'Energy drink, sexual wellness': Nikhil Kamath, Raj Shamani guess potential brands for Ranveer Singh

Social media influencer and author Raj Shamani spoke in great length about what is lacking in the businesses of Bollywood stars and why many of these have failed to leave a longing impression. He said in many of these businesses, authenticity and connection are two missing ingredients. 

Shamani was a guest at Nikhil Kamath’s podcast, ‘WTF is with Nikhil Kamath’ and appeared with former Myntra CEO and founder of Mensa Brands Ananth Narayanan, and Future Group founder Kishore Biyani, in the latest episode titled ‘WTF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand?’. The group also got talking about which Bollywood stars should endorse what, and honestly, the answers were not very surprising. 

Kishore Biyani said that Ranveer Singh should endorse protein products, while Ananth Narayanan and Raj Shamani said he should endorse an energy drink. “I think Ranveer Singh can pull off a sexual wellness brand very well,” said Shamani. They pointed out that he is already endorsing one. 

He also spoke about the problems with Bollywood celebrities and their businesses. “First, authenticity. Gen Zs believe in advertising, they are okay with it. Seven out of 10 Gen Zs believe in influencer marketing as well. But if as an influencer I am telling them or trying to organically push it by not disclosing that this is an advertised product, they don’t believe it. In fact, there’s a cancel culture going on. You have to be very honest about it. That’s the first thing, authenticity is not getting built with Bollywood stars,” he said. 

The second he said was connection. “In India, the few Bollywood brands that have started…one day they come up and be like ‘hey this is my brand, use it’. There is no back story. An actor is changing every year as per their roles and storytelling that they are doing. There’s no certain level of values that are getting built over the year but with an influencer for five years they are building on one value. Cricketer brands work because they have only one value,” said Shamani. 

Shamani said that it is important to have a differentiative product in the beginning. “It is easier to build an additional category than a replacement category. Lot of celebrities have done a replacement category,” he said. 

Ananth Narayanan said that celebrity-led brands need to be thoughtful about how to get the product right. “All of the detailed, assortment planning, price planning for HRX was all done by the Myntra private branding at some level. It is a collaboration. But I think you should not confuse your values and what you want to stand for with product expertise. They are two very different things. 

At the time of the creation of HRX, athleisure was a growing and as a category it was a good bet, said Ananth Narayanan. It was very consistent with Hrithik Roshan’s personality, he said. “In India you have Puma, Reebok, Nike, Adidas and then nothing. This was at 50 per cent of their price point, therefore, very affordable, applies to India one but it was a differentiated offering in a growth market and it made athleisure accessible to many,” he said. 

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