This week, beauty e-commerce platform Nykaa appointed actress Deepika Padukone as its global brand ambassador. In the new ad film, Padukone—dressed in a dazzling golden outfit—grooves to Mikey McCleary’s 2011 remix of the classic song ‘Hawa Hawai’, while applying makeup and a mist of fragrance, all in preparation for a cozy night in.
The ad’s ultimate pitch—‘Why get dressed only to go out? Get dressed up for yourself, because you’re the Nykaa, the lead heroine of your own life’—clearly explains why it would resonate with so many women.
The campaign builds on a brand plank that Nykaa launched in 2021, the year it went public. But what’s more striking than the campaign itself is that it positions Padukone as a ‘global icon’, and not simply a Hindi film star who is admired in India and among the Indian diaspora.
In its press release for the campaign, Nykaa refers to Padukone as a ‘Global Icon’ several times, but strangely enough, offers no context to what makes her appeal global. She’s described as an entrepreneur, mental health advocate, and a “timeless beauty”, none of which can be contested.
Padukone has spent some years building a global image, with appearances at the Met Gala in New York City and the Cannes Red Carpet in France, a spot on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, and as a global brand ambassador for iconic luxury brand Louis Vuitton the same year. She even did a small role in a Hollywood action film xXx in 2017, and is reportedly cast in its sequel too.
However, it’s debatable whether these engagements are enough to catapult her to a ‘global icon’ status, in the same way as, say, Korean viral sensation BTS, or the Kardashians who visited India as guests of the Ambanis at their son’s wedding.
What’s more interesting is this: Why does Nykaa need a global ambassador at all? Most of its beauty business comes from India, although it does run operations in the Middle East and is setting shop in other regions too, where there is a significant Indian diaspora. It makes one wonder if Nykaa and Deepika Padukone are both following similar playbooks for going ‘global’. If so, they will need to demonstrably break out of their core Indian and NRI (or ‘desi’) customer base.
This isn’t an isolated example of an Indian celebrity’s global ambitions. Padukone’s colleague Alia Bhatt, who starred in an American Netflix original Heart of Stone, was also appointed a global brand ambassador for the jeans brand Levi’s along with Punjabi pop sensation Diljit Dosanjh. Iincidentally, Deepika Padukone also fronted the brand, but only for the India market only.
Just like Padukone, Bhatt is also a global brand ambassador—for iconic luxury brand Gucci. But if YouTube views are anything to go by, the Levi’s ad featuring American pop queen Beyoncé has many more views than the campaign featuring Bhatt. Beyoncé is, arguably, far more of a global icon than Bhatt, Dosanjh, or even Padukone.
Labelling someone as having global in appeal is a tricky thing to do, whether it's a celebrity or a brand with international ambitions. But with Nykaa’s latest ad film, it’s safe to say that the ‘global’ tag is more to do with impressing domestic fans and customers than to appeal to a larger, potential customer base abroad.