Be it ‘Ab Indiaaa-India ka time hai’ by Zomato or Dream11’s ‘Thoda extra’ ad campaign, brands are leaving no stone unturned to garner eyeballs using cricketers and Bollywood celebrities during the World Cup 2023 ad breaks. While it is true that celebrities can grab instant attention and are loved both by advertisers as well as the viewers, this year, there are also a fair number of brands that have chosen to cut through the clutter by taking the ‘no brand ambassador’ route. Polycab, Parle, Nium, and Nissan are a few examples.

But considering there is a barrage of brand names that are flashed to a viewer during a marquee sporting league like World Cup, the case in point is how are these brands making sure that their message, product and recall stick with the viewers?

Explaining the trend, Alchemist Brand Consulting’s Founder and Managing Partner Samit Sinha says it is generally preferable to rely on a strong creative idea that amplifies the brand’s unique narrative in a way that is relevant to its customers, rather than relying on a celebrity to get the brand noticed and remembered.

“Unfortunately, a celebrity is often used to compensate for the lack of a strong creative idea rather than to enhance it,” he opines.

Moreover, if a brand plans to spend a hefty sum of money on just advertising and marketing during the World Cup, they would want to make the campaign idea pristine enough for the consumer to recall rather than depend on a celebrity, who may overshadow the brand messaging. During such a time where ads are too many and the chosen celebrity faces are limited to Ranveer Singh, Virat Kohli and a few more, choosing a ‘no celebrity endorsement’ strategy actually helps, feel experts.

Hence, a brand’s creative has to be a hard-working piece. The presence of a brand ambassador does not matter as long as the campaign is able to strike a chord with the consumer.

Giving brand’s perspective, Parle’s Senior Category Head - Marketing, Krishnarao Buddha, shares, “as long as my ‘non-celebrity’ ad campaign is serving the brand’s purpose, I am extremely happy to not invest in a brand ambassador.”

“It's not that we haven’t had celebrities earlier, but we also look at the need as to how a celebrity can add value to the brand. If we don't really see a synergy, then it doesn't matter,” he adds.

Polycab India, which has a partnership with ICC World Cup, too has taken the no-celebrity route for the tournament.

Sharing their strategy behind not going for a celebrity ambassador, Nilesh Malani, Executive President, and Chief Marketing Officer, Polycab India, “Our association with the World Cup started last January. We did a complete revamp of the look and feel of the brand and the entire narrative around the brand is changed. It is more about the innovations we want to bring on to the table and connect with the consumers in the B2C segment. We added a flavour of the cricket theme to our campaign, we will further amplify this throughout the World Cup.”

“While Polycab has had celebrity endorsers earlier, but this time, because we have renovated the brand, we wanted the hero to be the brand rather than a celebrity. The core philosophy was getting the brand refresh noticed. If there had been a celebrity, the brand would have not have got much attention, so we took this call. Also, partnering with an event like ICC is like a celebrity itself,” he adds.

Sandeep Goyal, Managing Director at Rediffusion, shares another reason why we are seeing lesser number of celebrity ads in World Cup this time. “The reason behind such a scenario is that a lot of brands advertising this time during the World Cup are young startups and are still looking to evangelize their ideas. Adding a celebrity to this scenario makes it much tougher.”

“Most of the well-funded startups like Upstox, and Groww don’t use a celebrity also because they feel the endorser will overshadow their brand,” according to Goyal.

Taking the Celebrity Route

While a lot of brands this time have opted to make the story the star of their campaigns, what if a brand wants to go for a celebrity?

When it comes to celebrity-led campaigns for a tournament like World Cup, brands generally have the choice between a sports star or an actor. When choosing an ambassador, the recipe to make an impactful and long-lasting ad campaign becomes more dilemmatic since sports celebrities are as promising as actors.

Sinha explains, “If money is not a consideration, then the choice of the celebrity brand endorser is guided by the following:

First, is the celebrity’s own brand value, which is a combination of how recognized the celebrity is, the degree of their prevailing fame and popularity, and the extent to which they are admired for their professional skills as well as their perceived social conduct.

Second, whether or not they endorse a competing brand, or if they had in the recent past. Third, an important consideration that often gets ignored, is to examine the brand fit in terms of compatibility between the brand’s positioning and personality and the widely perceived character traits of the celebrity.

And fourth, and perhaps only a tactical consideration, is the increased salience or topicality in the specific context of the celebrity. For instance, an upcoming blockbuster movie starring a film-star celebrity, or an imminent major sports event like the Cricket World Cup in the case of a current or past cricket player.”

It is the last factor that has contributed to the recent upsurge of brand endorsements by cricketers, according to Sinha. And it makes sense because much of the buzz and the popular narrative is going to be around cricket. Thanks to the World Cup, which incidentally also happens to coincide with the festive season.

According to Bright Angles Consulting’s Nisha Sampath, a probable reason for some brands opting for cricketers over actors could be that a lot of film stars, especially from the younger generation, are overexposed on social media leading to viewer fatigue. In contrast, cricketers, and sportspeople overall, come across as fresh and authentic. Viewers may regard them not only as more credible endorsers but also have more affinity towards them.

“Bollywood has been struggling to deliver hits, making people sceptical. Sports, on the other hand, is seeing an upward swing in performance. Look at our medal haul in the Asian Games. Sports is contributing actively to our pride and sense of achievement on an international stage. Hence, this is the right time to leverage the power of our sportspeople across categories,” she mentions.