Amitabh's 50 crore deal with Unitech

Brand Bachchan is very much alive and kicking.

Critics, who claimed that the King is losing his ‘magic’, may soon have to eat humble pie as Amitabh Bachchan closes in on the country’s largest endorsement deal at Rs 50 crore for real estate major Unitech. Together with this, the total value of endorsements signed by Mr Bachchan in the past few months has touched a whopping Rs 100 crore, which includes renewal of his ongoing contracts with Cadbury, Dabur, Luxor, S Kumars and Emami, among others.

Big B has been recently signed on by Unitech for a two-year deal that involves just an eight-day stint in front of the camera. Mr Bachchan’s Rs 50-crore deal with Unitech dwarfs all other celebrity brand marriages — no one, not even SRK or Tendulkar, commands even a fourth of the nearly Rs 25-crore per annum from a single brand. Even the fastidious Aamir Khan, who endorses a handful of brands, including Coca-Cola, Toyota and Titan, charges Rs 4.5-5 crore a pop. For the records, now “rested” from the Bangladesh ODI tour, Tendulkar has a five-year, Rs 180-crore contract with Iconix, ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi’s sports management arm.

According to media monitoring agency TAM India, Mr Bachchan also tops the number of brands endorsed, 41 in 2006, closely followed by SRK with 35. Tendulkar’s mug adorns just 17 brands. The total market for brand endorsements in India is around Rs 250 crore per annum, according to CelebZ, a recent study by Group M’s Mindshare Insights.

Of late, it’s raining stars on the real estate sector. While Golden Grand has roped in Kajol-Ajay Devgan, EmGee has signed on Bipasha Basu and Shah Rukh Khan is firmly in place with DLF. Sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan and his sons endorse Omaxe. But all these deals are sealed in the region of Rs 1-5 crore. In the past, Big B has endorsed Sahara City Homes, but with the astronomical Rs 50-crore Unitech deal, he has clearly set the Big Benchmark.