The much speculated Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma wedding commenced and the media, celebrities, fans are going ga-ga over the entire affair.  While the news was trending for several days amidst people betting over the ingenuity of the news an interesting PR and brand marketing trick kept rolling. Where some blew it as a rumour, the others were quite sure of the happening. Nevertheless, both the parties were keeping a track of the events that were unfolding every moment giving immense publicity to the event.

Now, finally, after days of will they-won`t they, both Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli made the wedding news official after sharing the news on Twitter and Instagram.

Rumours mills went abuzz when Virat Kohli, the aced cricketer took a break from the ongoing India-Sri Lanka series citing ‘personal reasons’. In a couple of days, Anushka Sharma was seen flying to Italy along with her family and the paparazzi got quite confident about the initial predictions.  Some even opined that it must be for the shoot of an endorsement campaign!

In no time the media started hunting for the wedding venue and on reaching a countryside resort in Tuscany confirmed the news.

The way every news, development and rumours evolved around ‘Anushka Sharma – Virat Kohli wedding’ in last one week, should be studied as a case study. Students from Management, Advertising, Branding and Marketing have got several lessons to learn from the wholes happenings.

Here are some management lessons we have noticed:

Virushka the new big thing like Brangelina!

Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma have always been very secretive about their relationship. Immediately after the news of their expected wedding went afloat, they emerged as a brand. ‘Virushka’ now holds the same status as the former Brangelina - are a force to reckon with in the branding world or the stature of celebrity power couples like Victoria and David Beckham.

How are the brands churning the profit?

Amidst all the frenzy around the marriage, these brands endorsed by Anushka and Virat or both took away the cake!

Brand value analysts differed on how the wedding it is going to affect the ‘Virushka’ brand. Brand Virushka will get a huge boost with Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma tying the knot and the marriage of the two stars augurs well for the advertisement industry.

Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma are currently endorsing around 28 brands across all genres between them, in which, the Indian cricketer endorses 18 superior brands including Audi, Tissot and MRF while Anushka Sharma endorses 10, including brands like Polaroid, Pepsi and her own apparel brand, Nush. They are together endorsing a men`s ethnic wear brand, Manyavar.
 

How keeping it a ‘secret’ brought them a good fortune?

The practice of leaving people to guess about what you are going to announce has been an effective public relation strategy for some of the best brands across the world. Similarly, as negative publicity amplifies the value of a brand, anticipation leads to customer engagement and engagement leads to response.

Tease-and-reveal, a marketing trick to augment satisfaction

The ethnic wear advertisement that the celeb couple endorsed and almost exchanged their not-so-stereotypical vows was the initial tease. People were almost convinced that the duo is indeed in a relationship and planning a lifetime of it.

After Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge’s marriage, Virat and Anushka inched a step closer to being the next cricketer-actress couple. Their dance at the wedding reception took Zaheer and Sagarika’s thunder away and if not anything every Cricket nazi and Bolly worshiper secretly wished to see them tie the knot soon.

Virat and Anushka indeed are an adoring couple and the way they managed to keep their relationship a hush-hush affair is even more praiseworthy. However, above anything that was most interesting was how this power couple made a personal ceremony the talk of the tinsel town and breaking news sidelining all other socio-political issues.