Hyderabad: There has been an outpour of support for Madhuri Dixit-Nene after the Haridwar FSDA served her a notice for endorsing Maggi. Fans across the country and even fellow actors like Vidya Balan, who said in an interview that it wasn’t Madhuri’s fault, have showed their support for the actress. Also, is it justified that an important government body sends a brand ambassador a notice for merely acting in an ad? Ad gurus and actors don’t agree.
“It’s not fair on the part of the FSDA to sue Madhuri. She was just the face of a brand, how is an actor supposed to know every tiny detail in the making of a product?” asks ad-man Prahlad Kakkar.
“Do you think if any other person, who wasn’t as popular as Madhuri, had endorsed the brand, he or she would have been sued? I don’t think so. It seems like an attempt to get attention.”
So how do actors keep themselves safe from such a situation? “I think it depends on the case,” says Piyush Pandey, Chairman and NCD, Ogilvy, India. He adds, “In this case, Madhuri is not an FDA official to be able to find out if anything was wrong. However, when Amitabh Bachchan was in hot water for endorsing Cadbury’s, I remember that he went and saw the packaging. But how careful one can be? It is the company’s responsibility to front the case. But incidents like these will make celebs more careful.”
Actor Sundeep Kishan, who has been part of many advertisements, says there really is no way one can tell.
“One of my first ad projects was a cola brand. It was even before I became an actor and the first thing that I realised was that the brand was always around, right from my childhood and was a favourite of people across the country. So I thought, since it was something that I myself have been drinking from a long time, why not endorse it?”
And when the issue of doing a background check on products comes up, he says that an actor can’t control certain events. However, he adds, “I have made a decision to never endorse brands that I wouldn’t use. Also, I think people shouldn’t forget that even in an ad, all that an actor is doing is act.”
Actress Pooja Hegde, who has turned heads in many ads, says that this is a really sad scenario. “Most actors are very responsible when it comes to choosing brands that they endorse. Since your name gets associated with a brand, it is important to know that the brand you’re endorsing is at least a good one. That said, such an incident can happen to anyone and the actor can’t be held responsible,” she says.
Pooja too, like Sundeep, makes sure that the brands she endorses are those that she personally uses or has grown up with. “I don’t endorse brands that I know nothing about. For me it is very important to know what I’m working with,” she adds.
Then there are those who believe that a celebrity needs to “be more responsible” before taking up a project. Take for instance Raj Kundra, who was annoyed with the lyrics of an ad that Shah Rukh Khan starred in. He had Tweeted: “This Frooti ad is disgusting! Kids copying and singing suck it lick it. @iamsrk bhai how did u approve this script? Tasteless literally! (sic)”.
While the lyrics of an ad can be changed, an actor has no say, because they don’t have the knowledge of what goes on in an industry. Vidya Balan too in an interview with a newspaper had said, “I think it is unfair to say that an actor should be more responsible. Imagine, we are eating that (Maggi) for more than 20 to 30 years. It’s not Madhuri’s fault that today researchers have found wrong things. How would she know? We are not involved in research.”
While many say that they pick a brand based on what they actually use or one that has been a common name in families, one can hardly imagine Malaika Arora using snuff powder (which she endorses) or Salman Khan washing clothes with the brand he endorses or Priyanka Chopra chewing on some Rajnigandha silver pearls before an event.
