Film stars garner 85% share of ad volumes during Jan-Mar’23: TAM AdEx

Celebrity endorsements have been prevailing in India for a very long time, amid increasing challenge for brands to capture people’s time and focus. According to TAM AdEx report, marketers believe that brand ambassadors provide a higher degree of consumer recall. This is based on a pretty simple logic as India is a country where people are star-struck by movie stars, sports personality, TV actor and actress.

People idolise them and so, when they are seen in an advertisement promoting a product, it helps in building better brand image, spreading awareness, connecting consumers emotionally, creating unique identity and in turn increase product usage.

As per the TAM AdEx report, in the January-March 2023 period, 29% share of the ads telecast on TV were endorsed by celebrities. Film stars had the bigger share of ad volume at 85% during Jan-Mar’23, followed by Athletes and Television Stars, who contributed 9% and 6%, respectively.

In comparison to the first quarter of 2021, the duration of ads endorsed by celebrities in both Jan-Mar’22 Jan-Mar’23 witnessed a growth of 18% and 12%, respectively.

More than 55% of the duration of ads endorsed by celebrities fall under the Top 3 sectors – Food & Beverages, Personal Care/ Personal Hygiene, Household Products – and more than 3/4th fall under the top 7 sectors. The Textiles/ Clothing sector entered the Top 10 list, whereas four out of the Top 10 sectors have same rank position for Jan-Mar’23 over Jan-Mar’22.

During the Jan-Mar’23 period, the Top 2 sectors – namely Food & Beverages and Personal Care/ Personal Hygiene – were dominated by commercials backed by male celebrities and female celebrities, respectively.

Four out of the Top 10 categories were from the ‘Food & Beverages’ sector – Aerated Soft Drink, Pan Masala, Non Aerated Soft Drink and Energy Drink. The Top 10 categories accounted for 44% share of celebrity ad volumes, whereas ‘Toilet/ Floor Cleaners’ was the top category with 10% share of celebrity ad volumes in Jan-Mar’23.

‘Ecom-Gaming’ was the top category for which maximum celebrity from different professions endorsed brands under it, followed by ‘Spices’, ‘Building Materials/ System’, ‘Edible Oil’, and ‘Toilet Soaps’ categories.

‘Akshay Kumar’ was the most visible star, with an average visibility of 35 hours per day across all channels, followed by ‘Amitabh Bachchan’ with 25 hours per day through TV endorsements. There were equal numbers of male and female celebrities in the Top 10 list.

In Jan-Mar’23, seven of the top 10 celebrities, including ‘Amitabh Bachchan’, ‘Kareena Kapoor’, ‘Virat Kohli’, ‘Ajay Devgn’, ‘Sourav Ganguly’, ‘Shahrukh Khan’, and ‘Kiara Advani’, endorsed more brands than in Jan-Mar’22. Three out of the Top 10 celebrities were from the Sports profession.

More than 60% of the ads were endorsed by top three celebrity couples – ‘Akshay Kumar/ Twinkle Khanna’, ‘Amitabh Bachchan/ Jaya Bachchan’ and ‘Ranbir Kapoor/ Alia Bhatt’. The top 2 celebrity couples had endorsed similar 27 and 37 brands, respectively, during Jan-Mar’23.