Another season of Bigg Boss has just concluded, and yet another celebrity has been born—this time it’s MC Stan. For participants on the Colors TV reality show, there are essentially two phases of life: ‘Before Bigg Boss’ and ‘After Bigg Boss’. From Shehnaaz Gill to Nora Fatehi, Sunny Leone, Gauhar Khan, Prince Narula, Sidharth Shukla, and of course, Tejasswi Prakash, who is still basking in the success of her last season’s win, everyone has been blessed with the Midas touch of Bigg Boss. The 23-year-old MC Stan is the latest beneficiary of the reality show’s success.
As a rap artist from Pune, his life is about to undergo a complete transformation as he moves base to Mumbai, where his talent agency is being flooded with partnership deals and endorsement offers, all within just 48 hours of winning Bigg Boss.
MC Stan has already got himself a deal from Amazon Mini TV and his managers are in the midst of a selection process to sign on more brands.
Fashion, music, accessories, and gaming and e-sports brands have all approached MC Stan’s talent management agency Represent. Close to 20 brands have approached the team with collaboration offers.
MC Stan, though, doesn’t want to move from his core interest, which is music. He is looking more at label and publishing deals. His talent management agency says he wants to build his music portfolio and strengthen the hip-hop movement in the country. Interestingly, hip-hip has hit the high notes for brands in the country. Almost every brand from every sector is trying to get a rap artist on board.
MC Stan, then, is in for a good time.
“MC Stan’s victory on Bigg Boss 16 was a huge achievement, not only for himself but also for the hip-hop community and the music industry,” says Apoorv Bhatnagar, head of brand partnerships at Represent.
His win, Bhatnagar says, was a testament to the fact that someone from a non-TV space could also achieve great success on such a platform.
“He has a very strong cult and yet he is not a very mass-y person. Bigg Boss has changed that dynamic. His win has helped him in increasing brands’ interest in him for endorsements and partnerships. The past partnerships are also blowing up on social media and the audience is finally seeing him as more than just a typical campaign star,” Bhatnagar added.
The past campaign here is a collaboration on Reels with Netflix for their show Jamtara. The reel that garnered about four to five million views, has now clocked 28. 5 million views.
MC Stan’s social media post expressing gratitude to his fans after his win, in which he appeared alongside Salman Khan, has broken records. With over 69.5 million likes and 147,545 comments, it has become the most-liked and most-commented post ever shared by a Bigg Boss winner. Even popular winners like Tejasswi Prakash and Sidharth Shukla have been left far behind.
The social media frenzy doesn’t stop there. In the last six months MC Stan’s follower base on Instagram has seen a 400 percent growth. His follower count grew from 1.8 million to 9 million.
Brands are ready to go to any lengths to grab the attention of this sizeable chunk of digital audience through MC Stan who is now topical, popular and has the audience’s attention.
The cherry on top for MC Stan is that he is an artiste at a time when brands are jumping on the hip-hop bandwagon. Ola, Pepsi, Mia by Tanishq, FBB and Unacademy are some examples. Artists like Badshah, Divine, Raftaar, Naezy, Raja Kumari, Emiway Bantai, Ikka and many others are the current obsessions of brands that are looking at amplifying reach and engagement in street style.
As per sources, MC Stan’s one-day commitment with a brand comes with a price tag of Rs 8-10 lakh. For creating a reel he charges anywhere between Rs 18 lakh and Rs 23 lakh and for an Instagram Story, the damages are close to Rs 5-7 lakh. This was pre-Bigg Boss. Experts foresee these rates going up by at least 30-40 percent in the next three to four months.
But it is all about making hay while the sun shines for Bigg Boss winners and runners-up.
Shubham Singhal, CEO of Dot Media that handles Karan Kundrra, who bagged deals even before leaving the Bigg Boss house last season says, “Bigg Boss winners and runners-up enjoy a huge privilege of national attention and sustained attention for at least six months after exiting the house.”
“In this time, it is up to their representatives to make as much of them as realistically possible and align them to the next big thing to sustain this high. Brands are expecting the correct placement, riding the wave of their spiked-up social media engagement to garner maximum visibility,” he adds.
According to Singhal, while one can’t promise tangible results or sales from any endorsement activity ever, this period is best treated like an ‘in the now’ trendsetting activity.