Hrithik, Roshan, brand, ambassador, Reliance, Communications?

Reliance Communications has been pretty dormant for a while and I can understand the reasons. It is back with a bang. It is very close to signing up Hrithik Roshan as its brand ambassador.

The deal would run for 3 years and Hrithik would get anywhere between Rs 5 crore - 10 crore annually. This is part of 150 crore media campaign Reliance is launching for promoting its newly launched GSM operations and DTH operations.

You might see a new ad pretty soon - in early June. Reliance has 13 million GSM subscribers and is racing towards 100 million overall (GSM+CDMA) subscribers.

The celebrity brand endorsement business in India is pegged at about Rs 1,000 crore, including star appearances and events. Last year, cricketer M S Dhoni and Shah Rukh were among the top celebrities endorsing maximum products. (Business Standard)

Though I have my reservations about celebrity endorsements, I believe it will help build the brand and the company. When it comes to Hrithik he doesn’t endorse very many products. That could tilt the scales in Reliance’s favor. If they signed Shah Rukh then people might have gotten the monotony factor as Mr. Khan is seen in every other ad.

Telecom companies sell their products only through celebrities. With the exception of Vodafone and the ZooZoos almost all the companies have their own celebrities.

List of telecom companies and their celebrities :

1. Aircel - Dhoni. It is time to move on (beyond Dhoni).
2. BSNL - Ditched Preity Zinta for Deepika Padukone. Not a bad move.
3. Tata Indicom - Kajol. A little Outdated
4. Airtel - This is a football team. Madhavan, Vidya Balan, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, AR Rahman
5. Vodafone - ZooZoos. Yes, By the power vested in me by the state of Blogosphere, I now pronounce ZooZoos as celeberties. But, Vodafone/Hutch used Irfan Khan earlier.
6. Reliance - Hrithik Roshan. (They couldn’t have asked for more)
7. IDEA - Abhishek Bachan. A little ahead of time but very neat ads.

Looks like Vodafone still holds an edge over others when it comes to advertisements without endorsements.

Let’s see how Hrithik helps Reliance.

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