Consider this. Amitabh Bachchan, age-defying icon and celebrity uncle at large, has appeared in 67 advertising spots on TV in the past 12 months. That's more advertisements in one year than the 62 years the superstar has spent on earth. Big B's distinctive baritone cuts through night-time viewing every two minutes with an opinion on how Cadbury's chocolates are hygienic and tasty, how Reid & Taylor is quality for less money and the longevity enhancing benefits of Dabur Chyawanprash.

SUSHMITA SEN

Selective about her ads, she advertises jewellery brand Kiah and is Tag Heuer's first female brand ambassador.

The celebrity blitz seems unending. In the past few weeks, we have had designers like Rohit Bal giving out public invitations to attend the latest nightclub launch. At a recent polo event in Jaipur organised by LVMH, the group that owns Tag Heuer, brand ambassadors Sushmita Sen and Shah Rukh Khan hogged the limelight as top models like Indrani Dasgupta hung around unrecognised. "Nobody is looking at us," Dasgupta muttered to a fellow model.

If the professional model's role is as good as defunct, thanks to the celebrity endorser, filmmaker Karan Johar is now posing a serious threat to the professional interviewer as he demands viewers' attention over a cup of coffee on Star World. Shobhaa De is on her own power trip, via Sahara One. Item girl Yana Gupta and her starlet cousins like Pooja Bedi and Simone Singh blabber away as show hosts on the Times of India Group-backed celeb-driven channel Zoom. According to TV journalist and talk show host Karan Thapar, Indians are "blinded by stardom and rather foolishly at that". While saying that the rash of celeb show hosts should be judged on performance alone, he believes, however, that our "warped judgement" often makes us confuse roles. "In the West, filmstars don't become TV anchors and TV anchors don't become celebrities, with rare exceptions like David Frost," he says.

GAYATRI DEVI

Models for Arisia diamonds. Though 84, her royal lineage carries credibility in endorsing expensive jewellery.

According to TV Ad Indx, a creative monitoring agency, this year cricketers starred in 108 ads while filmstars featured in 259 (two years ago the corresponding figure was 179 filmstars), determinedly keeping models away from their jobs. Balding but earnest cricket commentators had to run for cover as Mandira Bedi's noodle straps, followed by a rash of imitators, became eye candy on cricket shows. The general elections recorded an infusion of celebs and bahus generating media debate on the ethics of the trend.

Are celebrities slowly but surely taking over our lives?

Adman Suhel Seth, co-CEO, Equus Red Cell and society watcher-cum-schmoozer, calls the new celebrity "the mistress of the medium who can sell tyres that are tubeless to the new pink in the L'Oréal range". Saying it is a breed that has permeated like termite onto every medium he adds: "Celebrity has replaced craft, perception has replaced competence and the media is getting into bed with the flakes of the world."

AAMIR KHAN

Symbolises the trend of the personality matching the product. The new Titan ad shows him as extremely choosy.

Advertising executives plead "instant recall" in defence. There were about 5,000 television commercials on air this year according to TV Ad Indx, while last year they were between 3,700 and 4,000, a growth of 25 per cent. This means shorter attention span of viewers. Sandeep Vij, president, Optimum Media Solutions, a division of Mudra Communications Ltd, says at a time of "simultaneous consumption of media", advertising audiences are dwindling. "The number of brands advertised on TV has gone up from around 3,000 a decade ago to almost 11,500 today. For the same period, the number of commercials being aired is up by over 3,000 per cent," he says. In the car segment alone, there are about 104 TV ads. No wonder then that Shah Rukh and Preity Zinta's Yash Chopra-like sunflower field dominated Santro ad is seen as getting high recall.

The 1980s saw the advent of celebrity endorsements with Kapil Dev endorsing Palmolive shaving cream and Sunil Gavaskar modelling for Dinesh Suitings. Bagging the Lux campaign was so prestigious that actors were willing to do it for free. Celebrity ads then were few enough to be effective. But now, as Piyush Pandey, national creative director, Ogilvy & Mather says: "At a time when Shah Rukh and Bachchan are in dozens of ads, a celebrity on his own cannot replace an idea."

