Picture this: Pierce Brosnan, in the midst of his James Bond like activities, probably fighting off an armed man, whips out his dabba of pan masala and eats it. Sounds like a major mismatch, right? Well that’s what the owners of a pan masala brand have managed to do.
All through the history of advertising in India, there have been a few cases where brand ambassadors and the brand have not had much in common. Take Maria Sharapova for instance, the tennis star was chosen as the face of a Gurgaon-based real estate project. The other time people were surprised was when hollywood star Hugh Jackman was the face of the phone brand Micromax. Prahlad Kakkar says, “When a brand makes people laugh with them they have succeeded, but when they make people laugh at them, that’s when they fail and that is what this paan masala brand has done. If their idea was to target a younger audience into believing that eating this was cool, then they failed,” says Prahlad.
Going back to the time when Hugh Jackman endorsed Micromax, people were still convinced. “That’s because the company was going global, so it made sense to get a well-known international face,” say Jaideep Mahajan, National creative Head, Rediffusion Y & R. “Everybody is talking about Brosnan’s association with the brand, but no one is talking about the brand itself, that way the brand has ended up garnering attention for Brosnan and not so much for itself. Pierce Brosnan was no doubt a famous Bond, but, to the younger generation, he isn’t even happening anymore. If they did want to create a connection with the youth, they should have hired someone who is young and more relatable.”
