Bankable icons or reliable unit?

Advertisers till now have banked heavily on the superstars of Indian cricket. But with their retirement on the anvil, do they need to redraw their marketing campaigns? 

 
You've got to create heroes and you've got to pay them.
 —Mark Mascarenhas, founder, Worldtel

Mascarenhas, who is widely recognised as the man behind Sachin Tendulkar's marketing success, made this statement in 1995. Around that time, with the growing penetration of satellite television, cricket was becoming big commercially. In the decade that followed, advertising and marketing campaigns were built around the then young super-performers thrown up by Indian cricket — we know them today as the Fab Five.
 Things were going great until the Five started faltering. While each one did show streaks of brilliance once in a while, consistency went missing. The superstars weren't delivering super performances like they used to.

 Younger players like Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni who were agile in the field and carried an I-dare-you swagger only deepened the contrast. Questions were raised: Should we choose a team that has big ticket players that wins  occasionally or a unit with lesser known players that wins more consistently? The contrasting results delivered by the Test and One-day teams in Australia and Sri Lanka only underline this question.

But with the back-to-back retirements of Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly, the answer seems to have presented itself. We have moved into an era of a superteam comprising a set of interchangeable performers. This is most evident in the bowling department: for example, if Zaheer Khan loses his form, there's always an RP Singh who'll deliver the results.

But can such a superteam be as good a brand ambassador as an individual superstar? Can we move away from Mascarenhas' marketing mantra of converting individual performers into super-brands?

Marketers DNA spoke to seem divided in their opinion. “Teams are good for the spirit [of the game], but they are not good for commercial value,” says KV Sridhar, national creative director of Leo Burnett, an ad agency. “Australia is a fantastic team. But the entire Australian team does not earn as much as Dhoni earns commercially,” he adds.

Stating that the purpose of sports ultimately is to create superheroes, Santosh Desai, CEO and MD, Future Brands points out, “It is simply too cumbersome (to sign an entire team). We need individuals without question.” 

But records indicate that a team comprising individuals with great personal milestones does not necessarily deliver more victories. Our Test team lost the series Down Under and was foxed by Ajantha Mendis in Sri Lanka. The ODI team, on the other hand, with just one of the Fab Five (Tendulkar), won in Australia and managed to hit Mendis out of the park.

Victories play an important role in creating a positive sentiment among viewers as well as the corporates, says Gaurav Seth, business head, Vyas Giannetti Creative Sports (VGCS), a sporting concepts firm. “Do you remember a time when people would simply turn the TV off after Sachin got out? Today people know that if Sachin gets out there are others who can perform… that we can win with 11 people. This brings confidence in viewers. It adds to viewership and thus visibility and marketability.”

Affordability too will play a role. From an advertisers' viewpoint the celebrity needs to reflect or reinforce in some way the brand values a product stands for. Going for upcoming cricketers who are not as expensive as superstars, but deliver the required values through solid performances makes sense for some brands.

 Prathap Suthan, national creative director, Cheil Communications (India), which was involved in the Team Samsung campaign, thinks that having a team advertisement is a great idea. “It makes sense not to put all your eggs in one basket.” he says.

But experts agree that demand for icons in India outstrips the supply at the moment. With more formats, media space, and vacant slots opening up in the national team the going has never been this good for a long time.

r_krishna@dnaindia.net