So celebrity content becomes the buzzword. Britain's high-brow magazine Granta, which devoted an issue to the celebrity creature, noted, "Celebrities are seen as fictions, the argument being that they are media inventions, with amplified, distorted or invented parts of their lives assembled for our benefit and made familiar to us through the media."

The Games People Play PARTY ANIMAL: Bal threw a bash for the nightclub Decibel at Samrat hotel in Delhi Party hosts Local socialites and designers are increasingly throwing parties to launch nightclubs, foreign brands or promote products. Designers Ashish Soni and Rohit Bal are among those who launched nightclubs in Delhi recently. Most would launch a nightclub or a gym in return for free membership and a good party. But some do get paid, like socialite Bina Ramani who threw a bash for a Dior perfume. Some designers are quoting a fee for launch parties. Brand endorsements A-list stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan would command anywhere between Rs 4 crore and Rs 10 crore per campaign. But rates vary. For instance, when an unknown brand wants to sign on a top star, they would pay him a much larger sum. On the other hand, many stars would lower their rates for Coke, considered prestigious. One ad would cost less than an entire campaign, rates would also differ on the period of time the deal is signed for. When a celebrity puts creative input into the product, like Madhuri Dixit for Emami, the money charged would also be more. Brand ambassadors like Twinkle Khanna for Movado, Aishwarya Rai for Longines and Sushmita Sen and Shah Rukh for Tag Heuer charge depending on the time they give to the brand and the number of "visits" to promote it. PAGE THREE POWER: Garware (centre) modelled for Morgan De Toi Turn on the catwalk A ribbon cutting is different from a "something extra". For instance, when CTC Plaza flew in stars like Kareena Kapoor and Urmila Matondkar to attend the launch of a store, the stars refused to wear outfits from the store's collection, saying there is an extra fee for that, as that would be considered "modelling for the brand". But again, rules differ. When the brand is considered to be one of "stature", celebs would take to the runway without charging a fee. DUAL ACT: Malaika Arora and husband Arbaaz (top) are in demand for ribbon-cutting; Basu Ribbon cutting A model, in demand in Chandigarh and other smaller cities, could charge up to Rs 50,000 for ribbon-cutting. While a top Bollywood star would quote Rs 3-10 lakh for an appearance (not including two first-class tickets and a five-star stay), a skin flick chick could charge up to Rs 1 lakh. While hierarchy is strictly maintained, there is a place for everyone: A, B and C list. Photo-op pull Celebs are called upon to grace charity shows and other non-profit events to help in getting the cause more publicity. Most continue to do this for free.

PICTURE SPEAK

FIELD DAY: Noodle strap girl Bedi is seen on the cricket field in a hair oil ad

Celebrity quirks are identified and turned into marketable strategy. Every brand claims the unique values of its product matches the personality of its promoter. Never mind that the qualities of "reliability" and "trustworthiness" embodied in good old Bachchan uncle sell everything from worm-free Cadbury chocolates to Nerolac Paints to Maruti Versa, Pepsi and Himani fast relief ointment. Nor does it matter that Shah Rukh's brand of style fits as much with Swatch Group's Omega as with rival LVMH's Tag Heuer. As for "Mr Clean" Sachin Tendulkar's endorsement of the ill-fated Home Trade, the less said the better.

Yet, Aamir Khan is the latest to be tinkling with a watch, this time for Titan. "Aamir is a picky actor, and we used him to show that style is something you should be picky about," says Pandey, whose agency O&M along with the client, Tata, took "a joint decision" to sign on the actor. For the Tata Group, which till now relied on the brand name as king, this is a turnaround in strategy.

Dabur India, with a turnover of Rs 1,339 crore, jumped onto the celebrity bandwagon with similar strategies, signing on Bachchan as brand ambassador. "Bachchan and the brand match because they both, having stood the test of time, stand for vitality and life," says Prasoon Joshi, national creative director, McCann Erickson, whose agency did the Dabur Chyawanprash ad. Now, Virender Sehwag joins Bachchan to promote the product. Perizaad Zorabian, with four films behind her, says her marketable story is that "I am the MBA who plays the game by her set of rules." This, she claims, gets her personality-oriented ads like Asmi and Whisper. She says: "Indian advertising, cinema or brands want celebrities that are real, whose story they can relate to."

