Celebrity-led television advertising in India contracted 17 per cent in January-September 2026 from the same nine months of 2025, according to TAM AdEx. The fall arrived even though film stars still supplied 65 per cent of celebrity-endorsed TV ad volumes.
For Hindi cinema readers, the report offers a clear read on how Bollywood faces are being valued on television: not only who is most visible, but which categories still buy stardom, and where the market may be tightening.
Visibility and brand count are not the same race
Shah Rukh Khan led the visibility chart with 26 hours of daily ad visibility across channels, or a 10 per cent share. MS Dhoni followed with 22 hours, and Jasprit Bumrah third with seven hours.
Akshay Kumar, meanwhile, topped the number of brand associations at 35, up from 21 a year earlier. Shah Rukh Khan had 29, Amitabh Bachchan 27 and Ranbir Kapoor 26. The split is a useful reminder: visibility measures the duration of TV commercials featuring a celebrity, while brand associations count how many different advertisers used that face.
Film stars still power the category
Film personalities accounted for 65 per cent of celebrity-led ad volumes. Sports personalities contributed 28 per cent and television actors 8 per cent. Within cinema, male actors represented 38 per cent and actresses 28 per cent.
Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt led the celebrity-couples list with a 19 per cent share across 37 brands, followed by Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan at 11 per cent across 27 brands.
Where the volume sat
- Food and beverages: 25 per cent of celebrity-endorsed ad volumes.
- Personal care and personal hygiene: 18 per cent.
- Household products: 9 per cent.
- The top three sectors together accounted for more than half of all celebrity-led TV advertising.
- The IPL quarter of April-June recorded a 38.8 per cent celebrity share of ad volumes, up from 36.3 per cent a year earlier.
- May was the busiest month at 15 per cent share, while July was the lightest at 8 per cent.
What the decline says
The year-on-year fall points to a softer environment for celebrity-led work, even with the IPL peak. Average daily celebrity ad volume slipped from 308 hours in January-March 2026 to 252 hours in April-June and 234 hours in July-September.
At category level, the everyday nature of the business stands out. Toilet and floor cleaners led with 8 per cent of celebrity ad volumes, toilet soaps 7 per cent and aerated soft drinks 6 per cent. Paints, by contrast, attracted the widest celebrity roster with 36 endorsers—evidence that the number of faces a category uses and the volume it generates are separate signals.
For Bollywood, the report reinforces a familiar pattern: stardom remains heavily monetised in household, food and personal care categories, but advertisers appear to be leaning on that stardom a little more selectively.
Source: Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media
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