E-com Cos Pay Up To 200 Pct More To Sign Up B-Town Celebs

By siliconindia | Tuesday, 11 August 2015, 11:29 Hrs

BANGALORE: The high end celebrity endorsement culture penetrates the e-commerce and startup category. Talent management firms are charging these online portals or just born companies an increase of 30-200pct for settling endorsement deals with hot shots, as Economic Times reports.

Rumors came Zomato is in negotiation with Amitabh Bachchan for an ad campaign session though the food giant declined it. If this turns true then, this will Big Bachchan’s second tie up in the online space after First Cry. Last month, the actor he was named the face of the online child portal.

Fashion photographer and promoter of Bling, Atul Kasbekar comments "It's a fact that startups and ecommerce firms' spends are substantially higher across the board, whether it's celebrity engagement or talent acquisitions.”

First grade actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Bachchan charge around 8-21crore for each deal they sign for the web companies. The amount is 20-25pct higher than their similar offline deals.

Aamir Khan’s annual deal with e-commerce site Snapdeal is of Rs 14-15 crore. His offline deals limits to Rs 9-10 crore per year.

Afsar Zaidi, MD of talent management firm Exceed Entertainment, explains this idea of extra charge in case online transaction "This is why the ecommerce endorsement deals are attractive. These celebrities are betting on the long-term potential of the startup.”

Heroines of Bollywood are also participating in this business trend.

Its buzzing that Sonam Kapoor and Vidya Balan are all set to sign deals with two startup organizations where their involvement with the brand will be much more than mere endorsers. They will be the angel ambassadors of these projects.

E-commerce site Yepme is pulling up its celeb face Shah Rukh Khan’s brand image by an online mass media campaign for his upcoming movie 'Fan'. Denoted with #iamfan contest, in this the Bollywood Badshah will find out his top 100 fans in the country before the release of his film next April. Yepme founder and CEO Vivek Gaur shared his view in the company blog. "The #iamfan contest itself is planned to involve our end users into various engagements to build a two-way communication."

Endorsements in the web platform add more to the customer engagement and retention method. Vinit Karnik, national director, entertainment, sports and live events at GroupM comments, "Number of days per year is passe... it now adds a social layer also to it with more interactions with regards to consumer engagement, hence the endorsement has gone beyond plain vanilla appearances to integrations, appearances, digital (number of tweets or Facebook posts or blogs), etc, and is spread across platforms."

This independence day another rmuch awaited online brand endorsement will be by Master Card with Bollywood legend Anil Kapoor.

Other mention worth tie ups will be of Sachin Tendulkar with Instant messaging and voice over IP app Viber and Priyanka Chopra as the lead face of Public Chats.