Cricketer Virat Kohli retained the top spot for the second consecutive year in the celebrity brand valuation rankings released by Duff & Phelps (D&P).
His brand value was pegged at $170.9 million in 2018, up about 19 per cent from the previous year.
Bollywood star Deepika Padukone rose to the second spot with a brand value of $102.5 million, followed by Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh and Shah Rukh Khan. King Khan slipped from the No 2 position in 2017 to No 5 in 2018.
Actors Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Hrithik Roshan were the others on the top 10.
D&P’s Celebrity Brand Valuation Report 2018 report said: “The total value of the top 20 celebrity brands stands at $877 million, with the top 10 contributing more than 75 per cent of the total value.”
The rankings are derived from the celebrities’ endorsement contracts values.
While Bollywood actors continued to dominate the ist, sports stars are now gaining ground.
Sports stars
“Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and PV Sindhu collectively contributed almost $241 million, which is over 27 per cent of the cumulative brand value of the top 20 celebrities,” said Aviral Jain, MD, Duff & Phelps.
From plain vanilla endorsement deals, India’s celebrity endorsement market has vastly evolved, with celebrities now entering into equity deals with companies, the report noted.
Also, national brands are increasingly roping in regional stars — such as Mahesh Babu, Tamannaah and Diljit Dosanjh — for their region-specific campaigns.
Power couple endorsers remain a major pull. “Power couple Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma have endorsed around 40 brands such as Head & Shoulders, Manyavar and Fastrack ,” the report noted.
It also said the social media influence of celebrities is increasingly becoming a major factor in their selection as brand ambassadors.