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Ace photographer and helmsman of a certain calendar of male desire, Atul Kasbekar has always been the preferred photographer for agencies and publications. Whether he has the time to talk to them or not is altogether a different question.

An alumnus of the Brooks Institute of Photography, Kasbekar had trained in Los Angeles before returning to Mumbai in 1991 to set up Negative Space, his own studio. Since then, he has shot some of the most beautiful women in India for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle and Vogue on a regular basis.

In the realm of advertising, his clients include Adidas, Airtel, Coke, Gillette, Hero Honda, Nestle, Omega, P&G, Rado, Tag Heuer and Unilever. Topping that, Kasbekar has been the face of the professional division of Canon in India, and an honorary chairman of the Photographer’s Guild of India. That sure is a lot on his plate already, wouldn’t you say?

Well, Kasbekar didn’t seem to think so. In the autumn of 2007, the photographer turned entrepreneur and moved into one of the most nascent industries in India today—celebrity management—when he set up his own company, Bling Entertainment Solutions.

The transition from photographer to celebrity manager was shockingly easy, and never the grind he first thought it would be. “I had a lot of experience dealing with both sides of the branding world—advertising and brands—and also celebrities of all kinds,” Kasbekar says. “I genuinely felt that I more than understood the two facets important to this field. One, I understood celebrities. And second, I understood, better than most, how branding could work for them.”

According to Kasbekar, celebrity management is still a very nascent space within the entertainment world. It has no pundits and no set guidelines using which a business can thrive. “However, I always felt that I had it in me [to
succeed in this field], because of my experience. The move into celebrity management was a very natural progression,” Kasbekar adds. “Plus, I think I commanded enough respect and trust within the entertainment industry for our clients to put their public lives in our hands.”

By the looks of Bling’s client list, it’s pretty evident that Kasbekar was spot on about that. In less than two years, Bling has 30 of the country’s best actors, actresses, cricketers, comedians, models and even chefs as its clients. The company has grown at 300 percent year-on-year since its inception. Today, it employs about 20 people to manage its list of ultra high-profile clients.

“Business has been good,” Kasbekar says. “I believe our success in making such key signings has been the holistic way in which we manage our clients. We believe that we should have a role to play in where you are today—and where you want to be in five years, too.”

Kasbekar believes that the crucial factor behind Bling’s success so far has been its ability to identify the crucial difference between branding a person and branding a product.These strategic decisions range right from which movie an actor should do to which event he or she should attend, Kasbekar adds. “Ultimately, to build a celebrity’s brand, even what he or she speaks in public is important. A random offhand comment could undo a lot of brand value.”

One of the biggest money spinners for celebrities nowadays are brand endorsements. And one of Bling’s core functions is to get the right endorsements for its clients, and vice versa. “We are ridiculously hands down and forthright in getting the best deals, not only for the celebrity, but also for the corporate entity,” Kasbekar points out.

Bling’s logic is this: if need be, it will decline offers by many a brand before it says yes to one that it is convinced about. He explains, “Once we know that the brand and the celebrity are a fit for each other, we will marry them and be neck deep in it with the corporate.”

He gives the example of actress Sonam Kapoor, for whom Bling declined at least eight cosmetic brands before it signed up with French cosmetics giant L’Oreal—a relationship it will now manage over the long term. No wonder, then, that Bling often gets commissioned by corporates, too, to identify which celebrity will fit their brand, lock them in and then manage the relationship.

“Signing a deal is the easiest part in the book,” Kasbekar says. “It is working the relationship to a point that both parties are deriving equal mutual value from each other that is important. Being in a terrible hurry to make money for yourself and the client never works.”

The company recently made about four to five key signings, and now Kasbekar is on the hunt for more talent to work at Bling. “I am declining prospective clients, because I don’t have enough of the right people to manage them,” says Kasbekar. “A celebrity manager is [like] a pop, a mom, a shark, and a friend with the temperament of a monk. You just can’t put up a job ad for that, can you?”

With funding not being a problem, Atul Kasbekar is very upbeat about Bling’s future over the next decade. “We would want to be the Indian version of William Morris, the world’s biggest celebrity management firm—and we think that could happen for us over the next five years.”

BEST OF THE BIZ

US-based William Morris Endeavor Entertainment is one of the largest celebrity management agencies in the world. Currently, the firm represents literally hundreds of celebrities from across disciplines, including film, television, music, theater, publishing, video games and even politics. William Morris’ annual revenues are estimated to be between a mind-boggling $275 and $300 million. One of its first clients was Charlie Chaplin.

©Entrepreneur October 2009

Tags:
Atul Kasbekar, Bling, Bling Entertainment Solutions, brands, celebrity, celebrity management, L'Oreal, Negative Space, photographer, Photographer’s Guild of India, smetv, Sonam Kapoor, William Morris