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Bollywood’s fresh young faces are now the hottest favourites in the world of advertising, says Arundhati Basu

Move over Preity Zinta, Genelia D’Souza is here. You too, Rani Mukherjee. For, the cutesy Aditi of Jaane Tu … Ya Jaane Na has slipped into commercials where the divas once reigned supreme. So, A-league Bollywood hottie Preity has disappeared from the chocolatey Cadbury Perk commercial, while Rani has bowed out of the Fanta advertisement.

Also the face of Vatika hair oil and Fair & Lovely, Genelia is on a roll with ad makers queuing up for her with chequebooks in hand.

Bollywood’s top grade stars who once ruled the popularity charts for endorsements are being unceremoniously dethroned and replaced by the younger 20-somethings, some of whom don’t even have a single box office hit to boot. From upmarket blue chip brands (think L’Oréal and Pepsi) to modest ones (Orbit chewing gum, Spinz), they are all tripping over themselves to go on signing sprees with Bollywood’s youngest stars.

So there’s the two flops old Sonam Kapoor rubbing shoulders with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Penelope Cruz, Eva Longoria and Scarlett Johansson as a part of the L’Oréal Paris Dream Team that endorses the high-class beauty products from the French brand.

“The world seems to have turned young and there’s a great desire to seek out young icons. And yes, it’s also the natural passing of the order,” says columnist Santosh Desai. So Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor, Asin and Genelia are the new A-listers on the hot lists of the ad world.

In a bid to woo the country’s youth brigade, brands are going all out for fresh faces, confirms ad filmmaker Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director, Ogilvy India. He adds: “Ours is a young country, so the brand fit is perfect.”

The man of the moment? Ranbir Kapoor, say industry pundits. The Saawariya boy is now flaunting attitude in the place of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar in Pepsi commercials and is also Panasonic’s man to sell its Vierra range of flat screens and home theatre screens.

“If you have a script for a 20-something male in the country, there’s no one like Ranbir,” says Anirban Das Blah, CEO, Globosport.

Charge of the youth brigade

While brands are bent on cashing in on the new stars, selecting a brand ambassador is not a mindless decision. Srinivas Murthy, general manager, marketing (flavours), Coca-Cola India, emphasises that the choices are well-researched. He says: “It depends on his/her image among consumers, the fit between brand values and the celebrity’s image.”

Now you better believe this: Blah reckons that Ranbir is more coveted than the sexy John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan in the ad world. “He has the power to make women go weak in the knees,” notes Afsar Zaidi, director of Carving Dreams Entertainment, and celebrity manager to actors such as Hrithik Roshan, Kajol and Bipasha Basu.

Ranbir’s off-screen sweetheart, Deepika Padukone, is an ad-puller in her own right. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has replaced the 30-something Preity with Deepika adding to her well-padded catalogue of endorsements that include Tissot watches, Fiama Di Wills and even Parachute oil and Orbit chewing gum. “She was signed on by Kingfisher even before her debut in Om Shanti Om,” points out ace photographer Atul Kasbekar, who is also chairman and managing director of Bling! Entertainment Solutions, that handles endorsement deals for Sonam and Deepika.

Keeping Sonam, Deepika and Genelia beauties company is also Asin, another hottie from the South. The Ghajini girl is also the new model for brands like Clinic All Clear, Mirinda, Tata Sky, Big Bazaar and Fairever.

Ringing cash registers
Though she has just one Hindi movie behind her, Asin’s pan-Indian image has made her much coveted amongst advertisers

These stars might only be in their early 20s, but they are guffawing all the way to the bank. They bill the brands anywhere between Rs 1 crore to Rs 3.5 crore per endorsement. Ranbir commands upto Rs 3.5 crore per endorsement which equals old timer Saif Ali Khan’s charges per ad. At this price, Ranbir is more expensive than John Abraham who costs advertisers Rs 2.5 crore per endorsement.

The asking price for Imran Khan is Rs 3.5 crore but no brands are buying at that price, reportedly. Some celebrity managers feel that if he were to come down a couple of notches, he’d find plenty of takers.

Meanwhile, Genelia and Sonam are closing in on the big three — Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra — who charge around Rs 2 crore per endorsement. The youngsters already command Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore per ad.

However, they have a long way to go before they even come close to the topmost brand ambassadors King Khan and Aamir Khan, both of whom get paid a whopping Rs 8 crore to Rs 10 crore per contract. Next is Hrithik Roshan who gets paid Rs 4.5 crore per endorsement.

What makes them hot

Why advertisers love the new stars is easy to understand. “They’ve proved their mettle and were in films that have been released with huge hype. Movies make the movie star,” says Zaidi of Carving Dreams Entertainment. No surprise then that their calendars are jampacked with upcoming movies.

In fact, Ranbir has been able to command such a high sum is because he has the best line-up of films — Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani, Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions film, Wake Up Sid, Prakash Jha’s Rajniti and Shimit Amin’s Rocket Singh-Salesman Of the Year produced by Yashraj Films, and director Siddharth Anand’s yet untitled next film.

Genelia’s also looking forward to promising releases over the next few months — Rumi Jaffrey’s Life Partner, Anees Bazmi’s It’s My Life, David Dhawan’s Hook Ya Crook and Ken Ghosh’s Yahoo. Plus there are several Telugu films.

But some prefer to stay exclusive. Like Sonam, who’s limiting herself to just a few films a year. This year her father’s home production Ayesha, an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, goes on the floor. Next is an untitled Dharma Productions film with Imran Khan.

The tag fits

Movies apart, the image of the star is also crucial. The women fall into three neat segments. “You can segregate them into glamour, beauty and personality. Genelia and Asin fall in the personality category. They are not just good lookers, you can relate to them. Deepika straddles glamour and beauty while Mugdha Godse falls in the sultry mould,” says Blah.

At ITC, Atul Joshi, marketing manager, says that when Fiama Di Wills signed Padukone, they felt that the brand connect was instant. “The 21st century Indian woman is extremely aware of all the beauty products available today. She stops at nothing to look and feel good. Deepika Padukone is a perfect embodiment of this woman,” says Joshi.

Meanwhile Genelia is being pitched as ‘the best friend who girls and guys love’ by her management company Globosport.

The importance of brand association is also highlighted by Genelia who finds that the brands she works with find a resonance in her own life. “The reason why Fanta, Perk, Spinz and Dabur Vatika work is because they reflect today’s girl who is independent and speaks her mind — in line with my personal beliefs,” she says. At the same time Ranbir also is known to endorse brands that he would use himself. He says: “I want to endorse brands that I can lend my appeal to and that, in turn, have a certain prestige value that I can bask in too.”

However rosy the scenario, adman Prahlad Kakkar sounds the warning: “For one they must prove their pedigree — and thereafter sustain their triumphs.”

Personal rulebook

You know you’ve arrived when you can turn down offers — lucrative ones at that. These young people are clear about what they want to endorse. So Ranbir is not signing every deal that comes his way. “My priority is movies. I don’t want ads to be my primary focus. So I don’t see myself endorsing more than three or four brands at a time.”

Sonam too has let go of six deals in the recent past. “Sonam’s family is clear that her father has worked hard enough to create a comfortable space for her. Which she intends to stay in,” points out Kasbekar.

While the bubble seems too good to burst, there is just one thing that ad filmmakers like to stress on. Says Pandey: “The script must be great. For, even the biggest actors cannot save a bad script.’’