SRK and MS Dhoni lead TV endorsements even as celebrity-led ads decline: TAM

Celebrity endorsements have been prevailing in India for a very long time, there is an increasing challenge for brands to capture people’s time and focus. According to the TAM AdEx report, marketers believe that brand ambassadors provide a higher degree of consumer recall. But now, the report, which analyses television advertising trends based on ad duration, reveals that while film stars still dominate endorsements, brands are now less reliant on celebrity presence in commercials than before.

Celebrity endorsements decline in H1 2025

In the first half of 2025, only 29% of TV ads featured celebrities, while 71% were non-celebrity spots, according to the latest TAM AdEx report. This marks a 12% decline in celebrity-endorsed ad volumes compared to the same period in 2023, suggesting that brands are increasingly balancing star power with non-celebrity-led campaigns.

Among celebrity-led ads in Jan–Jun 2025, film actors accounted for 74%, followed by sports personalities at 19%, and television stars at 7%. While the share remains high, the overall volume of celebrity-backed ads has slowed compared to previous years.

Most visible celebrities

Shah Rukh Khan topped the visibility charts with an average of 27 hours per day across TV channels, followed by MS Dhoni at 22 hours. Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, and Amitabh Bachchan also featured prominently, contributing 3–4% of overall ad volumes.

Other top endorsers included Ananya Panday, Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Rahul Dravid, and Virat Kohli. Of the top 10 visible celebrities, eight were male and two female.

Top sectors & categories

Over 45% of celebrity-endorsed ads came from the top three sectors — Food & Beverages (23%), Personal Care/Personal Hygiene (17%), and Household Products (8%).

Within these, male celebrities dominated F&B ads (63%), while female celebrities led personal care endorsements (58%). Across the top 10 sectors, the overall ratio of endorsements stood at 67:33 in favor of male celebrities.

Among categories, Toilet and Floor Cleaners led with 8% of celebrity ad volumes, followed by aerated soft drinks and toilet soaps (6% each). Other key categories included washing powders, paints, digestives, toothpastes, milk beverages, and e-commerce gaming.

Notably, e-commerce gaming attracted the highest number of celebrity endorsers at 38, followed by building materials (29), spices (27), and e-commerce media platforms (26).

Brand endorsements & celebrity couples

When it comes to brand count, MS Dhoni led with 43 endorsements (up from 42 last year), followed by Shah Rukh Khan (35) and Amitabh Bachchan (28), whose tally fell from 41 in 2024.

Celebrity couples remained influential, with Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh endorsing 23 brands, followed by Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli with 19, and Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna with 20. Collectively, the top three couples accounted for over 40% of celebrity couple ad volumes.