'll work with on a regular basis because they're not existing because of their next brand deal they're existing because they just want to create great content and that's where brands will want to be a part of their life and I think that's what we're saying I think it's too early to make any prediction predictions I'm not a guru but I do think that we're going to see a wider scope of influence marketing not influencer influence marketing under which celebrities also stand under which influences and so it has also come in just because of you know this this like I said democratization of famous second place you're absolutely right and you know I want to tell you this little anecdote we were doing these groups in small town yeah and we were talking about soap and one of these girls you know she said that I don't want to give the name of the celebrity but she said that we're holding it so I'm saying that today it's the fact that I was quite shocked that even in this small town this girl said exactly this give up a passing ticket to go to be holding it I think in today's world while yes India is a celebrity crazy nation and will continue to be so but in today's context where everybody's available for sale including influencers who now have to declare like you correctly said I think both celebrities as we traditionally know them whether Bollywood or Cricketers or musicians or influencers or content creators or storytellers everybody will equally have to work much harder on building credibility because everybody knows they're available on sale so you know the demand is going to be or the ask is going to be as much on the celebrity of any kind to make sure that what they are presenting of the brand is presented in a way that is credible not just it's it's it's an ask not just on the advertiser but an ask on the celebrity and the personality that they themselves build that I know as a brand that when this person speaks it's going to be consumed as credible content and Vani it's such a beautiful thing you said and the only thing I want to say is that whilst it's a critical insight I'm a huge fan of history nothing what you said has not existed before the internet age when we were growing up what was the way of disparaging something which was a remember the words we used to use when we would hear a song and you'd say who else is what are the other songs in this band and what would you say no no it's a one hit wonder what was the words that we used to use when we used to hear about someone who is you know just dying to get you know some sort of exposure at a his 15 seconds of fame now that 15 seconds of fame doesn't get used because the truth is 15 seconds can give you ridiculous fame but the fact is that from time and memorial we as a humanity as a civilization have have have veiled towards a slightly more robust sense of of sort of grounding when we want to get influenced by something today because of the way the media landscape has changed yes we haven't we have a much shorter sort of you know a reaction complex going on in our heads but ultimately it's still we're after something that makes us feel that there's trust there so nothing has changed people who stick to their guns stay as to who they are consistently put out good content have a core messaging and positioning to who they are they will win in the long run and that doesn't matter if you're a creator does matter if you're a celebrity doesn't matter if you're anybody right performance is going to matter quality of what you do is going to matter but maintaining a certain brand is what's going to give you consistency and success so nothing has changed to be honest it's the same it's just the the world is around us the way it distributes changes but the people are the same yeah you're at disagree with you a little bit I think awning trust will become is now becoming a little going to become and continuing to become a little harder because the audiences are also a little more skeptic while we all want to see you know our pretty stars I might love with the kroshan and I might be happy to see him even in a surgery act but at the same time he will have to work a little harder to win my trust to whips and everything you know very there's the other thing we have to be very mindful of is that there's there's there's many many types of consumers out there you know so I have to check myself and I'm thinking about how I feel about a particular campaign or something versus the audience and I'm trying to talk to and that's a very important differentiation that one also has to keep in mind which is why I'm a big believer in also doing not focus groups is such but getting a perspective outside of your own youth perspective is one thing but I also just feel different gender you know very smart and diplomatic throw you're very very smart I wish I could be as smooth as you are you're so cool I just see you say what you have to in the in the nicest sounding way you have such a gift to the gab tell okay this has been fantastic I hope you liked my show and if you did please do consider subscribing I also have a youtube channel by the same name marketing by vani please do check that out too thank you how badly can you screw up one line okay so I did screw up my youtube channel is called marketing with vani the same name as this podcast (upbeat music)