The World: Insider's view - India.(control on the cricket players advertising activity by the Indian Cricket Board)(Viewpoint essay)

The Indian Cricket Board is limiting players' ad activity, but this should spur agencies to rediscover their creativity, Suman Srivastava writes.

It's a cliche that, in India, cricket is a religion and players such as Sachin Tendulkar are its gods. Now this 'truth' has been taken to ridiculous levels, with almost 50 brands being endorsed among the top six Indian cricketers - Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni, Saurav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag.

The recent news regarding the Indian Cricket Board's decision to allow each cricketer to endorse a maximum of three brands has got the country's advertising and marketing worlds abuzz.

Many wonder if the board is within its legal rights in imposing such a ban, and whether the power of money will ultimately force the authorities to rescind this order. They also talk about whether all this money from endorsements distracts players from their primary task: playing cricket.

All this is beside the point. Regulation or not, clients and agencies should embrace the death of the 'cricket formula' and use it as an opportunity to develop more cost-effective and cutting-edge ways of building brands.

Recently, more and more companies have started using cricketers to endorse their brands. It has become a sort of bidding war, with each brand trying to trump its competitor by signing a more popular player Quite entertaining, were it all not such a colossal waste of money.

Several marketers have confessed that cricketer endorsements ...