The recent IPL ad of Kamla Pasand features Virender Sehwag and Sunil Gavaskar
Kamla Pasand has recently onboarded former Indian cricketers- Virender Sehwag and Sunil Gavaskar as its endorsers. As a result, the icons featured in the IPL ads of the brand, which are airing both on Jio Cinema and Star Sports.
Notably, this is the first time that any of the cricketers have associated with a pan masala brand for an endorsement deal, unlike Bollywood celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan, just to name a few.
Prior to Gavaskar and Sehwag, it was Amitabh Bachchan and Ranveer Singh who endorsed Kamla Pasand last year. However, Bachchan had decided to take a step back and withdraw himself from the ad campaign after the public furore which started post its airing
Likewise, this year’s IPL ads of Kamla Pasand have also sorely disappointed the public.
Sharing his point of view on the recent Kamla Pasand ad featuring Gavaskar and Sehwag, a Twitter user mentioned, “Dear, Sunil Gavaskar and Virendra Sehwag, 2 different generations consider you idols, get inspired from you and whatever you have achieved, promoting cancerous pan masala at this age of life is so shameful, all this just for some money? “
Pained by the move, another Twitterati wrote, “1st filmmakers and now our sporting / cricketing icons are promoting mouth cancer. Saddened and pained to see two of the greatest cricketing icons appear in an advertisement for #KamlaPasand.”
Some of the netizens also took to LinkedIn to share how “baffled” and “bewildered” they were to see Gavaskar and Sehwag endorsing the product.
A LinkedIn user wrote, “Have grown up seeing both these cricketing legends… Feeling very bad about this incident. Is money above everything? No Morals… SHAME… PATHETIC… First actors, now cricketers… Isn’t there any government agency monitoring this?
Another user stated, “Having led #IPL support for a few years as part of my previous role, I have always been beyond amazed at the marketing spends this tournament entails. Having said that, seeing Sunil Gavaskar promote Pan Masala this year has been truly a low blow.”
