So, is it purely a fascination that Indian entrepreneurs have with foreign celebrities? Or a deep desire to create global brands in India. It is difficult to tell.
It's only a few months ago that we saw Zidane dominate a similar large space in our daily newspapers. Obviously there was a need for force-fitting Zidane into the ad. 'Coach to the World's best Players' it said. Since it is possible that most Indians only find him a familiar face at best. Asia's third-largest economy has never made it to the FIFA World Cup despite a 1.3 billion strong population, high economic growth rates and a sports-mad public. It has only qualified once, by default for the 1950 tournament in Brazil, but that too ended up withdrawing due to financial constraints.
In the meantime the Pan Bahar ad was getting trolled on social media giving everyone an even bigger laugh.
The Indian marketers obsession with celebrities is well known. But is our obsession moving from the sublime to the ridiculous? If an Indian marketer lacks an idea for his brand, the easiest way to make up for the lack of an idea seems to be to have a celebrity. Or in other words the celebrity becomes the advertising idea. As in the case of the Pierce Brosnan Pan Bahar ad, where James Bond steals the story.
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About the Author:
Prabhakar Mundkur is an ad veteran with over 35 years of experience in Advertising and Marketing. He works as an independent consultant and is also Chief Mentor with Percept H. All previous posts of Prabhakar can be found here.
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