The Siyaram Celebrity Endorsement Experience

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In February 2000, Siyaram signed the South African cricket team for promoting the brand. The multi-media promotion was spread over television, satellite channels, print, outdoor and point of purchase advertising. Gangadhar said, "We have taken this opportunity to associate ourselves with the number one ranked cricket team as they will be popular in the coming series of cricket matches. And this will enable the brand to be globally focused. The idea of such a campaign is also to send the message that the product is of international quality. In India where cricket is almost a religion, these models can be easily identified by both the masses as well the classes." Siyaram had decided to use the South African team on the recommendation of Percept. Gangadhar said, "All along, the South African team had a clean image. So we had signed up the entire team and not just one individual. When they were coming to Bombay (for the match), we thought it was a very good opportunity and so decided to shoot with them for the ads." Shailendra Singh, Joint Managing Director, Percept, said, "Our brief is to project J Hampstead as a global fashion brand. It is a high fashion brand that is successful and sincere. Consciously, we thought that Hansie Cronje has a 82% success rate and nine years' experience as a captain."

The advertisements featured the entire South African team wearing the J Hampstead premium suitings. Within a month of the campaign being released in the national media, the Cronje controversy surfaced. Siyaram continued to run the advertisements in newspapers for a few days after the scandal broke. However, the company decided to withdraw the campaign completely soon after. Gangadhar denied that the Hampstead brand image had been affected. He said, "I have had calls from well-wishers who say that no one could have anticipated this. We do things right and in the right spirit. And if something goes wrong all we can do is make amends for it. The brand is bigger than any individual." A Percept official said, "Thankfully, the campaign was not centered on one single player but the entire team. Hence it is not so bad after all. We are also recovering from the incident." He added, "We have used multiple personalities for the ad. We have not focussed just on Cronje. It is the entire 14-member South African team that we have signed up. So, we never let the personality become the brand itself." Siyaram's strategy of opting for multiple brand endorsements seemed to have diluted the impact of the scandal on the brand. The company began working on a new series of commercials featuring the Leander/Mahesh duo, but dropped them as the brand ambassadors in October, 2000. Though company sources denied that they had given up the celebrity endorsement route for J.Hampstead, the perils of celebrity endorsement began to be seriously examined by Indian companies and advertising agencies.

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