PREITY ZINTA

Her fresh looks make her a top draw. Signed up to endorse Head & Shoulders, TVS Scooty and Maggi this year.

Some will point out that "reality" and "celebrity" are as related as chalk and cheese. Social observers take the line that the subliminal message is one that places a high premium on success. While Shekhar Seshadri, psychiatrist, says the celebrity cult is profit-driven by nature, he adds the problem comes when you "distort images to pander to consumerism". But at least celebrities in the West endorse products within their area of expertise. If Cindy Crawford is for Omega, Milla Jovovich endorses many brands, including L'Oréal and Christian Dior, but all are an extension of her status as model and actor.

In India, the push for recall is often taken to illogical ends. Nobody seriously believes that Shah Rukh's car of choice is a Santro or that Hrithik Roshan would ride around town on a Hero Honda or that Tendulkar uses a Palio (especially when his personal Ferrari hits the headlines). AgencyFaqs, an online trade magazine, analysing the results of a Bates study in June-July 2002, concludes that "while services as a category embraced celebrities with enthusiasm, most celebrities failed to deliver the persuasive power". According to surveys, the Hutch commercial, featuring not a celeb but a pug pup, was among the highest recall ads this year. "We remain steadfastly non-celebrity," says Hutch CEO Ashim Ghosh. For a company which has stayed away from celeb ads on principle, the pug ad proved its point. Yet, rivals such as Airtel released ads featuring the likes of Kareena Kapoor. The over-exposed Bachchan signed a record Rs 10 crore for a year-long deal with Emami. And clients continue to swear by their celebs. "Tendulkar did wonders for us in establishing the brand," maintains Venu Srinivasan, chairman and managing director of TVS Motor Company, whose TVS Victor ad featured the cricketer. So happy are they with the results that this year the company signed on Zinta, who has already endorsed items ranging from Liril to Cadbury Perk and Godrej refrigerators, to promote the 10-year-old brand TVS Scooty. According to ad guru Alyque Padamsee, "The associative value of a celebrity with a brand, even when it has nothing to do with the celeb's expertise, is accepted because stars are part of the pantheon of the gods we worship."

SHAH RUKH KHAN

Did wonders for Santro but indiscriminate signing means he winds up endorsing competing brands.

Celebrity endorsements are showing a decline in the West as advertisers feel the star overshadows the brand (even Pepsi, known for using big names, has dropped Beyonce Knowles and Britney Spears). But celebs of all varieties are popping up everywhere in the Indian media. After the Shah Rukhs, Aishwarya Rais, Saif Ali Khans and Kareena Kapoors, even actors like Mandira Bedi, Arshad Warsi and Bipasha Basu are being courted by brands. One-film success Zayed Khan is the brand ambassador for Pizza Hut, a chain whose international endorsers include Mohammad Ali and Pamela Anderson.

While some say that the definition of celebrity is expanding, others feel it is hitting a low bar in a country that seems to lack real idols. If this was driven home when the Olympic torch came to Delhi earlier this year and Basu and Co. carried the flame while the real stars of sports sulked, theatre too is falling prey. Sonali Bendre replaces veteran Shabana Azmi in the sequel to Tumhari Amrita, presumably to draw in crowds, though Padamsee says "she frankly could not act her way out of a paper bag".

AISHWARYA RAI

Face of L'Oréal, Longines and Nakshatra diamond jewellery. For Coke, did an ad with Vivek Oberoi.

Now, a new celebrity is cashing in where not so long ago only cricketers and top actors passed the commercial test of what defines a celebrity. Figures show that endorsements by cricketers are showing a decline. "The reception of the ad was too closely linked to the cricketer's performance," says Joshi. With even the Bollywood C-list almost exhausted, new celebs are urgently needed. Page Three princess Ramona Garware walked the runway at the Delhi launch of Morgan De Toi and Bina Ramani was paid to throw a launch party for a Dior perfume. Designers Ashish Soni and Bal launched nightclubs on behalf of the owners, while Raghavendra Rathore is ambassador for the Vertu phone. Says Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books, now commissioning a book on designers: "Page Three has created an awareness about these people. Their audience now want to know more about them."

VIRENDER SEHWAG

While cricketers are no longer so hot, he endorses Samsung, Mayur Suitings and Dabur.

