John Abraham began by endorsing Wrangler, but will now "co-own" a special sub-brand in his honour. | |
| As if scores of billboards and the big and small screens were not enough, John Abraham has found a new way to court the consumer. |
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| In a move that heralds a new era in celebrity endorsement, he will co-own a premium line of casual clothing with Arvind Fashions "" the licensee for US-based VF Corp's denimwear brand Wrangler in India. |
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| The new sub-brand, John Abraham Wrangler (named in his honour: remember Nike's Air Jordan?), is expected to work wonders for the cowboy denim brand trying to cut a contemporary image. |
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| Abraham, known for his muscles, movies and motorcycles (and mishaps, occasionally), has played Wrangler's brand ambassador to the Indian jeans market for over a year. |
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| But both Abraham and Arvind are keen to make known that on this new venture, Abraham's own intellectual inputs will actually direct the sub-brand's creative vision (he started out as an adman, by the way, with Enterprise-Nexus). |
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| "This is the first of our non-endorsement celebrity dealings," says Reshma Shetty, managing director, Matrix India, the firm that manages Abraham. |
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| "Abraham is part of an industry that is constant in its inconsistency," she continues, "so our aim is to make celebrity dealings sustainable "" beyond just lending face. John Abraham as a brand needs to outlive John Abraham the star." |
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| Abraham, the star, isn't doing too badly at the moment, though, as brand ambassador for as many as nine brands. And at a conditional seven days per brand, that's 63 days of the year that he's busy with brand endorsement work "" earning Rs 2-5 crore from each (figures courtesy Matrix India). |
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| Darshan Mehta, president, Arvind Fashions, is unstinting in his valuation of Abraham's endorsement of Wrangler so far. |
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| "Wrangler witnessed a topline growth of 42 per cent from 2004-05 to 2005-06, and a large percentage of that success can be attributed to Abraham," he says. |
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| The financial return (or any form of fee) that Abraham gets from this new deal, however, remains undisclosed. |
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| The new premium line, at a median price of Rs 2,500, will be manufactured at Arvind Fashions' jeans unit in Bangalore. It will be distributed through Wrangler's 35 exclusive outlets and some 280 multibrand and departmental stores. |
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| "The idea is to create 'oomph' around some degree of controlled scarcity," laughs Mehta, referring to the rarity of celeb-marked products. |
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| "This is a newly-discovered revenue stream for both celebrity and the brand," adds Vinita Bangard, vice-president, celebrity management services, Percept D'Mark. |
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| According to Bangard, who estimates the A-list celeb-endorsement business at an annual Rs 150 crore, it is still not clear if celebrities arbitrarily lend their names to interested brands or actively select brands that represent them best and actually shape the brand's future thereafter. |
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| Abraham, as Shetty lets on, has actually conceived and helped develop a mobile game that Matrix India is trying to interest telecom networks in. Evidently, there are takers aplenty for both Abraham the star and Abraham the brand. |
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