The fortnight gone by belonged to ads fuelled by celebrities. Despite a few good campaigns, the spotlight was unfortunately on Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar’s endorsement of a tobacco brand and subsequent apology. Despite the apology, his iteration that the campaign would still run, disappointed fans and restarted the whole debate of celebrities needing to show sensitivity while endorsing products
Smart collaboration
The celebrity endorsement that really worked was pre-owned cars company OLX Autos’ collaboration with Bollywood director Rohit Shetty and actor Sharman Joshi in the campaign “Shetty Ke Car-Naame”. The digital-first multi-film campaign depicts Rohit Shetty as a consumer keen to sell the cars from his movies to Sharman Joshi, who poses as an OLX Autos employee evaluating the cars for sale. Conceptualised by Lowe Lintas, the films are a humorous take on the common tropes found across Rohit Shetty’s movies, where cars are often shown in a glamorised fashion, performing gravity-defying stunts.
On the go
RuPay made its IPL debut with its humorous On-The-Go ad featuring fast-bowler Ishant Sharma. The film revolves around the banter between three characters — an umpire struggling with payments, a batsman who is a keen RuPay user and takes it upon himself to educate the Umpire on it, and fierce pacer Ishant Sharma. The umpire gets so distracted listening to the innovative RuPay offerings that he doesn’t notice Sharma has bowled, rapped the opener on the pads, and is screaming ‘Howzzaaaatt!’, waiting for a decision from him. What follows is a ‘match freeze’ with Sharma trying his best to catch the umpire’s attention. Conceptualised by DDB Mudra, the campaign also features four short films which explain how payments can be quick, safe, easy, and hassle-free for customers.
Ditch the doubt
Myntra’s latest campaign using actors Kiara Advani and Samantha Ruth Prabhu was another example of smart use of celebrities. The stars drive home the campaign’s message of overcoming self doubt and truly owning your narrative. Often while shopping for apparel, you hesitate over the latest fashion trends, wondering if it would suit you. The campaign addresses the mindset of self doubt and urges shoppers to be confident, brave and experimentative in their fashion choices. As the ads conceptualised by Brave New World says, ‘If you never try, you’ll never know’ and hence ‘Go for it’
From global shores
The Dove Self Esteem Project’s #DetoxYourFeed campaign — created by Ogilvy — using deep fakes continued the brand’s message about real beauty. It talks about the dangers of toxic beauty advice, highlighting topics like “fitspo”, “thinspo” and so on.