Well, I can hear what you're thinking loud and clear - this is not new news!
But it is something thats been developing a lot over the past 18 months - celebrity endorsements are incredibly big business
. In fact businesses have been set up specifically to handle contract negotiations between brands and celebrity agents. Some agents just aren't aware of the opportunities open to their clients to maximize the deal - and some of course are.
NEW DELHI An Indian health portal is close to signing a special endorsement deal with Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, not for her strikingly good looks but for the 4.2 million followers that she has on Twitter. She will tweet about the portal.
Celebrities in India, like their counterparts in the West, have started including social media like Twitter and Facebook in their brand endorsement contracts or are getting paid separately for tweeting about brands, as marketers scurry to reach their online fan base.
Several big and small celebrities and sports stars including Chetan Bhagat, Anusha Dandekar, Shruti Haasan and Unmukt Chand have already started raking in the moolah through social media deals with brands, while others such as cricketer Yuvraj Singh are close to such contracts, their managers say.
"Twitter is a very big aspect of a celeb's reach. Sponsored tweets are certainly gaining traction in India," says Bunty Sajdeh, chief executive officer of Cornerstone Sport & Entertainment that manages endorsements for celebrities and sportsmen like Sonakshi Sinha, Virat Kohli, Prabhu Deva and Sania Mirza.
Sajdeh says he has had discussions with brands on including social media in endorsement contracts but he always insisted that it should be separate contract and a separate discussion.
Social media contracts, which include Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Instagram and websites of celebrities, cost a brand up to 25% of a traditional endorsement contract with a celebrity.
Vinita Bangad, founder of Krossover Entertainment that manages Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan, while confirming Chopra's social media deal says, "Talks are on with a few more brands."
In the past, Krossover Entertainment helped VJ Anusha Dandekar ink social media contracts with ITC and Crocs shoes.
Anusha tweeted about Crocs shoes with pictures while the brand on its Facebook page also made sure that her association was hyped up.
Online apparel and accessories brand American Swan signed actress Shruti Haasan and cricketer Unmukt Chand in similar deals earlier this year. The brand organised live chat sessions for fans to connect with them, which the celebrities actively promoted on their social media handles including Twitter.
"These were 2-3 month-long contracts which were targeted to connect with the right set of audience in a focused manner," Anurag Rajpal, director and chief executive officer of The American Swan Lifestyle, says.
He says deals like these can range anywhere between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh for three months, but depend on the popularity of the celebrity in the digital space.
For brands, social media deals are far more cost effective than traditional endorsement deals, particularly in the case of top stars. For instance, if a star charges Rs 1.5 crore for a traditional brand endorsement contract for one year, the person would charge just over Rs 35 lakh for a social media deal.
A social media deal, however, costs at least 1.5 times that of what a brand pays to advertise in the online space.
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