Dear friends,
We are in a very serious crisis situation. Millions of infection, thousands of death across the globe have devastated the human civilization to a large extent and it is still continuing its onslaught. Relentless toiling by government agencies, health workers and emergency services workers is trying to keep life normal. Thousands of individuals, organizations are also in the war helping poor and marginalized people.

However malls, shops, public transport, movies, roadside eateries, hawkers, hotels and restaurants are closed due to lock-down and the impact is likely to make millions of Indians jobless. It would also drastically hit our Govt in its revenue earning via direct and indirect taxes which normally go for mass welfare, growth of the nation. The corona virus pandemic has thus triggered a major economic crisis that is highly expected to burden our societies for years to come.

Hoping to see our beautiful world recover from this crisis sooner than later, we the citizens will still have the daunting task of bringing back economy to normal state by increasing common man's income and at the same time keeping price under control. In this petition, I am humbly placing a different perspective on how we can think from a different angle which may apparently look bit radical but rational.

Almost all consumable commodity manufacturers, service providers, marketing agents spend a significant chunk of their budget behind signing contracts with celebrities. Celebrity endorsement has been a key aspect of Indian advertising industry which runs into a hopping 70K crore rupees annual spending. Needless to say millions of common men, print and electronic media and entertainment industry are directly or indirectly dependent on the advertising industry. However spending thousands of crores towards brand endorsement by celebrities who are otherwise highly established in their domain is a another major factor. Footballers, Cricketers, actors, actresses, models grab a large chunk of the spending. It is indeed astonishing to hear that some top level celebrities earn as high as hundreds of crore rupees annually by endorsing multiple brands. And ironically all these endorsement fees are passed on to end customers in one form or the other.

Can't we do an introspective to get rid off the sky-rocketing spending on celebrities at least for next 2 years in advertisement ? It is our humble request to all of the celebrities to voluntarily waive off the fees for ongoing contracts as a gesture to economy building which the brand marketing agency should pass to the buyers as benefit. We already have a few examples with some brands where no celebrity is involved. Manufacturers, sales, marketing agencies may also innovate to come out of the celebrity spending. A mass awareness campaign should be started to make people aware to avoid brands with celebrity endorsement. Government, private entities all should think over this point positively in the current situation. One can cite several examples where similar sky rocketing spending happens but this petition is not to single out any case but a small initiative to start with in favour of Aam Admi of our country.

Let us all think positively at this time of crisis. Many thanks.