Men in Blue will slip into red with early return from Caribbean

As Indian cricketers prepare to return home after an embarrassingly slapdash World Cup campaign, the blue-eyed boys of marketers will face a slump of at least 25 per cent in their endorsements income.This will be true in case of star cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and Yuvraj Singh associated with major brands.Shailendra Singh, joint managing director, Percept Holdings, which handles brand-endorsement contracts for Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh, said, “With regard to the brand equity and value, there is some serious damage for brands using cricketers as spokespersons.”He said brands sign on stars based on their performance, consistency, and other key on-field characteristics to leverage such attributes off the field. “With the team performing dismally, brands will be unable find any leverage for their products,” he said.Hence, there will be a serious dip in equity and value, Singh said. After the World Cup, brands are questioning whether a cricketer can genuinely help increase a brand’s equity, or whether he takes away from it with every dip in performance.At any rate, companies such as Hutch, Pepsi, Reebok, and Puma are not rushing to oust these cricketers from their campaigns. Indeed, they are ready to work on fresh creatives.Rajiv Mehta, managing director, Puma, said, “We cannot use the World Cup promotion we designed with Sourav Ganguly. However, once he is back we will work on fresh ads and he will continue to be our ambassador.” Mehta said Puma we will not re-negotiate the fees. “It will remain the same,” he said.But brands such as Britannia, Pepsi, and Coke are unsure about using cricketers for future campaigns. Punita Lal, PepsiCo India’s executive director, marketing, said, “Like the rest of the nation, we were hoping that the Indian team would fare better. Our creative strategy was based on this premise.”