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The Truth About Celebrity Brands in India
From Hrithik Roshan to Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Kriti Sanon and Katrina Kaif, Bollywood stars turn entrepreneurs, but insiders say execution, authenticity and strategy sustain brands beyond hype.
In 2025, entertainment isn’t just influencing enterprise, it’s owning it. From Skims and Rare Beauty to Fenty Beauty and Good American, celebrity-led brands are dominating the global market. And now, the trend has firmly taken root in India.
Brands like HRX by Hrithik Roshan, Kay Beauty by Katrina Kaif, and Hyphen by Kriti Sanon prove that when a celebrity’s personal brand aligns with consumer demand, it’s a recipe for a thriving business. But not all celebrity ventures succeed. In fact, most crash and burn, undone by poor strategy and lacklustre execution.
“A lot of celebrities will give their name to the brand, but won’t get involved in any way,” reveals celebrity stylist Tanya Ghavri, whose clientele includes the likes of Kareena Kapoor Khan and Khushi Kapoor. “They give two days to shoot a campaign, maybe come onboard for approvals, a bit of social media here and there. But in the long run, that won’t work. You can’t fool the audience anymore, you know?”
A retail insider further emphasises that, in terms of execution, operators behind celebrity-backed brands need to be 10 times as certain. “Consumers are less forgiving and small mistakes are amplified. They think [the celebrity] got it easy, so they must constantly show how hard they’re working.”
Then there’s the question of timing. Afsar Zaidi — founder of Exceed Entertainment and also a cofounder of both HRX and Saif Ali Khan’s House of Pataudi — explains, “I have personally managed Hrithik since 2004. HRX is a physical manifestation of his journey, and it was very novel in its approach — equity business, creating a brand, and partnership with e-commerce.” Launched in 2013, HRX partnered with Myntra (run by Mukesh Bansal at the time), despite receiving standing offers by some of the biggest brands.
On the other hand, Hyphen was born out of a market gap — the need to “hyphenate” scientific potency with natural purity. Cofounder and CEO Tarun Sharma sees consumer brands as a fusion of three key factors: understanding the consumer, creating a category and choosing the correct sales channel.
Having gained the experience after launching mCaffeine, a skincare and haircare brand, he says they had an unfair advantage in understanding the consumer. “We had the vendors and manufacturers in place, an RND capacity to formulate a thousand-plus formulations. We are a very data-driven, online-first company,” he says, emphasising their D2C (direct to consumer) strategy. In fact, in mCaffeine’s early days, the customer care number on the packaging was Sharma’s personal one — proving that real consumer insights come straight from the source. “Kriti would also speak to 30 to 35 chosen consumers to get insights every month,” he reveals.
Zaidi echoes the importance of data-driven decisions. “[Launching a fashion and fitness brand] was neither Hrithik’s idea nor mine, it was defined by research we had done in 2010 with IMRB [Indian Market Research Bureau],” he says, pulling out what they call their research “bible”, packed with product strategies, launch plans, advertising projections and consumer insights. He even likens HRX’s monumental launch to Roshan’s breakout success with Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai 25 years ago.
On the other hand, in the case of influencer-led brands, an offshoot of the ones backed by actors, the process differs since they communicate with their audience closely for years before launching a brand.
“My personal brand, built on trust and engagement with my audience, naturally extends to Indē Wild, as people know I believe in what we create and use the products myself,” says Diipa Büller-Khosla, founder of Indē Wild. “The best part is having a built-in community that trusts and supports you, making it easier to spread awareness and receive feedback directly.” The hardest part, in her opinion, are the heightened expectations.
A Personal Expression
“A celebrity who’s always been about luxury starting something non-luxury and [mass-market] won’t connect with the people. It is a personal expression of something you believe in,” says Ghavri, citing that Katrina Kaif was known for beauty and make-up a long time before she started her brand; she was previously a brand ambassador of L’Oreal. “She personally looked into the details and brand language even though there were massive teams running it.”
Ghavri adds, “A consumer will go to a brand once or twice because their favourite celebrity owns it, but the third time, they will only go for the product. It must speak for itself.”
Many were surprised when Saif Ali Khan launched an e-commerce brand, given his absence from social media. Yet, House of Pataudi proves that a brand isn’t built on followers but on a strong story. “He has no Instagram followers. There is no engagement rate discussion with him,” says Zaidi.
