Study: MS Dhoni Flys High In IPL Endorsement Charts

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni is flying high on the endorsement charts for IPL 2021.   

According to the report by Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB) based on a survey from 879 respondents from 18 to 35 across the nation, Dhoni (87%) and Bollywood star Ranveer Singh (86%) were the two most recalled celebrity endorsers so far in this season’s IPL.

Dream11 was the most spontaneously recalled brand in this year’s IIHB survey, which likely propelled endorsee MS Dhoni’s ascent to number one.

Dhoni had a CELEBAR score of 87%, up from 82% last IPL. “His spontaneous recall was an unusually high 82%. His associationwith Dream 11 was also very constant at 79% from the last edition. He got 9% association with IPL/Star TV, 8% brand association with Indigo Paints, 6% with Orient Fans for Orient Fans and Livfast Solar. 2% recall came from SunFeast Yippee. So, most of Dhoni’s brand goodness got hijacked by Dream 11, much like last year,” the report stated.

Ranveer Singh came second on the with a CELEBAR score of 86, almost on par with MS Dhoni. “His association was more democratically spread with Jio Fiber at 56%, JD Mart at 48%, My11Circle at 22% and Bingo at 18%. Names of some other brands were mentioned by respondents but these were filtered out as they were not part of the IPL broadcast,” said the report. 

According to IIHB findings, the duo benefitted from their brands investing a disproportionately large amount of media monies that made them more visible than other celebs.

It also noted that despite heavy media spends last year, Shah Rukh Khan still lagged the recall of Byju’s the brand he endorsed. “The celebrity brand has to hold his own even when media dollars are positively stacked in favour,” it noted.  

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and national skipper Virat Kohli experienced a massive drop in rankings with a CELEBAR score of 45. He gained mostly from his association with MRF tyres.

Meanwhile, former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid witnessed a rise, courtesy of his CRED commercial. Seventeen per cent of respondents spontaneously recollected Dravid’s association with CRED ad, but a mere two per cent could recall Bollywood veteran Jackie Shroff and playback singer Kumar Sanu roles in the spot.

The report also stated that in the first week of IPL, there were little to no ads with the likes of Deepika Padukone, Akshay Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, and cricketers Rohit Sharma or KL Rahul or Hardik Pandya. “…media weightages behind those ads were too insignificant to be noticed by viewers. In the case of the cricketers association with endorsed brands was invariably mistaken,” it noted.

Among the brands, Boat and Colgate were most recalled on team caps while Myntra was the most recalled brand on a team jersey. Dubai Expo 2020 was the next most remembered. 

The IIHB research team also saw 84% positive correlation between high media weights and high brand recall, as well as high celebrity recall. “The positive correlation between high media weights and high recall existed even where celebrity endorsers were not involved, at an equally high 86%,” read the report.

Brands without celebs that still topped the recall charts were Phone Pe (32%), Byju’s (31%), Vivo (22%), One Plus (21%), Groww (20%), Upstox (20%), Kia (19%), MPL (18%), Bisleri (11%), PharmEasy (11%), Thums Up(9%), Coca Cola (6%), Renault Kiger (6%), Tata Safari (6%), Skoda (3%), Ajio (3%), Dark Fantasy (2%), LikedIn (2%), Raymond (2%) and Tuborg (1%).