SUBMITTED BY-

ANTONU DUTTA
BAM1910
MBA 3RD SEMESTER

Answer 1-
KK, the brand Custodian should not go against using the celebrity. Because nowadays, though
the “celebrity” tag is given to anyone who is going viral, but the main focus of the promotion is
to reach the youth of the population and introduce them with the new 3G feature of their
network.
And for this, even though the celebrity will not directly attract his/her fans or followers to shift to
this network, but innovative and different advertisements (like Vodafone ZooZoo) using the
celebrity can catch the eye of the future customer, so when they face network issues next time,
there is a higher chance of this network coming across their mind.
But in today’s world the Celebrity tag is very volatile depending the future of the celebrity, so
celebrities who have a standard stature should be considered for the promotion.
In ever society, individuals listens to the voice of their loved or admired celebrities as well as the
controversies involving those celebrities. Celebrities of any field are one such power to mould a
shape of general feeling in public opinion. Any message conveyed by the Celebrities will have
huge followers and reach will be more, so even if this doesn’t increase the sale directly, but it
will make sure that the general public does not forget about the product’s existence. Instead
repetitive promotions or occurrences on digital media as well as other platforms through the
hired celebrities makes an imprint of the product in the minds of the public, so whenever they go
to buy similar product, this specific brand will definitely come to their mind for consideration.
The messages conveyed by these will have more recall rate than messages conveyed by non-
celebrities.

Answer 2-
Considering the fact that all the major telecom brands in India excluding one are running very
highly prone to loss in every financial year due to the unchallengeable low price with high speed
offered by the Star competitor, there is very little that a mere endorsement by celebrity can do to
improve the situation for the other players in this segment. But in the advent of the new Super
Speed 5G network and launching of Smart-Gadgets including the Smartphone with 5G support,
this is a proper time to push the accelerator and use as many resources that a telecom brand can
do, so that it gets the attention of the first batch of customers and thus grab an opportunity to
make a stable comeback to the field. So even though using celebrities for endorsement of
telecom brands will not directly bring the fans to shift to the desired network by the brand, but it
will surely be imprinted in minds of the youth which does the trick during purchasing the new
high speed network in the near future. And also for the Star brand, using celebrities for
endorsement at this crucial moment will make sure they keep on residing in the minds of the
users and also possible future users.

Answer 3-

Risks and benefits of celebrity brand endorsements in the rapidly changing telecom markets in
India are discussed below-
Benefits-
 Builds credibility- Using a famous celebrity for endorsement of high speed or better
connectivity network creates credibility and a sense of trust among users and also future
users.

 Makes the brand stand out- it helps to differentiate the brand from competitors, and people
start recognizing the telecom network by the image of the celebrity.

 Ensured Attention- ensures attention of the prospect target group by breaking the clutter
of advertisements and making the brand more noticeable. E.g. airtel ad by Shahrukh
Khan.

 PR coverage- using celebrities to do their part of RP activity and thus offering a helping
hand towards the ongoing crisis attracts a huge amount of people.

 Higher degree of recall- people tend to remember the brand by the name of the
celebrity.

 Demographic Connect- different stars attract or influence different segments of fans, so

using that knowledge properly can bring a change. E.g. Vicky Kaushal or Kartik Aaryan
in the current scenario to attract the high speed loving new-gen users.
Risks-

 Endorsements are expensive- a celebrity endorsement typically requires shelling out a pretty
substantial chunk of money which could have been actually used for other activities to improve
quality of network or reach of network.

 Celebrity images change- An unmistakable case of this was Tiger Woods in 2009, when
gossipy tidbits about his disloyalty surfaced and marks started to drop him as a support to
dodge the reaction from purchasers. Nike didn't quickly deliver him as a support and lost
clients thus.

 The Vampire Effect – the celebrity may overshadow the brand and people may stop
noticing the brand or the telecom offers provided but the celebrity only.

 Inconsistency in the professional popularity of the celebrity- Athletes and actors are
prone to this crisis as they may not be able to keep on performing similarly in the future
and thus losing popularity. E.g. Udit Narayan endorsing a telecom network in the late 90s
will definitely not work in todays world.

 Multi-brand endorsements by the same celebrity- overexposure of the celebrity as he or

she is endorsing multiple brands may make it confusing and even not noticeable for the
customers to recognize the brand at times.