Leaving captaincy won’t dent Virat Kohli’s brand equity, say experts

After an illustrious innings as India’s most successful captain Virat Kohi decided to quit the test captaincy a day after India lost the last test against South Africa. Immediately on getting the news Sourav Ganguly BCCI President tweeted, Under Virat’s leadership Indian cricket has made rapid strides in all formats of the game...his decision is a personal one and BCCI respects it immensely...he will be an important member to take this team to newer heights in the future.

An impressive skipper who captained India in all formats for the last 7 years Virat has demonstrated great leadership skills andhas raised the bar of Indian cricket in the last few years. He is still pumped with energy and his charismatic appeal will be missed as the skipper of the Indian test team. Remember he had earlier relinquished his captaincy role in the T-20 format and subsequently BCCI decided to remove him from even the one-day international format as the board was clear that they wanted only one captain for the white ball cricket.

Indian cricket has not seen anyone quite like Virat Kohli who excelled consistently in all formats of the game. To be aggressive was in his DNA and to a large extent he redefined aggression by motivating his team both on and off the field. The last skipper one can think off who was aggressive is the current board president Sourav Ganguly. His success both as batsman and skipper has endeared him to the world of advertising and social media. He has a great fan following spread globally and today Virat Kohli claims the third sport in the list with over 173 million followers.

Will it impact this marketability and brand equity it is too early to comment? The residual value of his brand equity which he built over the last ten years will stay for some time as brands have a great respect for this iconic cricketer with a towering brand persona.Sachin Tendulkar’s career also only got better after relinquishing the captaincy. Even today Sachin is a trusted brand personality where brands are still associated with him. With the kind of brand persona Virat has created for himselfit will certainly help him to continue his innings after quitting the captaincy as he his hardworking and a sincere performer with die hard passion for the game. He will have to take fresh guard the next time he enters the cricket stadium and start a new innings with renewed thinking minus the captain’s hat. His eyeballs will not dip, it can only go up once he starts scoring more consistently which will certainly happen as his passion for the game and delivering results is always inscribed in his DNA as a cricketer who is very performance driven.

Moving away from the captaincy role will this effect brand Kohli? After all he is the sought-after cricketer and also an expensivename in cricket today. With a plethora of brands such as MRF, Myntra, American Tourister, Puma and Uber aligned with him it will be interesting to observe what kind of stance these brands will take. Also, one is not sure how important is the tag of captaincy for brands as he is a cricketer who believes in performance and for being so popular consistently both in India and globally for over 8 years, his brand equity will not erode so quickly. So long as his graph is high in the popularity chart, brands will be happy to be associated with him and leverage it to the maximum as brands had reposed faith on him for quite some time.

Sharing his perspective Lloyd Mathias, Business Strategist, Investor and former senior executive at HP Inc., Motorola and PepsiCo, said, “Virat Kohli’s decision to step down as India's test captain is certainly unexpected. Though I don’t think it will impact his brand value significantly or result in brands revaluating their contracts with him. Virat remains among India’s best sports persons and is still at the peak of his playing career.  In fact, this pulls back from captaincy may get him back at the peak of his batting form, further cementing his place among cricketing greats.”

Also, Virat’s brand value has been built over the years and goes beyond his cricketing prowess. He is one half of India’s best known celebrity couple; caring husband and father and an outspoken communicator who has spoken his mind and taken stands on some important issues.

Virat is an absolutely exceptional class act, once in a lifetime player is what Abhijit Avasthi, Founder, Sideways Consulting remarked And his captaincy is possibly an icing on what he has built the Indian team together. No doubt that has been a really important part of who he is of his personality because of which he finds love amongst people. I doubt that him stepping down will make any difference to his popularity or to his ability to contribute to a brand. I think he will play from strength and he will act to the stature of Indian cricket for many years to come. I am fairly certain that it will make no difference whatsoever in brand Virat.

Nisha Sampath, Managing Partner, Bright Angles Consulting LLP, commented, “Brand Virat stands is defined by strongly etched qualities. Aggressive competitive spirit, sheer talent, passion for fitness, love of cricket - and at the same time, the image of a supportive and caring husband and father. His equity with brands has depended on these qualities, more than just his leadership of Team India. He also has a huge fan following in social media.”

“I feel that whether he is captain or not, his equity will not be affected given his strong persona. However, performance with the bat will be crucial. If he, continues to struggle with form, he will face a backlash from fans, and that will erode his appeal,” Sampath added.

Sharing his views, Atul Raja, Executive VP - Global Marketing, Wadhwani Foundation, noted, “Virat Kohli stands tall as India’s most valuable celebrity worth $240 million and a whopping 30 brand endorsements even as we heard about his surprising and sudden resignation as India’s test cricket captain. While there are murmurs galore on the reasons behind his resignation, the mood is upbeat on his longevity prospects as a top-class batsman. He can now focus on his batting and get back to his old carefree, stroke play laden innings that gave joy to millions across the globe. He further remarked that I feel this will be a new Virat2.0 era that will revive and resuscitate the qualities that made the brand Virat so unique – tenacious, aggressive, fearless, can-do attitude, mental toughness, consistency, and discipline. So, Virat will not just continue to be a marketer’s delight, his persona and reach cutting across diverse target segments will be leveraged by many more brands in times to come. It is too early to write an obituary of Brand Virat, but not too late to await his second innings!”

Neha Mathur Rastogi, Founder & CEO, Words Work, Communications Consulting, added here, “Brand Virat remains and, in fact, shifts gears to a different phase with this recent development. Without doubt there is a lot of relevance for brands that comes with captaincy since you are in essence the face of the team but I feel he will now also be more accessible to brands in a potentially different way. Hence there may be a change in his brands portfolio and with that there is an opportunity here for him to strategically look at his longer-term positioning. The fandom around him isn’t going anywhere as long as he grows his engagement.”