CelebTrack Wave II: Dhoni, SRK top all India power list, Tendulkar slides in rankings

Percept Talent Management (PTM) and Hansa Research, a full service market research agency, on Wednesday, October 7, 2009, announced the second wave results of CelebTrack, a research Wave on celebrities. CelebTrack Wave II claims to be even richer, more informative and more insightful than its first edition launched in April 2009, as it has added to its kitty more genres, enhanced and better probing techniques.

CelebTrack now claims to have over 10 subscribers, including Hindustan Unilever, Pepsi and Vodafone, to name a few. Some of the new additions made this year include foreign IPL players, the ones who have the influence. CelebTrack is said to be the outcome of comprehensive and tamper-proof data gathering method from over 12,000 respondents (Urban, All Adults, SEC ABCD and 15-50 years) across India in a period of two waves annually.

According to the top line findings in the all-India power list, MS Dhoni ranks No. 1 in Wave II, whereas in Wave I he had ranked No. 2.

Shah Rukh Khan climbs up to rank No. 2 in Wave II as compared to rank No. 5 in Wave I. Aishwarya Rai ranks No. 3 in Wave II as compared to rank No. 7 in Wave I. Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar see a drop in their rankings in Wave II. While Big B ranks No. 4 in Wave II as compared to rank No. 3 in Wave I, Sachin Tendulkar falls four steps to rank No. 5 from rank No. 1 in the last Wave. The Wave II results saw Hrithik Roshan, Yuvraj Singh and Salman Khan climb to rank No. 4, No. 5 and No. 7, respectively. Akshay Kumar, too, sees a drop in his ranking from No. 6 in Wave I to rank No. 9 in Wave II. Katrina Kaif’s ranking remain unchanged in the two Waves at No. 8.

The Top 10 most popular celebrities in the Hindi market in Wave II include MS Dhoni, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif, Hrithik Roshan, Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar and Aamir Khan.

In the Tamil Nadu market, Vijay, Ajith, Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan and Vikram remain popular. In Kerala, the popular stars remain Mohanlal, Vikram, Kamal Hassan, AR Rehman, and Shobana.

The Top 5 popular cricketers according to CelebTrack report are MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguli and Rahul Dravid. While the Top 5 non-cricket sportspersons include Sania Mirza, Viswanathan Anand, Mahesh Bhupathi, Saina Nehwal and Leander Paes.

Speaking on the researh, Manish Porwal, CEO, Percept Talent Management, said, “In a short six-month period, CelebTrack has clearly been recognised as the sole currency for evaluating stars and their influence over consumers. We are happy that PTM is able to make this leadership contribution towards providing the industry with the science, it required to grow, from here on. Our clients now make informed and learned decisions rather than relying on gut and anecdotal learning only. On the other hand, our celebrities can benchmark themselves vis-à-vis their audience and accordingly price their involvement with brands.”

Ashok Das, MD, Hansa Research, said, “The joy of providing an industry with its first step in science is now growing even further. Wave II results allow clients and talent to study the changes vis-à-vis the earlier data and allow them to combine the results for an even more robust and long term understanding of changing public perceptions.”