CHURU-BASED Raghunandan Saraf’s family has been in wood trading for over four decades in rural Rajasthan. In 2009, he founded Saraf Furniture after spotting an opportunity in India’s deeply unorganised market, where wooden furniture was largely associated with expensive local carpenters and fragmented retail stores. The company, built as a pure D2C player long before it became fashionable, sells entirely through its own website and stores without relying on marketplaces. Today, the bootstrapped business generates roughly ₹350 crore in gross revenue, employs around 2,500 carpenters in Rajasthan, and is profitable, according to CEO Saraf.

But when the company decided to sign veteran South African cricketer Jonty Rhodes as brand ambassador, it was not for glamour. Instead, it wanted to look trustworthy. “The idea was to capture the customer segment who grew up watching him,” Saraf says.

Onboarding a celebrity comes with a dual advantage. “It helps build trust and boosts the team’s confidence,” he adds. As a “capital decision”, the company consciously avoids ultra-expensive Indian A-listers. It also distances itself from lower-recall names to avoid dilution of the brand’s positioning.

Indore-based Zed Black Agarbatti, which had earlier roped in multiple regional ambassadors across languages and markets, is likely to agree. But the communication was fragmented and scaling consistency became difficult. “We realised the brand needed a strong national face who could communicate across India through a unified message,” shares Ankit Agrawal, director and managing partner. Despite a limited budget, the company was on the lookout for “a celebrity with strong credibility and mass acceptance”. That hunt stopped at cricketer and world cup-winning captain M.S. Dhoni. “The incense industry is highly competitive and price-sensitive. Advertising budgets are linked to market share. We wanted to maximise the impact of every rupee spent on branding,” Agrawal says. The Captain Cool’s thalaiva aura, which aligns with trust, humility, and mass acceptance, was the perfect fit.

As similar small and mid-sized brands become aspirational, towering hoardings displaying the familiar, airbrushed faces of India’s biggest icons, selling anything and everything from pipes and wires to furniture and agarbattis, have become a common sight in Tier II and III cities. India’s most identifiable faces help catapult these brands from regional obscurity into national consciousness. Last month, Patna-based consumer electronics retailer Aditya Vision signed Pankaj Tripathi as its first-ever celebrity endorser. Shah Rukh Khan has come aboard the snack brand Prabhuji Pure Food, while Salman Khan has lent his mass-market appeal to brands such as Goldiee Masale and Astral Pipes. Pipes, meanwhile, have gone glamorous, with Raksha Pipes roping in Malaika Arora!

Advertising and talent executives say such endorsements bring in trust and distribution expansion, as in Zed Black Agarbatti’s case. Initially associated only with the flagship agarbatti range, Dhoni’s endorsement was later extended into adjacent puja-essential categories, including the Samarpan Bhimseni Camphor range, to build a broader devotional ecosystem around the brand. Later, Hrithik Roshan was onboarded for the Manthan Dhoop range, which Agrawal says emerged as a widely recognised product line due to stronger visibility.

Before onboarding Rhodes, customers looking for furniture on Saraf’s website typically took around two weeks for decision-making. That window was reduced to roughly 7-9 days after the campaign. “When the purchasing decision time is reduced by 40%, that’s a good thing,” Saraf says. “That means you’re turning around more customers and increasing the conversion ratio.”

The Rhodes partnership is purely commercial for Saraf Furniture, with no equity stake involved. Saraf declined to share exact endorsement costs, but estimated celebrity-related spends account for around 10-15% of the company’s broader marketing budget, with media expenses forming the larger component. Pricing power was also impacted. “Even if they find 15% cheaper price elsewhere, they’d still prefer us,” he adds. “That’s how I can say that we are getting at least 12-15% premium on our pricing because of the endorsement.”

Zed Black had a similar trajectory. For an industry traditionally dominated by Bengaluru-based manufacturers, the Dhoni deal flipped the dynamic almost overnight. “The first major positive response came from the trade itself,” Agrawal recalls. The endorsement created credibility within the trade ecosystem and helped strengthen conversations with distributors and retailers across markets. In tangible terms, sales growth happened gradually over time. “But more importantly, the endorsement strengthened consumer trust and gave the brand a clear edge in terms of recognition and reputation,” Agrawal shares. He stresses that celebrity endorsements are not immediate sales drivers but long-term brand-building investments.

