THE intense off-the-field controversy, created by television advertisements, featuring Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh for competing liquor brands, albeit through surrogate ads, has kicked up a row about the ethicality of it all.

Whether cricketers should sponsor liquor ads, even if it’s through surrogate brands, has become a matter of debate. The latest ad features Dhoni and a Harbhajan lookalike, and takes a dig at the off-spinner, though it’s a harmless spoof for sodas of two famous liquor brands of the same names that they endorse.

The Harbhajan ad for Royal Stag has the punchline, "Have I made it large?" And the Dhoni ad for McDowell’s soda has a Harbhajan lookalike sitting in a factory making ball-bearings, asking, "Have I made it large?" and Dhoni snapping back: "Forget large, do something different".

In the original commercial, Harbhajan talks about the struggles of his life and working in his late father’s ball-bearing plant, and contemplating: "Have I made it large?" In the Dhoni ad, the Harbhajan lookalike gets slapped by another person for creating humongous iron balls in an attempt to "make it large".

The matter took a serious turn when Harbhajan’s mother, Avtar Kaur, slapped a legal notice on UB group chairman Vijay Mallya, alleging that the ad was not only derogatory to Harbhajan and his family, but also the Sikh community as a whole. It was a classic case of missing the woods for the trees, as the humour bit got lost somewhere in Avtar Kaur’s estimation of the ad.

Ultimately, the UB group withdrew the ad "based on the larger national cricketing interests, particularly at a time when the Indian team is engaged in a crucial cricket Test series in the United Kingdom."

"Why did there have to be any controversy on this ad, as it’s not offensive to any community? It’s a classic spoof. I don’t understand the hue and cry," avers Anuja Chauhan, former Executive Creative Director of ad giant JWT (J.Walter Thomson).

Adwoman Anuja, author of two popular books — Zoya Factor, set in the glamorous, high-pressure world of Indian cricket, and Battle for Bittora, dealing with India’s second biggest passion, politics — has first-hand experience of creating such ads for JWT.

She was the brain behind the popular Pepsi ad, featuring Shah Rukh Khan, who, disguises as a Sachin Tendulkar clone, tiptoes into the Indian team’s dressing room, and pinches a Pepsi bottle with the catchline: "Dil Maange More."

"It’s the fantasy of every cricket-lover to go into the locker room of the Indian team," she states, explaining the logic behind the ad.

Anuja says Dhoni might not have even been aware of the full import of the Harbhajan ad he did. "Perhaps Dhoni did not know the sequence. He’s such a busy man that he might have come and delivered his lines and left, without knowing the sequence of events in the ad`85what had been shot earlier, or later", explains Anuja, who is now an advertising consultant, author and film script writer, all rolled into one!

She says the latest ad is addressed to an intelligent, mature audience, and it should be taken in that spirit. "You may argue it’s not a good advertisement. But it’s a good spoof, no doubt," she adds.

"In fact, the Cola war has been more intense than the present ad, as direct liquor ads are not allowed. Cellphone companies, detergent majors, fairness creams ... all their ads have taken massive digs at rival brands," she maintains.

Though direct attacks by competing products are nothing new, such ads were taken in the right spirit in the past, and treated as enjoyable spoofs, though some ads were downright offensive.

"Once a top newspaper group featured an ad on a Sachin looklike, indirectly mocking at the player`A0for giving more time to shoot ad commercials than playing cricket," recalls Vivek Dutta, national head (planning) of Percept Hakuhodo.

"From the ad agency’s point of view, the Dhoni ad is not derogatory. The market is quite cut-throat, and the agencies have to devise campaigns to attract attention. Humour is one effective way to get into the minds of the customers", adds Vivek. He also recalls another ad, featuring a monkey, denoting a popular player, which was a direct take on the player.

`A0Vivek says though Coke and Pepsi competed for the market share with no-holds-barred ad campaigns, Coke, being the market leaders, did not directly target Pepsi. "Coke used their lesser brands like Sprite, Thumbs Up, and Mountain Dew to hit at Pepsi," he notes.

Deepali Sharma, creative head of Think Inc Studio, says even high-end rival brands, with a niche market share, have hit out at each other and humour has been one nice way to get the audience attention.`A0

Energy drinks`A0Horlicks and Complan made direct attacks on each other in an old ad. Whether the ad boosted the sales of the products is a matter of conjecture. "The customer will eventually opt for a brand, which gives not only value for money, but also satisfies the palate," explains Deepali,`A0`A0an ex-JWT hand.

