Sridevi for Dabur hair oil: The power and lucre of Advertising in India

One from the archives, Sridevi posing for Dabur Amla hair oil. While some stars were reluctant (most notably Rekha and Anil Kapoor - till they eventually caved) to join the advertising bandwagon, Sridevi embraced the financial windfall (a day's work for easy money) wholeheartedly from the get-go, and has been the face of several ad campaigns from a wide range of products. 

Be it most-memorably for Cema lightbulbs, or her sari ads, soap, or any mass market product or service. Long before Aishwarya Rai Bachchan made L'Oreal a household name in India, her seniors were fronting for national products for pan-Indian appeal. Many a star and starlet has taken this lucrative modeling gig for hair oil.  In more recent years contemporaries Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra have modelled for the same. 

In fact, in the mid-1980s, Jaya Prada starred in a memorable 2 min video ad for Dabur Amla hair oil, but as Sridevi's popularity escalated quickly, when Jaya Prada's contract ended, she wasn't reconsidered and Sridevi took over the ad - from the sets of Chandni no less. Sridevi's television ad in fact features a lot of outtakes from the film Chandni and other clips made especially for the campaign. 

In a classic case of adding oil to the fire, the feud between the two contemporaries was at its peak by 1989. 

When it comes to advertising and corporate agenda, it's simply a numbers game. Big wigs looking at charts of popularity and picking stars to peddle their products in exchange for lucrative deals. The notion that "they are family" and celebrities join the family makes it sound like Barjatya wholesomeness, when business is in fact, far more cut-throat.  Jaya Prada had 10 film releases in 1989 - not a single one was a memorable box-office smash. Sridevi had 7, and the year where she was a multiple Best Actress nominee and winner for Chaalbaaz. 

Films, ads, larger remuneration, pan-Indian fame, sex-symbol status, box-office reign, Best Actress wins... with sheer determination, Sridevi usurped it all in her steady incline in the 1980s. No wonder her contemporaries had a lot to say in print about, and sometimes against, Sridevi. While Amrita Singh, Farha, Dimple Kapadia, Poonam Dhillon and others simply accepted the lead Sridevi had, others were more vocal critics. Oh well...  You win some, you lose some.