Priyanka Chopra Jonas: The Business of Being a Brand

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is known first as an actress, but her public record is also a case study in how fame becomes business. She has endorsed, produced, invested and launched products, with mixed results. This piece lays out the ventures that her Wikipedia biography documents and the news reports that qualify them.

Endorsements first

The biography says she ranked second among brand ambassadors in a 2008 TAM AdEx survey, behind Shah Rukh Khan, and topped the list the following year, becoming the first woman in India to do so. She has represented brands including TAG Heuer, Pepsi, Nikon, Nokia, Garnier and Nestle, and in 2016 became the first Indian woman to represent Pantene as its global brand ambassador. Forbes reported in 2017 that she earned at least 1 million dollars per endorsement deal.

The same record contains a caution. In 2020 she was among several Bollywood actors criticised on social media for posting solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement despite earlier work advertising skin-lightening products. The biography notes that she has expressed regret for promoting such products.

Producing

In 2015 she founded Purple Pebble Pictures, with the stated aim of producing small-budget films and promoting new talent, particularly in regional Indian languages. Its first Marathi film, Ventilator (2016), was a box-office success and won three awards at the 64th National Film Awards. Paani (2019) won the National Film Award for Best Film on Environment Conservation and Preservation at the 66th awards.

Investing

From 2018 she began investing in technology companies, including the coding school Holberton School and the dating app Bumble, which was launched in India with her help in October 2018. In 2021 it was reported that she had invested in the US rental marketplace Apartment List. At the Startup India Prarambh event that year she said, "ideas are the currency of the present", and that she wanted to invest in a mix of beauty and tech startups.

Launching products

Her own brands arrived in 2021. Anomaly Haircare became available exclusively at Target stores in the United States on 1 February 2021, with international availability planned later that year. In March 2021 she opened Sona, a restaurant in Manhattan serving high-end Indian cuisine. The biography also lists a homeware line among her ventures.

The restaurant story did not end smoothly. The Indian Express and Business Standard reported in August 2023 that she stepped away from the New York restaurant, and NDTV and The Quint reported that it was set to close afterwards. We could not confirm the exact closing date from those reports.

Fame as an asset

Other parts of her public record show how the image itself is treated as a commercial property. The biography says Hasbro and the Bollywood Legends Corporation made miniature dolls of her, Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Hrithik Roshan, and Madame Tussauds installed four wax sculptures of her in 2019, making her the first Indian actor with wax statues in four of its museums.

The biography also notes that she is one of the highest-paid Indian celebrities. It lists earnings of Rs 76 crore in 2016 and Rs 68 crore in 2017, which made her the highest-earning Indian female celebrity in both years.

How to read it

A celebrity who sells a product is lending trust to it. That works when the product fits the person and the audience, and it is risky when it does not. The record above shows both outcomes: a hair-care line placed with a major retailer, and a restaurant she left.

What we could not confirm

We relied on her Wikipedia biography and news headlines for the restaurant. We did not obtain sales or profit figures for Anomaly Haircare, Sona or the homeware line, so we cannot say whether any venture was profitable. Endorsement earnings come from reported estimates.

Sources

*Cover photo: Fuzheado, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).*