Since cricketers have become demi-Gods, and their income from endorsing products has reached gargantuan proportions; the latest controversy has only helped the respective brands to get more eye-balls.

A cricketer gets paid Rs 1.25 lakh for a One-Day International (ODI) and around Rs 3 lakh for a Test match. But their income from endorsements runs into several crores. Dhoni endorses around 10 products, and charges around Rs 5-8 crore per endorsement. Imagine the kind of money he rakes in from ads. The Indian Premier League Twenty20 Championship has made millionaires and billionaires out of players, and what other sportspersons earn is small change in comparison.

World Chess champion Vishwanathan Anand gets very little sponsorship, other than featuring as the brand ambassador of NIIT, and a couple of other small products. Olympic shooting champion Abhinav Bhindra has rarely featured in any serious ad campaign. Badminton ace Saina Nehwal and boxer Vijender Singh have been comparatively lucky, and so has tennis ace Sania Mirza, partly due to the glamour quotient they enjoy. Though badminton, boxing and tennis are not as spectator-friendly as cricket, these games are the preferred choices than chess and shooting any day!

Cricketers were not such a craze for endorsing products a few years ago. When Kapil Dev was the peak of his career, the one notable product he endorsed was that of "Rapidex English learning guide"! Though Kapil later went on to feature in other ads, including a popular brand of suit lengths, his Rapidex ad was the most enduring one!

Now, the sweepstake in the ad world is so large for the cricket players that Harbhajan’s mother Avtar Kaur has found an ad of her son’s captain M.S. Dhoni offensive and derogatory. Times are a-changing, and how money makes the mare go!

Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar were the early birds among the pantheon of cricket stars, or sportspersons from any field for that matter, who started endorsing consumer`A0products. Kapil’s most famous brand was the multinational product, Palmolive shaving cream, though the humble "Rapidex" English learning guide got him more mileage among the common folks, to whom he really belonged, with his earthy persona.

Sunil Gavaskar endorsed the slightly upscale Dinesh Suiting, but all this was nothing compared to the multi-product endorsements of the present cricket stars like Indian captain M. S. Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh etc. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, too, endorsed a myriad products, when they were at the helm of the Indian cricket team.

And then came a phase when the well-chiselled film actors started dominating the endorsement field, like Amitabh Bachhan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai, her hubby Abhishek, Hrithik Roshan, before the spotlight started reverting to the sports stars, when Indians began making their mark, not only in cricket but also in other sports. Cricket got the prima donna position after India won the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup, and a series of home and away victories in ODI and Test matches under Ganguly, Dravid and Dhoni. The introduction of the IPL, and India's World Cup triumph early this year, has put cricket stars up among the Gods!

When energy drink Boost thought of a campaign to make the product popular, they could not think of a better option than roping the cricket duo of Kapil and Sachin Tendulkar. But it’s not that celebrities would ensure a guaranteed sale for the products they advertise.

Though India is obsessed with cricket and cricketers, other sportspersons, who have excelled in their chosen sports, have also managed to get a share of the ad pie, though not much.

India’s lone Olympic gold medallist, shooter Abhinav Bindra, is the brand ambassador of BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd), though he deserved more. His dour and reserved persona has prevented major companies from making him their products endorser. But handsome boxer Vijender Singh, who won only a bronze at Beijing, has cashed in on his good looks and physique to earn substantial revenue from endorsements and fashion shows.

But the rustic Sushil Kumar, who won a wrestling bronze at Beijing, was not that lucky. He has hardly any anendorsement worth the bother. Though Saina Nehwal has not won an Olympic medal, her other achievements, including the Commonwealth Games gold, have made her the darling of the advertising crowd, and she can really hit the roof, if she strikes an Olympic gold, as she has the looks and flamboyance to cash in through endorsements.

Though Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes are multiple Grand Slam winners, their product endorsements pale in significance considering the clout Sania Mirza enjoyed, when she hit her peak ranking of under 30, early in her career.

M. S. Dhoni featured in the ‘Make it Large’ ad of a rival brand before being seen in the present spoof Priyanka Chopra has been endorsing a popular product of a liquor company Saif Ali Khan has also figured in the ‘Make it Large’ series of liquor ads

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