'Kabali' creates a new concept in brand promotion

• The movie has created a sensation in the marketing field across the country with new concepts
• Normally, a product promotes a movie with its actor's or actress's image on it, but Kabali promotion is done by Rajni's image with movie clippings.
• For instance, Air Asia which is an official airline partner for Kabali is promoting the film as 'Fly like a Superstar'

CHENNAI: Tamil movie super star Rajinikanth is not known to have endorsed any product or service but the frenzy of brands and corporates associating with the Tamil movie "Kabali" seems to throw up a new concept in brand promotion, said a brand consultant.

"It is a clever way of riding on the excitement of a big movie starring a very big hero who has not endorsed any product or service. But in the commercials of the brands associated with 'Kabali', there are a few scenes from the movie featuring only Rajinikanth and a voice-over about the product," Ramanujam Sridhar, founder and Chief Executive Officer, Brand Comm, a brand consulting company, told IANS over phone from Bengaluru.

"Nowhere in the commercials of such brands, the hero was seen to endorse the product or talks about the product," Sridhar added.

Normally an advertisement for a movie will feature the images of hero, heroine, villain and music director.

If the product commercials are actually a promotion for the movie "Kabali", the brand owners have leveraged only Rajinikanth's image in the movie with some movie clippings.

However, the brand owners do leverage Rajinikanth's title 'superstar' in their commercials and also his movie image.

For instance, Cadbury Five Star "Kabali" commercial, though featuring the Ramesh-Suresh characters, has some scenes from the movie and ends with the tag line 'Superstar's Five Star".

AirAsia, the official airline partner for "Kabali" announced 'Fly like a Superstar' promotion.
On the other hand, Kerala-based company Muthoot Fincorp partnered with movie to roll out exclusive silver coins with an embossed image of Rajinikanth as seen in the movie.

Of all the brands that are associated with the movie "Kabali", it is Emami's `Fair and Handsome' brand for fairness cream that would make one's eyebrows raise.
There have been songs and dialogues in Rajinikanth's movies praising his dark skin.
Here, a skin fairness cream gets associated with Rajinikanth's movie and its commercial also features scenes from the "Kabali" movie.

Sridhar says the movie seems to have started a new concept called "surrogate endorsement".
"There have been commercials for brands with mimicking the voice of celebrities. It is not known whether any celebrity whose voice was mimicked had taken up the issue legally," Sridhar said.

"Similarly, the 'Kabali' advertisements could be termed as akin to that but the celebrity's image is replaced by the mimicked voice," he added.

Brand owners associated with "Kabali" movie said that Rajinikanth is not endorsing their products or service.

Nike holds the flag up high for celebrity advertising

It is okay to splurge on a celebrity ambassador, but keep a few things in mind while doing it

 

 

The 2016 Wimbledon Women’s champion was, hold your breath, Serena Williams! She equalled Steffi Graf’s record of 22 Grand Slams and beat her own record of being the oldest women’s player to win the record. I guess most people were happy as they admire her tenacity, fitness and will to win. None more than Nike the brand that she is endorsing. Let’s for the moment ignore my disappointed friends who for some unknown reason were supporting Maria Sharapova who too was an earlier Nike model. But let me come back to Serena and invite you to view the Nike commercial if you haven’t already seen it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5G3No4Kwfo

Having been in advertising for two long, I can’t rate it as an all time classic but it brings out an important feature of the brand and that is “attitude”. Nike is all about champions who hate to lose and Serena certainly is a champion and as her record demonstrates, the one thing she hates is losing, even to her distinguished sister.

Catch them young

Nike has not always been the dominant brand that it is today. In the early days Phil Knight would roam the colleges of the US with shoes in his car, find budding athletes and exhort them to wear his shoes. Some of them obliged and few of them graduated to being champions and they remembered the brand that had supported them before they were stars. The brand’s essence though was clear - it was for athletes who had the grit, desire and attitude to put in the hard miles. People who hated to lose whether it was Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Shane Warne or our own Serena Williams.

Match the celebrity with your brand’s personality

While signing on a champion athlete for your brand per se is no big deal, Nike’s best ambassadors have been those who were at times at the edge in behaviour. People who didn’t always conform. They have had their brushes with authority and often controversy. They don’t hold back. A bit like Serena who spoke about the disparity in prize money between men and women or wore clothes that made people raise their eyebrows. Two such earlier champions were Andre Agassi and our Shane Warne. 

Since I am assuming you are cricket mad like me, let me wax eloquent on the greatest spinner of my lifetime. One of the best commercials of Nike featured the classic spinner. The script is worth recalling though the commercial has been pulled off YouTube.

When would you give up asks the voice over. When the wickets refuse to fall? When you are told your team is better off without you or when your child is born on the other side of the world? And we have a dejected Shane Warne on the frame but as they say you can’t keep a Nike model down. The film cuts to his bowling Herchelle Gibbs with an unplayable ball in the 99 World Cup semi-final and the rest as they say is history. The commercial ends with the celebrated Nike tag line of “Just do it “. Yes, Shane Warne was the man of the series in the 99 World Cup that I had the good fortune to watch live.

Think long term

This leads me to the learning from Nike a brand I admire. Nike thinks long term when it comes to celebrities. Today, sadly many brands and brand managers are obsessed with the short run and quick fixes. Its celebrity strategy is not new and some of the greatest sportsmen and athletes have been proud of this superior brand. This is an important aspect of successful brands like Pepsi and Nike who have been consistent in their strategy of always using celebrities. And in the case of Nike there is another feature that I have noticed and admired. They have always looked for champion athletes and sportsmen but like Warne they have always been people who live on the edge, who are unafraid of speaking their mind and who have the odd transgression as they are human after all. But they are all people with “attitude” and people who hate losing.

So what’s your strategy?

This leads me to an important question for your own brand. Yes, it is okay to use a celebrity and pay an arm and leg for it. But is your strategy in place and more importantly is it long term. And finally does your celebrity’s personality match your brand’s personality?

Think about it before just doing it!