Celebrities Endorsing Condoms - A Pipe Dream
Owners of “Provogue” – a name to reckon with in the world of apparel business, recently roped in Saif Ali Khan to promote their brand, Seagram’s premium whisky brand “Royal Stag” would now be promoting it using the brand value of ace cricketer M.S.Dhoni, Motorola’s decision of roping in Abhishek Bacchan to promote their sleek and trendy handsets yielded huge returns. Similarly, business pathway is replete with such endorsement stories, which have helped many brands to sustain the negative vibes of extreme competitive scenario. Brands associate themselves with popular celebrities to catch the fancy of youngsters, which results in surge of demand for such products. Brands thrive so are these celebrities as they charge anywhere around Rs 50k to Rs 2 Cr to associate their names with such products.
Take a pause here, Do you think only celebrities hold brand value? Think again, because our so-called chauvinistic politicians have also joined the rat race of endorsements, who hitherto have had been doing this for their respective political parties. Game has already started, ball has been set rolling but not for multi-million value brands but for incipient firecrackers business. This Diwali, Patna markets were deluged with firecrackers named after Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, Nitish Kumar. “Lalu-Rabri parachute”, “Rabri rockets”, “Nitish throwbombs”,”Nitish flowerpots” have been found to be quite popular this Diwali. Brands carrying big names definitely helped wholesalers this diwali to get decent returns. Well what do you feel, is it possible for these petty firecrackers manufacturers to flash names of these politicians free of cost or politicians allowed it to happen- free of cost? Of course not! Our politicians think thrice before taking any decision and they do everything for some personal gain. In this case, besides, huge chunk of profits, which definitely would have flown to these people, they would have derived one indirect benefit from such popularity. This way, inter alia, their popularity must have gained deeper penetration, which would strengthen their vote bank in the forthcoming elections.
I feel such popular persons should use their popularity for some good cause, something whose benefits our society can accrue. One way of doing this could be, they can associate themselves with condoms. Condoms assure safe sex, prevents spread of HIV virus, but unfortunately only few struggling models sign for such endorsements just to mark the first step in their career. Point here is, why we haven’t seen any big star, or famous politician endorsing condom brands? We also talk of introducing a paradigm shift in our school curriculum by introducing sex education, but we often fail to walk our talk. But if at all we take such steps in this direction, it would definitely curtail spread of deadly disease to some extent. These days, premarital sex is not rare. As per survey conducted by Population Council, an International NGO, confirmed prevalence of premarital sex. It found that about one in five men and little less than one in 20 women have had premarital sex. In posh areas too, which are equipped with all modern amenities-better schools, medical facilities etc but despite all this, HIV prevalence is high. Why? Reason is lack of awareness, negligence-if we are aware, funds not being utilised properly, crass politics in implementing any new policy towards this cause, are inter alia, few points which prermaturely attempts to answer this "Why".
Take a pause here, Do you think only celebrities hold brand value? Think again, because our so-called chauvinistic politicians have also joined the rat race of endorsements, who hitherto have had been doing this for their respective political parties. Game has already started, ball has been set rolling but not for multi-million value brands but for incipient firecrackers business. This Diwali, Patna markets were deluged with firecrackers named after Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, Nitish Kumar. “Lalu-Rabri parachute”, “Rabri rockets”, “Nitish throwbombs”,”Nitish flowerpots” have been found to be quite popular this Diwali. Brands carrying big names definitely helped wholesalers this diwali to get decent returns. Well what do you feel, is it possible for these petty firecrackers manufacturers to flash names of these politicians free of cost or politicians allowed it to happen- free of cost? Of course not! Our politicians think thrice before taking any decision and they do everything for some personal gain. In this case, besides, huge chunk of profits, which definitely would have flown to these people, they would have derived one indirect benefit from such popularity. This way, inter alia, their popularity must have gained deeper penetration, which would strengthen their vote bank in the forthcoming elections.
I feel such popular persons should use their popularity for some good cause, something whose benefits our society can accrue. One way of doing this could be, they can associate themselves with condoms. Condoms assure safe sex, prevents spread of HIV virus, but unfortunately only few struggling models sign for such endorsements just to mark the first step in their career. Point here is, why we haven’t seen any big star, or famous politician endorsing condom brands? We also talk of introducing a paradigm shift in our school curriculum by introducing sex education, but we often fail to walk our talk. But if at all we take such steps in this direction, it would definitely curtail spread of deadly disease to some extent. These days, premarital sex is not rare. As per survey conducted by Population Council, an International NGO, confirmed prevalence of premarital sex. It found that about one in five men and little less than one in 20 women have had premarital sex. In posh areas too, which are equipped with all modern amenities-better schools, medical facilities etc but despite all this, HIV prevalence is high. Why? Reason is lack of awareness, negligence-if we are aware, funds not being utilised properly, crass politics in implementing any new policy towards this cause, are inter alia, few points which prermaturely attempts to answer this "Why".
Recently, Melinda -Gates foundation sanctioned huge amount for developing infrastructure to fight AIDS. Well, lets hope, our politicians make best use of it rather than squandering it away or transfering it to their own hidden account.
Let us have a compulsory endorsement policy, which will make it mandatory to have most famous celebrities who will promote Anti-AIDS campaign, conduct programs which will sensitize teenagers, adults, parents and the like to such deadly disease. Rather than making “Lalu-Rabri Parachute” or “Nitish Throw bombs”, we all should aim for doing something for the betterment of society. Let us have endorsements, which are beyond personal benefits and for a cause- dedicated towards having a safe and healthy society.
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