S. Subramanyeswar, chief strategy officer for India and chief knowledge officer, Asia of Omnicom Advertising, concurs. He believes celebrity-led campaigns can impact sales and distribution, but only when the business is ready for the attention it seeks. “A celebrity can create salience and open conversations with distributors, improve retailer confidence, and drive consumer trial. But celebrities cannot compensate for poor product quality or availability, confused pricing, or a shallow brand idea,” he says. In other words, the celebrity can light the lamp. But the oil still has to come from the business.

Tanuj Gupta, director of sales and marketing, Thermocool Home Appliances, delves into how the company’s celebrity partnership had a direct impact on the retailer and distributor narrative. When the Ghaziabad-based company opted for a perception transition from a purely functional utility manufacturer to an aspirational lifestyle brand, it brought in Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan to anchor its “India ka naya andaaz” campaign. “It was important for us to move away from the perception that we were just a utility appliance company to becoming a lifestyle brand,” Gupta says.

The association with the Nawab of Pataudi did precisely that. It improved brand recognition, recall, and consumer trust that directly translated into retailers offering them better shelf space and making bigger commitments to stock the products. “[That’s] because we were attracting consumers more quickly,” Gupta says. The endorsement helped position Thermocool as a more contemporary and aspirational brand, making it easier for the company to enter premium retail outlets.

Celebrity endorsements usually consume around 15-30% of the total marketing budget of a home appliance brand, based on whether the brand is in early stages of development or well-established. Brands increasingly view them as a long-term, brand-building exercise rather than a marketing expense. “[For Thermocool], the purpose was to change the image of the brand, create aspiration, and reach out to young consumers,” Gupta says. The campaign was amplified through an omnichannel strategy spanning television, digital media, and experiential marketing initiatives. Beyond direct business performance, the company tracks online engagement indicators, including click-through rates, social media interactions, search visibility, and website traffic. “Overall, an effective endorsement should build trust, foster consumer connection, and help drive business growth,” he adds.

This trade credibility is also crucial for survival because online retail platforms have levelled the playing field, making products available nationwide and allowing consumers to compare brands instantly, regardless of the geography. With larger legacy brands expanding into Tier II and III markets at a rapid pace, smaller regional players are under intense pressure to “look national” much faster just to protect their home turf.

According to a recent report by TAM AdEx, celebrity endorsements emerged as a key driver of television advertising, featuring in more than one quarter of total ad airings. While film stars together had a 72% share of advertising in 2025, sports personalities and TV stars followed, adding 20% and 8% share, respectively.

That said, compared to a decade or two ago, the mechanics of these celebrity deals have undergone a massive, structural transformation. The days of rigid, multi-year contracts consisting solely of television commercials and print shoots are rapidly fading.

Manish Porwal, group managing director of Alchemist Marketing & Talent Solutions, has witnessed this evolution. Back in the ’90s, the endorsement market was an absolute monolith. While only icons like Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar secured major deals from cricket, four or five stars were the reigning forces in the film industry.

The digital era democratised this landscape. Today, the business is highly segmented. While film stars and cricketers still claim 90% market share, a new breed of content creators, influencers, and niche celebrities has emerged. That said, traditional celebrity endorsement is still critical to reach the masses. According to Uday Gauri Singh, CEO of Dharma Collab Artists Agency, local brands remain essential for reaching Tier III India because social media cannot match the allure of physical posters. Relatability is playing a more significant role in the selection of celebrities.

Meanwhile, the nature of deal-making has become more commercial and sophisticated. Modern celebrities are highly focussed on portfolio management and wealth creation rather than transactional cash. Singh highlights that talent agencies have aggressively pivoted towards structured business investment opportunities, sweat equity, and co-ownership models.

Deal structures have become far more modular to accommodate smaller brands with tighter budgets. “Earlier, you would do two days of shooting for a two-year contract,” Gauri Singh explains. “Now, you might do a day’s shooting paired with 12 co-created social media posts over two years.”

