Suppose a celebrity sends you greetings to celebrate your special day. Or you can have a one-to-one conversation with a celebrity. Or a special session on a topic of your choice hosted by a celebrity with a group of 20-25 fans, say a session on yoga or cooking. Many more such ideas of engagement can be exploited.
This is possible by a shoutout application. In the west, Cameo, a US-based app was launched in 2017 by roping in 30,000 celebrities. The app has created monetisation avenues for celebrities too.
Such applications allow what humans enjoy the most — social validation. It puts them on an advantageous position as compared to those in the neighbourhood and their friends. Celebrity engagement is a permanent memory. The video is stored in phones or hard drives for ever.
In India, the oldest player is Wysh which has a repertoire of 600 stars. It was launched in 2019. Its price range is from Rs. 750 — Rs. 10000. Here the investors are Kalyan Krishnamurthy and Gaurav Munjal. Their strong point is South India. They have Telugu and Kannada stars and will rope in Malyalam celebrities. They focus on A-listers.
Unlu went live in July, 2020. It has 500 plus celebrities. There are 100 celebrities for personal live video calling feature. Most of the celebrities charge RS. 4000 to Rs. 12000 for interactions. Its 99% requests are catered to in 24 hours. Its price range is Rs. 999 to Rs. 50000. The investor is Bootstrapped.
Small and medium enterprises expect these apps to endorse their outlets in smaller cities. The brand endorsement fees of these platforms is one-tenth of the normal brand endorsement free or ad shoot costs.
There are digital promotions for local mom-and-pop stores and startups.
Tring was launched in December, 2019. It has tied up with 2000 plus celebrities. Its price range is Rs. 99 to Rs. 50000. Its investors are Kalaari Capital, Whiteboard Capital, Touchstone Equities and AngelList.
The apps usually ask for a week to process a request. There is great demand from semi-urban areas — 2 and 3 tier cities and smaller towns. Their booking share is 50 per cent. Even daily soap actors have a huge following there.