How Bollywood Stars Shaped Pond’s Brand Identity: From Priyanka Chopra to Kiara Advani

Discover how Bollywood icons such as Priyanka Chopra and Kiara Advani influence Pond’s brand identity and resonate with consumers. Their star power and authenticity enhance the brand's image, making skincare accessible and relatable to a wide audience. Explore the transformative role of these celebrities in redefining beauty narratives and driving.

Pond’s has long held a unique position in India’s skincare market, thanks in no small part to its strategic use of Bollywood celebrities. Over the decades, the brand has evolved its identity from a traditional fairness cream to a modern skincare authority, and its celebrity partnerships have played a central role in that transformation. From refreshing its image through Priyanka Chopra’s “Pond’s White Beauty” era to revitalizing its scientific skincare messaging with Kiara Advani, Pond’s has consistently leveraged star power to stay relevant, aspirational, and aspirational.

In India’s beauty landscape, where consumers often look to celebrity endorsements for cues on trust, efficacy, and desirability, Pond’s has adeptly used Bollywood faces as a bridge between tradition and contemporary skincare aspirations. These endorsements are not merely about visibility; they influence perceptions of product value, appeal to emotional aspirations, and continuously redefine what Pond’s stands for in each era.

Pond’s Rise in the Indian Beauty Market

Pond’s entered early in India with its Vanishing Cream and Cold Cream, products rooted in Western skincare traditions. But as the brand expanded, it adapted its messaging for Indian consumers, often emphasising fairness and beauty in ways that resonated with prevailing social norms.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, Pond’s began to lean heavily on celebrity-led advertising, particularly fairness creams, as a way to reinforce the social desirability of “fair skin.” The brand’s narrative strategy was built on the premise that trusted public figures could lend credibility to product claims and, in some cases, help normalize and propagate aspirational beauty standards.

Iconic Celebrity Collaborations by Pond’s

1. Priyanka Chopra: The “White Beauty” Campaign

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In the mid-2000s, Priyanka Chopra was named as the face of Pond’s in India, taking on the flagship Pond’s White Beauty campaign across multiple product lines, including fairness creams, lightening products, and beauty washes. At the time, the campaign was positioned as a major initiative to elevate Pond’s to aspirational skincare status, with Chopra’s recall and international appeal framed as a “perfect fit” for Pond’s, which sought to connect with women of all ages across India.

However, while the ads were commercially successful and gained wide visibility, they also sparked significant controversy. Critics highlighted how the campaign reinforced colorist beauty ideals by implying that lighter skin was synonymous with attractiveness, success, and romantic acceptance. Some commentators later argued that these ad narratives contributed to harmful societal beauty norms, triggering important conversations about colorism and representation in Indian advertising.

2. Saif Ali Khan & Neha Dhupia: The Classic “Fairness” Trio

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Pond’s extended its White Beauty campaign by enlisting Saif Ali Khan and Neha Dhupia, creating romantic narratives that enlisted themes of love, attraction, and acceptance, often underlining fairness as a turning point for relationship success. In one of the more widely discussed ads, the storyline portrayed a romantic triangle in which the male lead (Saif) returns to a “fair-skinned” Neha Dhupia, overshadowing the protagonist with a darker or wheatish complexion. Such depictions were clearly framed to suggest that fairness played a direct role in romantic desirability and social validation.

While these campaigns generated strong recall and drove both brand visibility and sales, they also fed into ongoing debates about fairness messaging in Indian skincare marketing. Over time, these ads have become emblematic case studies in how color-based beauty preferences were marketed through celebrity-led storytelling, prompting Pond’s and others to re-examine their advertising strategies and consumer conversations around skin tone and self-worth.

3. Kiara Advani: From Heritage to Scientific Skincare

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In 2024, Pond’s Skin Institute announced Kiara Advani (alongside Keerthy Suresh) as its brand ambassador, marking a perceptible shift in Pond’s strategy from fairness-based messaging to a science-driven skincare narrative. This campaign, which highlights Pond’s Bright Beauty range, places emphasis on ingredients like niacinamide and other dermatologically backed actives designed to address pigmentation, dark spots, and skin barrier health. The brand’s communications explicitly frame skincare as a journey of healing and radiance, not lightening, calling out the shift in tone from earlier fairness narratives.

The campaign has been carefully rolled out across both traditional (TV, print) and digital platforms, aiming for visibility across urban and rural audiences, especially in northern India. Pond’s has deliberately leaned on Advani’s youthful yet credible image to reinforce the message that skincare should be rooted in science, self-care, and realistic results. Brand leaders have highlighted that this alignment is part of Pond’s broader repositioning to regain leadership in skincare by blending heritage with innovation.

Why Celebrity Collaborations Worked Better Together for Pond’s

Celebrities have long been central to Pond’s storytelling, but the real power has come from how Pond’s layered those star-led campaigns with evolving consumer aspirations. In the mid-2000s, stars like Priyanka Chopra, Saif Ali Khan, and Neha Dhupia brought aspirational visibility and mass-market glamour to the White Beauty campaigns, ensuring Pond’s was front-of-mind for Indian households. These larger-than-life personalities generated recall and instant credibility, making Pond’s a staple in the fairness cream category. But Pond’s didn’t stop there; it amplified these campaigns across TV serial integrations, print media, and in-store activations, ensuring that celebrity appeal translated directly into consumer behavior and sales.

In recent years, Pond’s has rebalanced this approach by pairing newer ambassadors like Kiara Advani and Keerthy Suresh with science-driven campaigns under the Pond’s Skin Institute umbrella. These collaborations, supported by digital-first storytelling and dermat-backed product claims, have allowed Pond’s to distance itself from its fairness-only past while still leveraging celebrity trust. The dual impact of recognizable faces for mass credibility and carefully curated messaging on skincare science has created a stronger brand identity. By blending household-name celebrities with campaigns that reflect modern beauty values, Pond’s ensures both short-term sales spikes and long-term loyalty rooted in trust, authenticity, and evolving relevance.