The Indian cricket team has built many brands. It has single-handedly saved many of them from near disasters and given scores of others a shot in the arm in times of desperate need. So, what happens now when the team itself is going through its worst patch in many years? When the game’s icons seem to be floundering on the field and the fans are baying for their blood? Will marketers drop their cricketer-ambassadors like a tonne of hot bricks?
If you look really hard, you will see quite a few brands have already taken off ads that featured cricket stars. Hindi film stars seem to be the flavour of the season — whether they have had a hit in the recent years is immaterial. Is it just a coincidence? Will our cricketers be back on air with a vengeance with the next match/series win? I don’t think anyone has any doubts about that, but what is interesting here is that brands and marketers don’t seem to bother with good-bad, right-wrong questions when it comes to some cricketers. Like, say a Sachin Tendulkar. I guess the “star value” of such a celebrity goes beyond the “performance value”.
It’s relevant to distinguish between the two here. A recent study on celebrities makes this point clearly. It said Leander Paes is a great tennis player – a great performer in his area of expertise – but did not have that aura or the star value of a Sachin Tendulkar or a Kapil Dev. Yes, Kapil Dev — he is much sought after by the advertiser community even today, and with Tendulkar, well, he can go through a longish lean patch without sponsors breaking into a sweat.
That aura is created only over a period of time, and is dependent on consistency. But for players who do not have that aura, the fit with the brand, per se, will be the sole deciding parameter.
Now take new kid on the block Virat Kohli — who endorses brands like Arvind’s Flying Machine, Titan’s Fastrack, Emami’s Fair and Lovely and TVS Motors’ TVS Sport, among others. He is well on his way to become a great performer but is yet to acquire the aura of a great star. Once Kohli achieves the aura of a star, his personality traits will become immaterial. It will be his aura that a brand will ride on. Then perhaps last-match statistics will not be a factor in deciding whether to air Kohli ads or take them off for the time being.
In other words, once the aura is in place, actual performance does not affect how sponsors look at a sportsman. In fact, it’s also not about the star value alone. Some analysts say there is also some sort of “moral decoupling” at work. In a recent research paper that had appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research, authors Amit Bhattacharjee (Dartmouth College), Jonathan Z Berman and Americus Reed II (both from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) have argued that while some consumers withdraw their support, others may find ways to justify buying products endorsed by a celebrity accused of immoral actions by separating a judgment of morality about the person concerned from an assessment of their performance.
Among others, the authors cite the examples of Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart and Tiger Woods in their study, people whose reputation have been shaken by their own transgressions, but who have gone on to enjoy people’s support. Take Tiger Woods. After he admitted to adultery (2009), consumers argued that they really don’t care about Woods – the husband or the father; they still think he is the best golfer in the world, so they will continue to buy golf clubs or products endorsed by him. “Separating morality from professional standing may be especially appealing, and especially prevalent in public scandals, because it allows us to support an immoral actor without condoning their actions. It’s a win-win,” the researchers have concluded.
Compared to their transgressions, our cricketers’ on-field failings look completely forgivable.
That said, the marketer wants bang for his buck, and in a tough and sluggish market scenario, a celebrity endorser is seen as a good bet to push awareness. Given the kind of following cricket enjoys in this country, cricketers will bounce back in their capacity as a celebrity endorser for brands. Also, there are very few saleable celebrities around. Apart from Amitabh Bachchan, and Shah Rukh Khan and and Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan to some extent, how many bankable celebrities do we have? Aamir Khan doesn’t entertain too many advertisers, Katrina Kaif has been inconsistent on the big screen. Other sports hardly enjoy the kind of following cricket does. In short, you don’t have celebrities who can cut through the clutter.
So cricketers it will be. Maybe there will some new faces in the next wave.
