Gauri Hiten - Side by side Year by year (Page 149)

JINGLES THE WAY FOR TELLY HOTTIES 

From 30 minute shows to 30 second TVCs,telly heartthrobs are making the most of the tube in all possible ways 

Navya Malini 


Whats common to Avika Gor,Gaurav Khanna,Sanjeeda Shaikh,Neha Mehta,Disha Vakhani,Pallavi Subhash,Aamir Ali,Neha Marda,Gurmeet Chaudhary,Karan Singh Grover,Shilpa Anand,Barun Sobti,Siddharth Shukla and Ronit Roy They are not just television superstars,but TVC (television commercials) regulars too! 
While Avika is endorsing a shampoo ad,Ronit,along with Gautami Kapoor,has done a commercial for a telecom service provider,Gaurav is doing a shaving cream commercial,Neha Marda endorses a pregnancy test kit,Barun Sobti does an SUV ad,while Karan does a luxury innerwear ad and Shilpa is lending her name to a leading bank and saree brand.The list goes on.Their small screen demi god status ensured these actors big bucks in form of TVCs.In the recent past,weve seen Shweta Tiwary,Saakshi Tanwar,Gauri Pradhan a n d H i t e n Tejwani do TVCs when they were riding high on popularity index.This 30 second stint certainly is worth the effort,according to many actors.Actress Sanjeeda Shaikh says,I enjoy doing ads as they are a different experience.Within a brief duration,one gets to enact a lot.It requires talent and also experience.Being an actor,I find it easy to do a TV commercial as I can get into the skin of the character and that too with conviction. When it comes to celeb endorsements,TV actors may not be enjoying the same privilege as B-Town biggies,but their popularity surely get the brands the required eyeballs.According to a recent survey,the share of celebrity endorsements on TV by television actors and actresses is 1.6 per cent each during the first quarter of 2011 (AdEx India).While Sanjeeda feels ads happened after TV,actor Gaurav Khanna feels his stint as a model got him first into TV shows and in turn earned him more lucrative endorsements.Gaurav says,I was doing TV commercials before I joined TV.Now when more ads are happening I am only happy to take up those assignments. To some,ads happened by sheer chance.Actress Neha Mehta says,It was while accompanying my friend to a production house that I shot for an ad.Since then Ive been doing quite a lot of ads. Meeting people from a different industry and developing networking,according to the actors,is what ads offer them.Thats why they seem keen to do more of them.Ads give a creative satisfaction and its a oneday affair.Thats why Im looking forward to doing more ads.But I will be selective, says Sanjeeda.Echoing the same sentiment,Gaurav says,If I find the script interesting where there is scope to act,I go for it.I dont just want to smile and sell a product.I want the ad to have a story where I can act. As long as the brands are getting mileage from telly actors brand equity,the latter will laugh all the way to the bank.navya.maliniyv@timesgroup.com