Celebrity endorsement cannot guarantee success!

There’s tension in the air, rippling muscles and pumping feet as a race begins... Only, sauntering coolly past the finish line, is a dancing, carefree Saif Ali Khan, clad in a vest and shorts.
No, it’s not a scene from some forgettable film from his “Aashiq Awara” days, and there is a reason why the actor is dressed like that. This is an ad for a vest. Yes, the humble ganji now sits snugly on every waxed (or not, sometimes), toned and beefy torso, from Hrithik’s and SRK’s to Akki’s and Sallu’s, as the Bollywood A-listers swear from towering billboard adverts that while east is east, vest is really the best.
They usually have little to do but stand with their bulging arms crossed, or maybe wide open for some variation. But do these ads have to be this mindless? “I think celebrities have become greedy and are indiscriminately signing up as brand ambassadors. Often, the scripts of these ads make the brand ambassadors look silly. I think a vest should be endorsed by someone like Salman, who has a good physique. It adds to the aspirational value,” says adman Alyque Padamsee of the London Institute of Corporate Training.
But if you ask Hari, a shopkeeper at a clothes stall in Sarojini Market, he’ll tell you that the guy next door doesn’t care what goes under his shirt. He says that no matter which B-town stud endorses a particular brand, comfort and value for money are what his customers come asking for. “Ab customer ko kya farak padta hai kaun kya bech raha hai. Jo sasta aur comfortable hota hai, wahi hai right choice,” he says wisely. Listen up, Bollywood – yeh hai andar ki baat!