Decoding Brand Anushka+Virat: A formidable force in a package deal

Hero MotoCorp is the latest in the power couple's endorsement list; Alia-Ranbir come a distant second

It started off with a shampoo advertisement and from then on, there has been no stopping the endorsements coming their way. With Hero MotoCorp being the latest, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma together currently endorse seven brands, the others being Puma, Myntra, Livspace, Shyam Steel, Toothsi and Blue Tribe. In the past, the couple has also been associated with brands like Google Duo, Manyavar, and Lux.

No other celebrity couple jointly holds these many endorsements in India. Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor come a distant second with overall four brand deals, two of which were in the past.   

Various celebrity couples have endorsed dozens of brands at an individual level, but what Kohli and Sharma together command is worth decoding.  

“We wanted celebrities who have a pan-India appeal and who mirror our target audience,” says Kartikeya Bhandari, chief marketing officer (CMO), Livspace, a Singapore-headquartered home interior and renovation company. “The choice of Anushka and Virat as the headliners for the campaign comes from their relatability with the brand’s target audience – first- or second-time homeowners in their 30s and 40s.”

He adds that the two are known for their credibility and professionalism, and are at the top of their game.

Business Standard tried reaching out to other brands that the star couple endorses or had endorsed in the past to understand what makes the two a formidable force together, but the queries went unanswered till the time of going to press.

Bengaluru-based brand and business strategy expert Harish Bijoor says that while several celebrity couples are getting endorsements, Kohli and Sharma enjoy a much bigger share because of what they represent: Bollywood and cricket. “This nation runs on Bollywood and cricket. So what better than to have two celebrities married to one another,” he says. 

In 2019, just before the pandemic struck, when Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB) released a power couples report, Virushka (commonly attributed to Virat and Anushka) came out tops. The couple scored the highest on the ‘Made For Each Other’ (MFEO) parameter in this study that was titled “The Sparklers” and which compared the country's six leading couples from the world of business, sports and entertainment on 25 parameters such as trustworthiness, respect, distinctiveness and high quality.

When the last Sparklers report came out in 2021, the couple had slipped to third slot with a score of 79 per cent. Mukesh and Nita Ambani, who are not brand endorsers in the traditional sense, topped the list followed by Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, who had tied the knot in November 2018, just a month before Sharma and Kohli. Experts say that one reason for this could be that Sharma did not feature in any movie after the birth of their daughter in January 2021 and Kohli was not in his prime in 2020 and 2021. Even so, Virushka topped in parameters such as high quality, authentic, outdoorsy and best brand in this report as well.

“This celeb couple is among the few who are from two different fields of excellence,” says LV Krishnan, chief executive officer, TAM Media Research.

He quotes a TAM neuroscience study, which noticed a significant jump in the brain’s response to attention, engagement and retention scores for brands using multiple synchronised celebs to communicate their messages.

Marketing and brand pundits explain that the value of the deal in signing up the cricketer and the actor separately or as a couple also plays a big role.

“One plus one is not equal to two in using a celebrity couple. It could be 1.75 or 1.6,” says Bijoor. Ad guru Prahlad Kakkar explains the point. “Two for the price of one is a deal. Two for the price of two is not a deal at all,” he explains, highlighting that their individual high brand value does not imply that an astronomical amount of money needs to be spent to get Kohli and Sharma on board together.

“Virat and Anushka have done well together. Their ads have been memorable – Manyavar Mohey was nice, but Shyam Steel was great too. They have great chemistry together. No other power couple has come close,” says Sandeep Goyal, managing director of advertising agency Rediffusion.

Goyal elaborates that Kohli is the “engine” of the couple’s brand value and when he did not perform well in the last one year or more, several brands started looking for alternatives.

The Hero MotoCorp endorsement is the couple’s first for 2023. Given their track record, media gurus reckon more could follow.

Collective endorsements

(past + present) 

• Anushka-Virat: 11
• Alia-Ranbir: 4
• Deepika-Ranveer: 3