Take Maharani Gayatri Devi. Once declared among the world's most beautiful women, the maharani, 84, was living away from the spotlight till she was exposed to a whole new generation after polo, at which she is a fixture, began being reported on Page Three. Now, she has been resurrected from her palace by the jewellery brand Arisia and is member of the jewellery endorsement brigade comprising younger beauty icons like Rai (for Nakshatra) and Sen (for Kiah). She is also the subject of Maharanis, a Penguin India publication. Says Ravi Singh of Penguin India: "Publishing can rarely create a celebrity but it can feed off an environment which is geared towards the celebrity cult." He adds that the chances of the book on the maharanis doing well "are far higher now than in the past". After Rupa released Gulzar's biography by his daughter Meghna and Roli did a Family Pride series based on celeb parents and children, the first title under Mapin's new imprint, Mapin Lit, is a book of poems by actor Deepti Naval, who had been till now rejected by publishers.

AMITABH BACHCHAN

The undisputed king of the ad world, with Dabur, Emami, Pepsi, Reid & Taylor, Nerolac, among others.

As old celebrities stage a comeback and new ones redefine their roles, it is difficult to tell if the viewer is the victim or the beneficiary in this celebrity blitz. In the reign of 24-hour TV networks, the media machine is churning out celebrities who are, in the words of writer Namita Gokhale, "holographic distractions manufactured to keep the underclasses happy". As "advertainment" takes over advertising, audiences are getting their thrills from looking at TV star Aman Verma cleaning commodes in an ad or laughing at Warsi's plight in a cola spot. Or watching Johar turn on his own "friends" and make them squirm for the benefit of viewers. In savage irony, these celebrities could well be processed, enjoyed and discarded as the fickle consumer decides he has tired of the celeb circus. For now, however, the celeb is king.

PICTURE SPEAK
PERIZAAD ZORABIAN The multiplex movie actor, a B-list star, still gets endorsements on the basis of her "intelligence quotient". BIG BITE: One-hit-old Zayed has been signed on by Pizza Hut

Planet of Pay-Offs As the galaxy of celebrities expands, the rules of the game are changing on the mother planet, Page Three. Those within the orbit are realising there is no such thing as an innocent party. It is common knowledge that the celebrity who ribbon-cuts is charging a fee. But now, you can no longer tell for sure if the "friends" in attendance are for real. The celebs "dropping into" a high-end couture outlet are increasingly being bought off with the promise of taking home as much of whatever they liked.   PICTURE SPEAK RENT A STAR: Celebs at the launch party of the store Kimaya in Delhi Says Anshu Khanna, publicist, Goodword Communications, Delhi: "It is okay when they charge for an appearance because after all they are pushing products. It has reached a stage where nobody even wants to grace a charity occasion without a fee." But opinions on what is ethical and what is not differ. Arjun Shawney, director, Communications Council, image consultant and pr firm, Delhi, maintains he puts his foot down when clients put pressure on his agency to charge for party appearances by local "celebs". He says: "People should attend if they believe in the brand." Some of the old guard have not yet succumbed to the rent-a-ribbon-cutter game. Shabana Azmi, for instance, recently launched the fashion store RCKC in Delhi and didn't demand a fee. Dimple Kapadia is still known to attend launches without expecting any monetary return. And Ajay Devgan, who refuses to do any endorsement, walked the runway recently for a show in Mumbai where the proceeds went for aids research. Feroze Gujral, when asked to walk the runway, asked for her fee to be directly given to her favourite charity. Meanwhile, even as some designers are happy to lend their name to a launch party as a brand extension exercise, others are raising the matter of "the professional fee". In the early days top stars like Shah Rukh Khan charged for performing at weddings, now even middle-rung models demand a fee for coming to a party and having a good time. The media's demand for celebrities requires ample supply in return. The result-the reader doesn't know how much of the world he sees on Page Three is real. In fashion, there is the saying that there is only one way to tell whether the huge rock a girl wears on her finger is fake or real: it is real if she looks like she can afford it. The same rule, increasingly, is beginning to apply to parties-if the host looks like he could be friends with his famous guests, he probably is. Otherwise, they are paid for. -By Kanika Gahlaut

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