I would say yes the celebrities do help a brand. It has various add-on’s to have a celebrity linked with a brand. In fact being more specific Bollywood and cricket the 2 biggest things in India, occupy most of the ad slots. The rest is filled by the models and some theme based ads. Brands have been leveraging celebrity appeal for a long time. Across categories, whether in products or services, more and more brands are banking on the mass appeal of celebrities. As soon as a new face ascends the popularity charts, advertisers queue up to have it splashed all over.
Advantages of a celebrity endorsing a Brand

Witness the spectacular rise of Sania Mirza and Irfan Pathan in endorsements in a matter of a few months. The accruement of celebrity endorsements can be justified by the following advantages that are bestowed on the overall brand:

• Establishment of Credibility: Approval of a brand by a star fosters a sense of trust for that brand among the target audience- this is especially true in case of new products.

• We had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign. At launch, Shah Rukh Khan endorsed Santro and this ensured that brand awareness was created in a market, which did not even know the brand.

• Ensured Attention: Celebrities ensure attention of the target group by breaking the clutter of advertisements and making the ad and the brand more noticeable.

• PR coverage : is another reason for using celebrities. Managers perceive celebrities as topical, which create high PR coverage. A good example of integrated celebrity campaigns is one of the World’s leading pop groups, the Spice Girls, who have not only appeared in advertisements for Pepsi, but also in product launching and PR events. Indeed, celebrity-company marriages are covered by most media from television to newspapers (e.g. The Spice Girls and Pepsi)

• Higher degree of recall: People tend to commensurate the personalities of the celebrity with the brand thereby increasing the recall value. Golf champion Tiger Woods has endorsed American Express, Rolex, and Nike. Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is used by T-Mobile and Elizabeth Arden. 007 Pierce Brosnan promotes Omega, BMW, and Noreico.

• Associative Benefit: A celebrity’s preference for a brand gives out a persuasive message – because the celebrity is benefiting from the brand, the consumer will also benefit.

• Mitigating a tarnished image: Cadbury India wanted to restore the consumer’s confidence in its chocolate brands following the high-pitch worms controversy; so the company appointed Amitabh Bachan for the job. Last year, when the even more controversial pesticide issue shook up Coca-Cola and PepsiCo and resulted in much negative press, both soft drink majors put out high-profile damage control ad films featuring their best and most expensive celebrities. While Aamir Khan led the Coke fightback as an ingenious and fastidious Bengali who finally gets convinced of the product’s `purity,’ PepsiCo brought Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar together once again in a television commercial which drew references to the `safety’ of the product indirectly.

• Psychographic Connect: Celebrities are loved and adored by their fans and advertisers use stars to capitalize on these feelings to sway the fans towards their brand.

• Demographic Connect: Different stars appeal differently to various demographic segments (age, gender, class, geography etc).

• Mass Appeal: Some stars have a universal appeal and therefore prove to be a good bet to generate interest among the masses.

• Rejuvenating a stagnant brand: With the objective of infusing fresh life into the stagnant chyawanprash category and staving off competition from various brands, Dabur India roped in Bachan for an estimated Rs 8 crore.