Women sports stars shine off the field, too

The number of advertisements featuring women sports celebrities in the country surged 30% in the second half of calendar 2022 vis a vis the first half, a report by TAM AdEx has said.

In contrast, there was a 3% decline in ad volumes featuring male sports celebrities during the same period, though on a much larger base, the ad monitoring and analytics division of TAM Media Research said.

“The rise of women’s sports celebrities as endorsers of brands is largely led by two factors – their dominance and performance in specialised domains of sports, and extensive social media which makes them easily recognisable by a new generation,” LV Krishnan, chief executive of TAM Media Research, told ET.

Badminton player PV Sindhu, cricketers Shafali Varma and Mithali Raj, skier Aanchal Thakur, boxer Nikhat Zareen, and hockey player Gurjit Kaur were among the top 10 female sports persons in 2022, as per TAM AdEx data.

Hyundai Motor last week onboarded women cricketers Yastika Bhatia and Renuka Singh Thakur as brand ambassadors to join their teammates Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues. All five will feature in Hyundai’s ‘the drive within’ campaign, the carmaker said.

Sports brand Puma last month roped in women’s cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur as its brand ambassador.