Mumbai: Cricket and Bollywood celebs continue to rule the roost when it comes to brand endorsements in the country, as indicated by data & insights company Kroll’s latest report on Celebrity Brand Valuation – a study of India’s most powerful celebrity brands. Cricketer Virat Kohli retained the top position for the fifth consecutive year with a brand value of $185.7 million, while actor Ranveer Singh secured the second position this year coming up one place from the previous year’s third rank, with a brand value of $158.3 million.

Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, who had taken the second spot in 2020, settled for the third position this year with a brand value of $139.6 million, according to the report.

Duff & Phelps, A Kroll Business, announced the release of the seventh edition of its Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2021 titled 'Digital Acceleration 2.0.' The study provides a ranking of India’s most powerful celebrity brands based on brand values derived from their brand endorsement portfolios and relative social media presence. Alia Bhatt became the most valued female celebrity in 2021, ranking at the fourth spot with a brand value of $68.1 million, with Deepika Padukone being the only other female celebrity to make it to the top ten at seventh rank.

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Cricketer MS Dhoni entered the top-five club this year with a brand value of $61.2 million, even as his fellow cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma came in at eleventh, and thirteenth positions.

The overall brand value of the top 20 celebrities in 2021 is estimated at $1.2 billion, as per the study - an increase of about 12.9 per cent from last year.

The study recognises the impact of the second year of the pandemic on the overall celebrity endorsement space and the evolving Indian media and entertainment industry.

“While prominent Bollywood celebrities continue to feature in our list of top 20 celebrity brands, this year we saw some notable changes,” commented Duff & Phelps managing director Aviral Jain. “Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, and MS Dhoni witnessed a stellar jump in their brand values and they seem to have hit the right chords with the audience in 2021. We also saw more sportspersons rising in the top celebrity rankings, including the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma, and PV Sindhu. This significant jump was because of the lesser competition from Bollywood celebrities since there were fewer theatrical releases in 2021.”

“Businesses and brands have heavily leveraged social media and other online platforms for brand endorsements this year, too, with below par weightage to traditional platforms,” stated Duff & Phelps APAC head for valuation advisory services Varun Gupta.

2021 also saw the emergence and growth of several startups in the fintech and direct-to-consumer (D2C) business segments that significantly contributed to the overall number of brand endorsements undertaken by the top 20 celebrities.

“As traditional as well as upcoming industries adopted the digital route to continue engaging with their consumers, we observed greater traction in fintech, social media and OTT platforms, and D2C platforms from a celebrity endorsement standpoint,” Gupta added.

The list of the top ten celebrities in the Celebrity Brand Valuation Report is as below: