PV Sindhu to send notices to firms that used her picture for ads

Hyderabad: Olympic bronze medalist badminton player, PV Sindhu is sending notices to 15 companies for unethically using her name and pictures in advertisements without her explicit consent.

Baseline Ventures, the firm representing Sindhu is sending notices to Happydent (Perfetti), Pan Bahar, Eureka Forbes, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Vodafone Idea, MG Motor, UCO Bank, PNB, SBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Fino Payments Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Indian Bank, Wipro Lighting.

A report from moneycontrol.com stated that the above-mentioned brands had taken to social media to congratulate Sindhu for her bronze win at the games and also went ahead and used her name and pictures along with the company logo in their posts without her consent.

“It is damaging for a celebrity when brands abuse their power. But now the bigger problem is that International Olympic Committee (IOC) prevents Sindhu from endorsing any of her actual partners today,” the moneycontrol.com report quoted Yashwanth Biyyala, Director of Talent and Partnerships at Baseline Ventures, on the issue.

“In fact, brands sponsoring Sindhu are unable to put up congratulatory posts for her as they are hindered by rule 40 of the Olympic charter.The sending of notices to firms is the start and we are working on building mechanisms to protect the athlete’s individual rights. We are definitely not in the process of saying that we will just send a notice and leave it at that,” he added.

It is also to be observed that in the sporting season several other brands have disrespected the consent of athletes by using them to further their company.