The Sania Mirza brand ambassador controversy: Much ado about nothing?

Ajay Jadeja, the former cricketer, has had the mortification of being roped in as the brand ambassador of Castrol for a fabulous amount only to have the hallowed status wrenched away a few months later when the match fixing controversy came to haunt many an Indian cricketer, including him. A brand ambassador is placed on a pedestal. A fall from grace means fall from the pedestal as well. Tiger Woods followed Jadeja to this hall of infamy when Accenture dropped him like a hot potato on reports of his dalliances with numerous women outside of his marriage.

The anointment as a brand ambassador is more edifying to one’s ego as well as wealth because as one can see, the entire Indian cricket team is divided on cola lines, with a few modeling for Pepsi and the others for Coke. A brand ambassador stands out from the crowd. He hogs the entire limelight. He is the king of the forest. He is not one among the crowd.

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The credit for starting the process of anointment of political ambassadors perhaps goes to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who in his earlier avatar as Chief Minister of Gujarat handpicked the redoubtable matinee idol of yesteryears Amitabh Bachan as the brand ambassador of Gujarat. Modi, in the course of one of his interviews in the run up to the recent Lok Sabha elections shared a state secret with the TV viewers, his state did not pay a single rupee to the star who otherwise has the reputation of wangling a king’s ransom. In other words, Amitabh was promoting Gujarat pro bono.

Sania Mirza, the tennis player who was a couple of days ago appointed the brand ambassador of the newly formed Telengana, is being paid Rs 1 crore for her services. However, one wonders what they are going to be. Amitabh exhorts people to come to Gir forests in droves to see lions either cavorting or attacking in droves. Sania might beckon tourists to Golconda and other attractions. But the question that any sensible person would ask is what the celebrity brings to the table as to deserve the largesse s/he normally gets.

Ogilvy, the advertising guru, once famously remarked, tongue firmly in cheek, that in celebrity advertising one tends to remember the celebrity and forget the product! After all, it is very difficult to divine the incremental sale on account of the celebrity’s charisma. Indeed, there is no mathematical formula to bear out the claim that celebrities give bang for the buck.

The only intuitive proof is the pester power of children in getting their parents to buy them the drinks, shoes and other products endorsed by their favorite celebrity players or stars. A mature adult never buys a car merely because a celebrity s/he is besotted with asks him/her to do so.

If commercial celebrities’ contribution is at best nebulous and unquantifiable, the contribution by the ones representing states is downright questionable. Americans have ambassadors at large. Henry Kissinger brokered peace between numerous despots and rulers with the US government.

We, however, seem to have gone overboard in our fawning tendencies to genuflect before our sporting and cinema heroes. If it is dawning on the commercial world that the satisfied customer is its best brand ambassador, it is time it dawned on our rulers and satraps that it is the happy citizen who is its best advertiser.