Southern stars’ brand value increases as films reach wider audiences

Allu Arjun has endorsed Coca-Cola, KFC and Zomato; Ram Charan for Frooti; Vijay Deverakonda for Thums Up; Samantha Ruth Prabhu for Crunchy; And Rashmika Mandanna, for Kingfisher, is now the face of national and not just regional advertising campaigns. They are popular with small-town, mass-market audiences across the country, commanding high fees.

Like their Hindi counterparts, southern stars can take home 7.5-10 crores for a deal, though they are known to be selective about signing deals as they want to maintain their larger-than-life image.

it’s more than double 25-40 million top southern stars were known to strike almost a decade ago.

“There has been a significant increase in the exposure and revenue of South Indian films, and many pan-India brands are taking interest in the popularity of Southern stars. Companies are increasingly taking advantage of South Indian celebrities for pan-India advertisements rather than region-specific campaigns. Mitesh Kothari, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, digital agency White River Media said, “With South Indian films gaining better traction, we expect more southern stars to endorse major brands.”

Kothari named Allu Arjun’s iconic dialogues in Pushpa: The Rise – Part One and Ram Charan and Jr NTR’s dance moves in RRR’s Nacho Nacho song are examples of South Indian film clips that are trending on social media.

“The rising fandom of Southern stars is undoubtedly giving them more social media collaborations, even with some huge demand. Brands are looking to get more exposure and supplement their budgets while the sun is shining,” Kothari said. are ready.

“For a very long time, brands have been working with celebrities from the South Indian film industry. However, especially in the last few years – given that the South film industry has been making some very big films and now there is a huge OTT penetration, which allows a lot of people across the country to easily access the content – There is more awareness now for the rest of India for South Indian films as well as film stars of the region, said Nadia Chauhan, Joint Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer, Parle Agro.

In 2018, the company signed Allu Arjun to endorse its flagship Frooti brand. Arjun is currently not associated with this brand. Earlier this year, Ram Charan was linked with Alia Bhatt to promote the brand. However, the campaign featuring the two celebrities was limited to out-of-home placements only, while the brand ran a separate TV commercial featuring Charan in southern markets. It also works with NTR Jr for Appy Fizz.

For example, Allu Arjun recently featured in a music video with K-pop group TRI.BE in association with Coca-Cola and Coke Studio India.

“In the past two years, when OTT services have started releasing big-ticket Southern movies, the exposure of such content has gone beyond their core audience. Gradually, as more films start getting dubbed in multiple languages, we are definitely seeing a crossover of fantasy across different regions, and it will only grow,” said Tamagna Ghosh, Managing Director, Trailer Park Group APAC, a Entertainment marketing and content production company.

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