Ormax Media launches Celebritix to determine celebrity-brand fit

Ormax Media has announced the launch of a syndicated research-based software, Celebritix.

According to Ormax, the desktop software will allow brands to evaluate and select the best celebrities for endorsements and film tie-ups, based on the fit between the brand and the celebrity.

The desktop software currently features a total of 36 celebrities, 31 from Bollywood and five from cricket. Ormax Media intends to update the celebrity data on a quaterly basis.

Shailesh Kapoor, chief executive officer, Ormax Media, told Campaign India that work on building this software began in December 2011 after the firm consulted a few brands and media agencies within the industry on the relevance and value of such a tool.

The research for Celebritix will cover 4,000 new respondents every quarter, across 20 attributes, in the target group of 18 to 44 years SEC ABC, across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

On the choice of cities, Kapoor said,"Right now we haven't included South Indian actors hence Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh could not be included. Right now, we wanted to start by focussing on the prominent Hindi speaking markets. While Delhi and Mumbai completely fit the bill, Bengaluru comes under the cosmopolitan category to a large extent and the next big markets consuming entertainment in Hindi were Lucknow and Ahmedabad."

Kapoor added that data has and will be be collected from respondents over phone by Ormax Media's telephonic research centre in Surat, which has around 60 people. Telephonic, according to Kapoor, delivers economical and faster responses. The research was conducted in Hindi except for Bengaluru where it involved Kannada too. The results were then translated into English.

Celebritix falls under the advertising unit of Ormax Media which has 19 people. Three from the unit will be dedicated to this software.

On the price of the software, Kapoor said that it would vary with brands and media agencies, depending on the size of the brand and the number of brands a media agency handles. "To break-even we may need four to five subscribers depending on the size of the business. These will be annual deals," Kapoor added.

How the software will work

The software will allow users to create a brand profile by assigning weights to different attributes that best describe the desired personality of the brand. Based on the brand profile, the software will recommend celebrities that best fit the brand, using a proprietary metric called the OCX (Ormax Celebritix) score.

The OCX Score can also be used for selection of films for associations, based on the fit between the starcast and the brand, according to Ormax.

Additionally, subscribers may opt for two existing modules from Ormax Media - Stars India Loves (SIL) and Box Office Forecast. These are meant to allow a brand to take informed decisions on film tie-ups.