However, that raises a critical question: does endorsing a local pipe, cable, or tile brand dilute a top-tier celebrity’s manicured image? Afsar Zaidi, founder of Exceed Entertainment, has a critical take. Noting a stark dichotomy in how society perceives local versus foreign brands, he points out that celebrities are often willing to collaborate with foreign luxury labels for little to no cost because of the instant “premium, exclusive vibe”. Conversely, when a top-tier star signs with a regional manufacturing brand, critics frequently label it a brand value dilution. “The problem lies in how we approach what is made in India,” Zaidi argues. “We are ashamed and embarrassed. I don’t have a single celebrity standing out on the road and saying, ‘India’s biggest athleisure brand is HRX’, only because it’s made in India, even though our quality is top-notch and Bharat is buying.” He co-owns HRX with Hrithik Roshan.

Porwal acknowledges that while these mass-market regional endorsements can court the danger of public backlash or brand dilution, stars manage this risk by charging a substantial premium — extracting their “pound of flesh” from local players. Yet, once a celebrity crosses a certain “glass ceiling” of stardom, their long-term relevance becomes virtually bulletproof to commercial choices or box-office failures. An icon like Shah Rukh Khan can deliver multiple cinema flops or endorse everyday mass consumer goods like air coolers, fans, and spices; yet, his core brand equity remains entirely intact. During dry patches, agencies often use these everyday brands strategically to keep the star visible and connected directly to the masses.

When one or two regional players in a category sign an A-lister and see a massive surge in market share, it often becomes a norm, transforming celebrity presence into a baseline requirement for visibility.

While growth rates of endorsement fees have cooled down from historical peaks of doubling every single year, the market continues to expand at a steady, healthy clip of 10-30% annually. Tuhin Mishra, MD and co-founder at Baseline Ventures, confirms that the overall endorsement pie has grown substantially larger over the past decade. “The pie is getting sliced and diced among many more people than just a few,” Mishra adds. “While cricket commands roughly 80-85% of the [Indian sports] market, there are a lot more regional and national brands stepping forward to support talent across the board.” As Subramanyeswar points out, the very architecture of media and the economics of fame have also fragmented. “Fame in India is no longer only national and top-down. It is increasingly regional, vernacular, social, and sideways.”

Celebrity endorsements are especially powerful in sectors where consumers seek reassurance and social validation before buying, he adds. That explains the high endorsement activity in jewellery, real estate, healthcare, education, beauty, food and beverages, consumer durables, and building material segments. “In India, consumption is rarely private. Even personal choices often seek social permission. A celebrity helps brands earn that permission faster,” he explains.

Further, the explosion of digital media has transformed these engagements from one-off television campaigns into an omnipresent, continuing relationship. Celebrities live directly on the consumers’ feed through reels, stories, behind-the-scenes content, and product drops. Couple this with a massive surge in organised influencer marketing, which is scaling sharply and is projected to cross ₹3,600 crore by the year-end.

However, this democratisation has introduced structural volatility to the traditional advertising landscape. According to the TAM AdEx report, after registering a 3% YoY growth in 2024, celebrity-endorsed TV advertising saw a 22% degrowth in 2025, realising a pullback in celebrity-led campaign spending.

Does this point to a contracting market, or is the pie simply changing its shape? The reality leans towards the latter. The dip in TV ad spends reflects an industry correcting itself against rigid, high-priced legacy contracts in favour of modular, digital-first, and tactical deal structures. Brands are moving away from signing stars for multi-year, strategic formats and are instead embracing short-term, three-to-six-month tactical usage or movement marketing. For instance, if a celebrity travels to the Cannes Film Festival, a brand might sign them strictly for a three-month burst. This lowers the upfront contract value per deal but massively increases the overall volume of brand engagements.

Hence, as long as the roads of rural and semi-urban India continue to expand and local manufacturers face the urgent need to build instant trade trust, command premium pricing, and project a national image, the towering billboards will continue to dominate India’s horizon.

(With inputs from Ajita Shashidhar)