Beauty and the Bathing Bar !! Where does the buck stop?

Last week, some of the regional newspapers, featured an article about a local consumer court asking popular South Indian movie actor, Mammootty to appear in front of them, in connection with a case filed by a disgruntled consumer of a popular soap brand "Indulekha". The actor who is in his early 60s was popular among his fans for his exemplary acting skills and age-defying looks. He was endorsing the brand, that claimed, "Use Indulekha white soap - and the beauty will follow you".

The petitioner, K Chaathu from Wayanad district in Kerala has reportedly filed the complaint in a consumer court against Indulekha soaps and its brand ambassador  "for making fake claims through advertisements". He has claimed that he did not notice any changes in his "beauty" after the regular use of the soap. Though not the first instance, this is certainly amongst a flurry of complaints getting initiated by irate consumers against brands and their celebrity ambassadors, all over the country.

A couple of months ago, many celebrity brand ambassadors ranging from Amithabh Bachan to Preity Zinta faced the fury of consumers, for their association with Maggie. In this case beauty being an abstract term of reference, Mr. Chaathu may not be able to do anything more than creating a nuisance value for the brand and it's ambassador and his appeal all likely may get rejected at the court of law. But this could trigger more severe allegations about brands and their endorsers, that may get accepted by the court of law. This particular case may appear to be frivolous, but the issue that it represents, cannot be written off lightly.

Celebrity Endorsements - the easy way out:

In India, signing in a celebrity to endorse a brand is a practice that is as old as the industry itself. From the days of popular actress Leela Chitnis endorsing Lux to the cricket star Kapil Dev, Palmolive, the practice became inevitable for brands, as the classic Coke Vs Pepsi battle intensified. It's a fact that not many celebrities (except one or two like Gopichand and Lakshman) resisted the temptation of big bucks by rejecting the contract from a fizzy drink. Most of them made more money from brand endorsements than from their field of excellence. It was brand endorsements that helped some of them to stay afloat while their career faced setbacks. India's endorsement market even offered opportunities to cricketers from Australia and South Africa with their popularity through IPL.

These days, the number of brands that, the leading celebrities are engaged in promoting could easily get into double digits. While every brand irrespective of the category and potential who wanted to grow quick lined up to sign in celebrities, the concept of linking the brand with the image of the celebrity got conveniently ignored. The popularity of the practice has even led to absurdities like music maestros, A. R. Rehman and Ilayaraja were brought in to endorse, gold jewelry brands.

As far as a brand are concerned, the usage of a celebrity brand ambassador is a quick and easy method, to secure eminence and brand equity. It's also a tried and tested formula to create a ready-made franchise for the brand to gain a head-start in a cluttered market space. Clever usage of brand ambassadors helped them to push through exaggerated claims about their products without being questioned, and gain the trust of gullible consumers. Since most of the celebrities are well paid, they rarely question the authenticity of the claims and hardly bothered to verify them.

At the beginning of last decade, a financial services portal - hometrade.com was launched with much of fanfare. The brand boasted the presence of three of the most powerful brand ambassadors of the time - Sachin Tendulkar, Shahrukh Khan and Hritik Roshan, in their campaign and could able to attract a considerable amount of investor attention by leveraging them. But when ultimately the brand collapsed, nobody other than the poor investors were at loss. Ultimately the brand ambassadors who charge hefty endorsement fees got away without any responsibilities.

Accountability for what they endorse: 

I think to a larger extend the accountability of a brand endorser could be associated with the category of the product/service that is being endorsed. There are certain categories like fashion and to a larger extend lifestyle, the association of a celebrity brand ambassador limits to adding glamor and imagery. So the extent of accountability is relatively low. Whereas a celebrity ambassador ventures into the realms of trust and credibility when they endorse, health products, investment products, technology etc. 

Though advertisements were supposed to be the "truths, well represented", misleading and fake claims from the brands have become almost the order of the day. Many of the brands have stretched the limits of creative liberty by taking the sensibilities of consumers for granted. On the other hand, there should also be a certain level of creative license to build a value for the brand in the mind of consumers and get it differentiated from the competition. A successful brand needs to build an intangible emotional value and association in the mind or consumer, over and above it's rational benefits. And some element of creative liberty is quintessential to achieve that. There shouldn't be any problem if the creative liberties are taken without hampering the limits of credibility. Therefore, it's essential to have some amount of accountability towards the consumers for both brands as well as it's endorsers.