MS Dhoni at 45: How Captain Cool became Indian advertising’s safest long-term bet

New Delhi: MS Dhoni turns 45 today, but for Indian advertising, he remains far from a nostalgia property. Dhoni ads still rule not just the charts but also hearts. In a market where celebrity endorsements often move with box-office cycles, tournament form or social-media heat, Dhoni has built one of the rare long-tail brand stories in Indian sport. His international retirement did not reduce his commercial relevance. If anything, it gave brands a cleaner, calmer and more dependable celebrity proposition. The strongest proof is in television advertising data. TAM AdEx’s 2025 celebrity endorsement report placed Dhoni at the top among all celebrities by number of brands endorsed. He was associated with 59 brands in 2025, up from 52 in 2024. The same report ranked him the second most visible celebrity on television and the top visible sportsperson. That makes Dhoni a rare post-retirement case in Indian advertising. He is no longer in India, does not live permanently on social media, gives few interviews and rarely plays the celebrity circuit. Yet his brand book continues to expand. The reason is simple. Dhoni does not sell only fame. He sells trust, control and decision-making. For brands, that matters more today than it did during his peak cricket years. Consumers are being asked to adopt new platforms, shift to digital payments, try new mobility options, transact with tech-led marketplaces, buy services online and spend on products they may not fully understand. In those categories, a celebrity who looks stable can be more useful than a celebrity who looks merely popular. The making of a commercial superstar Dhoni’s endorsement journey began like that of a cricket superstar. Pepsi, TVS Star City and other mass consumer brands helped build his early commercial identity. The young man from Ranchi fitted the India of that period: aspirational, non-metro, aggressive, informal and still rooted. His helicopter shot became a commercial asset because it gave brands an instantly recognisable visual device. The Pepsi “Change the Game” phase captured that early Dhoni. It was loud, youthful and built around a new cricketing grammar. TVS used him for a two-wheeler audience that wanted a relatable star rather than an unreachable icon. Those campaigns helped place Dhoni inside mass India before he became the most successful captain in Indian cricket. The second phase was different. Once Dhoni became Captain Cool, brands began using him less as a performer and more as a symbol. His calmness under pressure became the product. Gulf Oil is the best example of that shift. The brand says its association with Dhoni began in 2011, making it one of his longest-running partnerships. Over time, Gulf used Dhoni not just as a cricket face but as a personality aligned with endurance, machines, bikes, leadership and consistency. That fit is important because many of Dhoni’s later deals came from categories where trust is the core message. Dream11 leaned on his tactical image and the idea of playing with the mind. GoDaddy turned him into “Bijness Bhai”, a mentor-like character for small businesses trying to come online. Mastercard used him for payment-security communication. Indigo Paints, Orient Electric and HomeLane placed him in home and family-facing categories where reassurance matters. The HomeLane partnership also showed how Dhoni’s brand role had moved beyond a conventional endorsement. The home interiors company brought him in as an equity partner and brand ambassador for a three-year strategic association. The logic was clear: a category built around a high-consideration purchase needed a face associated with dependability. Backing businesses, not just brands That pattern appears repeatedly in Dhoni’s investment portfolio. CARS24 brought him in as both investor and brand ambassador in 2019. For a used-car marketplace, his presence helped add credibility to a transaction that still carries anxiety for many consumers. Khatabook did the same in the small-business fintech space, where the target audience was merchants and shopkeepers moving from manual ledgers to digital records. Garuda Aerospace, a drone startup, added Dhoni as an investor and brand ambassador in 2022. EMotorad brought him into the electric cycle and mobility space in 2024. Kuku, the mobile-first storytelling and microdrama platform, became the latest addition this year, with Dhoni investing in the company and joining as brand ambassador for Kuku TV. These are not random celebrity investments. They sit across areas that are changing consumer behaviour: used cars, merchant technology, drones, electric mobility, home interiors, plant-based food, creator platforms, fitness and digital entertainment. The common thread is not glamour. It is adoption. Dhoni is useful to such companies because he lowers the distance between a new product and a mass consumer. For a startup, the value of his name is not only awareness. It is the suggestion that the company is serious, stable and worth trying. That is why his commercial appeal has lasted even though he is not a high-frequency public personality. Dhoni’s scarcity has become part of his value. He does not endorse every public conversation. He does not overexpose his private life. He does not behave like an influencer trying to stay relevant daily. For brands, that restraint protects his credibility. How creative storytelling kept Dhoni relevant His best advertising work also reflects this evolution. The early memorable campaigns were built around energy and attitude. Pepsi’s “Change the Game” used the cricket mood of the time and turned Dhoni into a youth signal. TVS Star City used his rising mass appeal. Later, Dream11’s “Dimaag Se Dhoni” worked because it matched his on-field image with the fantasy sports category. GoDaddy’s “Bijness Bhai” gave him a character that small businesses could understand instantly. Orient Electric used him in a more playful home-appliance setting, including campaigns around BLDC fans and the “Future of Fans” proposition. Mastercard’s “Payments Ka Powerplay” placed him in a category where safety, awareness and responsible use were central. Gulf Oil’s “The Unstoppables”, featuring Dhoni with Smriti Mandhana and Hardik Pandya, showed how legacy sports endorsers could still be packaged in high-production, film-style campaigns. The recent Kuku TV association is also telling. Dhoni’s entry into AI-led, mobile-first storytelling places him in a category far removed from the old cricket-commercial template. It is not a cola, bike or shaving-cream endorsement. It is a bet on short-form, language-first, app-led entertainment. That is where Dhoni’s commercial story becomes more interesting for marketers. He has moved with India’s consumption shift without trying to look young for the sake of it. He has travelled from mass TV to digital platforms, from FMCG-style recall to trust-led categories, from endorsement fee to equity-linked participation. The business behind the brand There are, of course, limits to what can be publicly assessed. Most of Dhoni’s deal values and stake sizes are not disclosed. Several reports identify him as an investor or equity partner, but do not specify exact shareholding. That makes it risky to put a hard number on his investment book. What is easier to read is the direction of his portfolio. Dhoni is backing businesses that want access to Bharat, not only metro India. He is valuable to brands that need a bridge between aspiration and assurance. He represents small-town ambition without insecurity, success without noise and leadership without aggression. In celebrity marketing, that is a difficult combination to replicate. At 45, Dhoni’s brand remains strong because it has not depended only on cricketing form. It has depended on a deeper consumer perception built over two decades: he is calm, practical, loyal, decisive and believable. That is why brands continue to buy into him. Not because he is always visible, but because when he is visible, he still carries weight.