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Virat Kohli is today, without doubt, India's premier human brand. And, that transformation, the meteoric rise, has taken place between Diwali (October 2015) and Holi (March 2016). Kohli's rankings were on the ascendant for the last three to four years, but he remained in the shadow of his captain and senior team mate, MS Dhoni. Besides sportsmen, typically lag the Bollywood troika of the Khans and Mr. Bachchan when it comes to celebrity rankings. But Kohli has managed to change all that. The World Cup T-20 ignited Brand   Virat Kohli . I studied the brand's evolution on 64 parameters and found that the rise in valuations is quite unprecedented. I have been tracking personality brands for well over a decade and such a major metamorphosis in a brand's attribute wheel, that too in such a short period, has rarely been observed. One reason is, of course, the phenomenal exposure that live television provides today. As a result after the T-20 matches, Virat's explo...

Sasha Chettri,   Airtel 4G   girl, is the ad world’s newest poster girl. Chettri has gone viral on social media, ever since Airtel kicked off its 4G campaign last July, and, in the process, has delivered for brand Airtel what no other campaign has - high recall value. With her unconventional and provocative approach, 21-year-old Chettri has firmly put brand Airtel on the country’s 4G landscape. Today, 4G in India means Airtel just the way years ago Coca-Cola staked claim on the entire soft drinks category through its Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola campaign with Aamir Khan. Given that the next generation of mobile broadband, or 4G, is about speed, the television commercial showing two girls racing their phones on a terrace in Lucknow was an unusual way to break the clutter on television. Given that other telcos have not come up with such high-decibel campaigns, Chettri has become a shorthand for 4G as a category. In advertising parlance, the success of a campaign is measur...

If cricket is a religion in India, the Indian Premier League (IPL) is a coliseum - the ultimate stage for the clash of the titans. In its ninth edition, the country's biggest and most successful sporting property is offering cricket lovers,advertisers and marketers an opportunity to pull their weight behind two new franchises - Gujarat Lions andRising Pune Supergiants (RPS). The debutants are up against established brands such as Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR), Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils who as first movers command a strong legacy and massive fan following. As late entrants, do   Gujarat Lions   and RPS have it in them to emerge as challenger brands and up the ante against veterans? What will it take for the rank outsiders to break through the clutter? Are there any brand managementlessons to be learnt from success stories scripted by late entrants in highly competitive markets like fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), mobiles and automobiles? "A late entrant has ...