How True Elements convinced cricketer Rohit Sharma to headline the brand

True Elements, a subsidiary of FMCG major Marico Ltd, recently onboarded cricketer Rohit Sharma as its brand ambassador. The reason? The digital-first company wanted to woo a diverse Indian audience for its co-branded range of healthy food brand—RS By True Elements.

Interestingly, this is the first time the ace cricketer has lent his name, and face, to a healthy snack brand, which helps give it a distinctive identity.

In a conversation with Campaign, Akhil Menon, associate vice president, brand and growth of True Elements, shared that it wasn’t a task to convince Sharma as he was already a consumer of the brand. “Knowing that he was a consumer of True Elements made it easier for us to get him on board. He loved the kind of products we were building and understood our journey as well,” he added.

According to Menon, the cricketer’s personality, on and off the field, embodies the brand’s ethos. “We go by the philosophy of food that does not lie, whatever we put inside the pack is mentioned outside it. We wanted someone who can call it out the way it is, just the way we do,” he said.

The association follows the brand licensing model wherein True Elements owns the brand ‘RS By True Elements’, with Sharma being the co-creator. While discussing Sharma’s involvement with the brand, Menon stated that his interest in the products is infectious.

“He’s involved and engaged with us on the entire process from creating variants, forms to packaging designs. He verified the ingredients before saying yes to us,” he revealed to Campaign.

RS By True Elements recently launched a campaign ‘100% real, nothing artificial’, highlighting brand’s distinctive black packaging. It will leverage Sharma’s social media presence, primarily through Instagram reels and digital platforms.

While discussing the growth opportunities, Menon said that the brand’s focus is on the metropolitan regions at present, but it is witnessing an upward curve from smaller towns as well. “We can identify the market being cluttered in this category but it’s also seeing healthy growth. Tier 2 and 3 will take a while to turn into a substantial growth area for us. We did a campaign in Kerala earlier this year and the positive response gave us an insight on the audience from non-metros.”

Watch the video to know more.