Mahendra Singh Dhoni - The man, the brand - Part 1

It was an effort that took three months to fructify. Hundreds of man hours spent meeting, calling and emailing people — from brand valuation experts and marketers to cricket enthusiasts, historians to close friends across India to understand what makes him The Boss. However, a story about the Boss would have been incomplete without talking to the man himself. But given that India, from the fans to the brands, queue up to get a piece of the man, we knew our task was cut out. Countless calls were made and emails mailed to the manager. Each time the answer was — Dhoni is busy. We exhausted every trick in the book, including calls to Dhoni’s dearest pals and associate marketers. We even went as far as Australia, and tried to get a close friend of the manager to call him from down under. Still no luck! Now it was time to take the bull by its horns. Notepad in hand and the arsenal loaded with questions, we headed to an ad shoot at DY Patil stadium in Mumbai. After an exhausting six hour long uncertain wait on a sweltering hot Mumbai day, we caught him on his way back to his van and asked him about the interview. His quick reply was a polite ‘No’. But it was too late in the day to give up, we pushed on and learnt that his answer didn’t stem from arrogance but it was due to a fear of being misquoted or quoted out-of-context. So Dhoni prefered to answer over mail and we were promised it will be in the inbox soon. By the end of the day, The Boss had answered and the thrilling chase came to an end.
His is a brand that defies all conventional logic. He is not the best cricketer in the Indian team and yet he has managed to become the Boss of the team. As a rule Chennai may not look too kindly on ‘North Indian’s but after just one year with the Chennai Superkings T-20 team, he is now one of the city’s favourite sons. He can wear his hair long and streaked blonde, yet he is seen not as an oddball but as a fashion icon. He can lead a bunch of no-names, written off by experts and fans alike, to a T-20 World Cup win. He hangs out with the Bollywood set when in Mumbai but is equally proud to be seen with his childhood friends in Ranchi. He maybe a superstar who has crores in his bank account but still wants to get his college degree, because he does not want his children to think of their father as uneducated . So what makes the fascinating and at times enigmatic Dhoni, the most sought after brand today? For Sandeep Singh Arora, category director - Colas, Pepsico, Brand Dhoni encapsulates the energy, excitement of a young confident India. “He reflects what the youth of today are all about. They are making choices, exploring unchartered territories, challenging conventions and winning,” says Arora. Couple that with the fact that he cuts across all divides and it’s hard to find a more compelling brand. Amit Burman, vice chairman, Dabur puts it well when he says that Dhoni is an ordinary Indian who’s made it big with his achievements and on his own merit. “He is special because he cuts across geographies, across masses and across SECs and appeals to every consumer,” says Burman.


It’s something that is evident in the numerous different roles that Dhoni has essayed as a brand ambassador. From the Pepsi ‘Rajnikant’ spoof by Dhoni during the IPL last year to the Brylcreem ad where Dhoni returns to his small town roots. From the Sonata ad with Dhoni dressed as a bridegroom with a Tamilian, Bengali and a Punjabi girl readily giving their consent to marry him to the Pepsi commercial where he talks about making it on his own steam, Dhoni has emerged as a national phenomenon cutting across the North-South , East-West divide. The man himself agrees to the fact that he has been able to transcend the regional boundaries across India
The rage that is Brand Dhoni is quite phenomenal. A decade ago, every kid wanted to be Tendulkar and for a brief while it was Sehwag who ruled the roost. Today every kid wants to be a Dhoni. In a study done by Cartoon Network in 2008, the favourite sportsperson with boys and girls aged between 7-14 years was Dhoni, with Sachin in the second spot followed by Yuvraj Singh and others. When asked to choose between Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni pair, 67 % of the kids chose Dhoni, while Yuvraj garnered 32 %. TAM data of the ad volumes in seconds in 2008 reveal Dhoni hot on the heels of Shah Rukh Khan with Sachin a distant second. But hindsight as they say is twentytwenty and even marketers who signed him up in their early days never dreamt that his appeal would one day rival and surpass that of say a Sachin Tendulkar. Brands like Reebok, which signed on Dhoni during his domestic cricketing days, did not do so in anticipation of the fact that they were signing a prodigy. Sajid Shamim, director, marketing, Reebok accepts that it was just another of those endorsement deals when they first signed on Dhoni. “It was a regular bread and butter move, given the fact that we are firmly entrenched with the game in India,” says Shamim. He adds that from a talent perspective, Dhoni had the goods. “But we never thought that he will become this successful,” admits Shamim. Not surprising, given that by Indian standards, where star cricketers break into the team in their teens, Dhoni was a late entrant, who when he broke into the team was a ticket checker with the Indian Railways. Not to mention that he played for a rather weak cricketing state which had no history of sending players into the national team. There are some who believe that it is this precise lack of legacy, which has helped Dhoni attain such spectacular success. Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands agrees, adding that Dhoni represents a class with no benchmarks. “If you came from Mumbai, you are weighed down by legacies like Gavaskar or Poly Umrigar. Dhoni though has no such reference point and was not weighed down by constant comparisons.” He adds that Dhoni exudes a neanderthal, almost eerie sense of cool which says, ‘I back myself and my team without fear.’ To Desai the difference between Sachin and Dhoni is the fact that: “Sachin was an icon in a team which was not winning, while Dhoni has got a winning team.” Noted historian and cricket writer Ramachandra Guha though believes that too much is being out of Brand Dhoni. “So far Dhoni has been lucky as he has not been tested in tough environment. Two-three months down the line, if Dhoni fails to perform, Brand Dhoni will also collapse,” states Guha. Harsha Bhogle too believes that the brand value of cricketers rises and falls with their performances and it is not something in their control. However he believes that there are some cricketers who can transcend their performance in the short run and remain acceptable.
Source: Brand Equity, The Economic Times