Surya – The Youth Icon of South India

Brand Management is a concept that’s normally as complex as to that of as simple it could sound. It takes a lot time, money; trust in building a brand for they would eventually decide the destiny of the organizations. Lot of traditional debates goes on in this arena: National/International Brands Vs Regional Brands. The choice invariably is influenced by many factors like the Company’s Vision, its Marketing Goal, Core Strengths, Size of the Pocket etc. Quite interestingly there are a few other factors which can make a regionalization attempt go futile. One of them could be availability of Brand Ambassadors for different Companies to choose.

Though at the National Level, we did have a lot of Sports Personalities, Actors, Social Activists, Professionals etc playing the role of Brand Ambassadors, the scene was quite diffrerent at the regional level, especially for the South India, where the corporations were running short of options.
- I remember Actor Govinda used to talk Tamil ( Most Economical way of Regionalizing the Brand)and tell me why he likes Navratna Oil.
- Big-B told me why we wore Reid & Taylor, why he used Eveready and why he ate Cadbury, why he used anything (these days Big-B features in almost all the ads) again all in Tamil.

A recent shift in the trend that has been experienced is the upcoming of an Actor from Tamil Movie Industry who has grown from ‘no where’ to ‘now here’. Somebody who is a retreat to watch and has come as a treat to Corporates and Ad agencies, helped them to regionalize the Brand in true sense.

Surya – His journey was quite unnoticed, long and laudable. Today you can watch Surya representing many Brands

Pepsi, TVS, AIRCEL, Emami Fair & Handsome, Himani Navratna Oil, Sunfeast Biscuits and many more to follow.
Here is what TVS Top Brass had to say about roping in Surya as their BA, "We consider it a honour to have Surya as the brand ambassador for TVS StaR. Surya was our obvious choice for his youthfulness, style and athleticism, attributes that exemplify the brand attributes of TVS StaR, which is built around toughness and Style. The talented Surya's popularity extends to the entire South and we are confident that our association with him will help us in tapping the vast potential of our key audience in South India."
With all this Surya has given the Bollywood artists a run for their opportunities. His next assignment with Ram Gopal Varma is just another example of what has been described above.

More info @ SURYA - The South Indian Youth Icon