Brands encash in on cricketers

Move over Bollywood actors with their chiseled faces and toned bodies, the new benchmark of handsome

lies with the new national heroes of Team India. A multinational personal grooming brand is quite keen to leverage the celebrity status of Team India members, the current World Cricket Champions and is interested in earmarking Rs 6 crores to rope in a cricketer of its choice from the winning 11. It feels the popularity of Indian cricketers has shot up by leaps and bounds over the last few weeks, peaking on Super Saturday when M S Dhoni and his boys lifted the World Cup. Till date this brand was endorsed in India by Bollywood stars only. No surprise that brand endorsement rates of Indian team members, especially Dhoni, master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh, will hit new highs as several new categories like water purifiers, soaps and detergents, paint companies and even travel portals are scrambling to get Indian cricketers to endorse their brands, say celebrity managers.

Manish Porwal, MD of talent management firm Alchemist Talent Solutions, which is working on behalf of firms such as Future Group, Bharti Airtel and Max New York Life says he expects individual endorsement fees to go up by at least 30 per cent, and categories interested in associating with cricketers to double. As many as 10 non-conformist categories like personal grooming, homecare products, and even agarbattis want a piece of the cricket pie now. While Dhoni’s brand valuation is set to go through the roof, Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh along with new blood Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina are in big demand, say their managers.