Aamir Khan said what he wanted to say. That was his ‘Freedom of Expression’. People are now reacting in a manner they think will be best form of ‘Expression’ – #AppWapsi – uninstalling Snapdeal mobile e-commerce app – because Snapdeal had engaged Aamir Khan to endorse their brand. It is not herd mentality. This is also not a case of misdirected ‘Freedom of Expression’. If Snapdeal changes its brand-ambassador, people will be back to patronising the brand.
There are two categories of brand-endorsing celebrity misconduct:
One, where misconduct is personal eg. doping by sports stars, sex-with-minor by actors, nasty-divorces, drug-abuse, et al which come under personal misconduct space. Here brands may take a call whether the controversy results in damage to brand reputation or product sales and depending on the assessment, they may or may not continue with the celebrity.
Second is gross misconduct where the brand-endorser damages reputation of nation, affiliations with terror-spewing regimes/countries/their-programmes, et al. Here it is not just the brand and sales numbers, it is sentiments of people who patronised company products are disturbed. Sentiment-hurt almost always brings out spontaneous emotional reactions. Hence, just like Aamir-Snapdeal ‘AppWapsi’ reaction, many hollywood-stars’ films were boycotted as they participated in entertainment programmes of now-dead dictators or disrespect to President/Flag/Troops/Nation made people react with product-boycott.
Now please understand that these two situations are EXPECTED when corporate engages celebrity for brand-endorsement. Hence, matured companies include a water-tight moral-turpitude and conduct clause in their contracts. (Moral-turpitude is a concept that refers to “conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals.”) If this clause is triggered, brand-endorsing celebrity is made to pay a very heavy penalty/damages including legal/criminal actions depending on severity of violation. Since, such defined contracts are at nascent stage in India, Snapdeal will have to deal with this reaction.
This is very normal expected reaction to business who engage motor-mouth celebrities. This reaction is not unique to India; it is natural reaction of society when sentiments of masses are affected. In most cases, consumers in all countries are tolerant whether it is environment damage, industrial disasters, corporate corruption or hurting religious sentiments by brands and its endorsers. But links with terror, child-abuse, drug/human-trafficking rings, disrespect to Nation/President/Flag/Troops will bring out such reactions.
If one were in corporate brand management, he/she would have expected this and planned precautions including brand-ambassador training accordingly. Else this reaction would be surprise for most.
[The blog originally appeared on November 25, 2015 at my old blog site here: http://ajayrdave.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-aamir-khan-damaged-promising-e.html]