But for Sharma, the key to success lies in an “operator-led, celebrity-anchored brand”. While Hyphen cofounder and chief growth officer Vaishali Gupta manages business, revenue, growth and marketing channels, Sharma heads operations, finance and HR. “In India, with every start-up, there are more deaths of celebrity-first, partner-led brands than success stories. But the full-time job is that of the operator, not a celebrity,” he says, adding that celebrities do give a meaningful launch velocity, and the top of the mind awareness is higher.
“We joke about it that you know a successful start-up has lower brand awareness than a celebrity-led brand that has died. People would know Anushka Sharma had launched an apparel brand, and Deepika Padukone had launched All About You,” he says.
Using this playbook, Sharma and Gupta have also invested their personal capital in Palmonas, a jewellery brand in which actor Shraddha Kapoor owns a 20 per cent stake, which is run by cofounder Pallavi Mohadikar.
Sharma says, “You cannot have [a health-conscious action star] as the cofounder of a biryani brand; there needs to be coherence.”
The third part of the flywheel is continuity: The audience must believe the celebrity uses the brand personally, to lend credibility to it. Sharma adds, “When Kriti goes to IIFA and uses the lip balm, one would gain confidence in the brand.”
At the end of the day, the product, execution, category, packaging, pricing, promotions and platforms must align to create a successful brand.
Failings and Targets
However, the ingredients usually don’t add up, and Zaidi blames a lack of operators for the same. “I’ve seen great companies executing a copied idea and doing fantastically well, but at the same time a great idea executed loosely will have its own slow death. With a celebrity it will have a faster death because everybody would know about it.”
When it comes to celebrity-led brands, the targets do differ, as does the audience.
“It changes by [around] 20 per cent,” notes Sharma, comparing it to non-celebrity-led brands like mCaffeine. “The amount of money we invest is based on a certain target. If there is a target ambition of ₹100 crore and we are investing ₹30 crore, it will be achieved because we are also investing a large amount of capital.”
He continues, “Had it been an independent brand, maybe we would have invested around ₹18 crore, and the target would have been ₹80 crore to ₹85 crore. But if there’s a celebrity on-board and you amplify it, you’ll need more stock, [have to] hire the team faster, do a bit more marketing.” That’s what justifies the ₹30 crore investment.
When they launched mCaffeine, there were 9,800 brands in India — by the time they started Hyphen, that number had surged to 71,000. “Back then, digital was easier, and customer acquisition costs (CAC) were just ₹200 to ₹400. Now, with Meta, Google and Amazon driving fierce competition, a celebrity helps cut through the clutter,” he says.
Zaidi, on the other hand, believes the targets to be similar. “[A higher target] is the most logical thought one has when thinking of a celebrity brand. But by that logic, every film of that actor should be a super hit, right? That’s not the case,” he says, underlining the importance of the story of the brand. “For instance, I don’t need to tell Saif Ali Khan to talk about the House of Pataudi. It is based on tehzeeb [elegance]. He lives that brand. We have just created a story out of it, and it happens to be fashion. Tomorrow it could end up [being used for] a bottle of wine or perfume also.”
Another shortcoming of the unsuccessful celebrity-led brands in India is the lack of advisors. THR India asked Ghavri whether they consider hiring stylists or retail advisors before launching their brands.
“It’s very unfortunate that’s not happening, because internationally, it is — like [entrepreneur] Emma Grede is with Skims. And how many celebrity-driven Indian brands have even worked? I can name more that have not,” she says.
However, when it comes to influencer-led brands, that isn’t the case. Büller-Khosla revealed that she consulted dermatologists, haircare specialists and industry experts to ensure their formulae were backed by science and catered to real consumer needs.
Not to mention, while many are trying to be genuinely sustainable, they don’t cater to all categories. In fact, according to Zaidi, brands like House of Pataudi steer away from going the luxury route, to go up in scale.
Zaidi notes one critical difference when it comes to celebrity-backed brands. “We had to explain to our partners that Hrithik and HRX are different. There’s a thin line between Hrithik, the actor, and Hrithik, the soul of HRX. The structure will be different. The price points will be different. The discussion will be different,” he emphasises. Similarly, they host marathons and running clubs to ensure their marketing goes beyond relying on Roshan’s stardom.
Success in celebrity-led brands isn’t just about star power, it’s also about strategy, execution and authenticity. A strong operator, data-driven insights and a brand that aligns with the celebrity’s identity are non-negotiable. Hype may drive initial sales, but sustained success demands direct involvement. As Zaidi puts it, “A brand isn’t a movie that earns on Friday — it has to perform every single day.”
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