Various aspects analysed in Marketing of Indian Films

Are you sensing the paradigm shift in movie marketing with Internet, Social Media and Events now prevalent in urban and rural society? The whole film promotion trends are just unique and totally new.

Mainstream films in India have always been marketed in a big way.  Today the marketing budgets have swollen and so have the avenues for marketing. The films now go for an all out approach that uses newer and newer means of reaching out to the audience prior to the actual release of the film.  Marketing budgets now account for as much as 10% of the total budget of the movie. Sometimes the marketing budgets for these films are more than the total budget of the smaller movies. The marketing strategy is now worked out for a period spanning months before the due date of release.

The tried and tested means of marketing now include a lot of repetitive stuff. The promos or trailers will be flashed across TV screens for months till it reaches saturation points and anyone who watches TV even for a small amount of time is sure to see it. The next invasion on TV is when the stars of the movie are seen on a host of reality and non-reality TV shows. They are not restricted to one channel or show, but are omnipresent during the pre-release of the movie. If you catch a glimpse of any star on any show, you can be rest assured that their movie is up for release.

The next popular ways is to tie-up with one of the bigger brands and sell merchandise through their outlets. The companies will organize contests and give away memorabilia from the film; it is a two way benefit program. The companies get huge publicity as do the films they promote. McDonalds gives away toys to its customers and hence gains a lot of customers during such times. The films also add some catchy tunes as “item” numbers to pull in the crowds. These songs are in no way related to the main film and are used as a marketing gimmick to attract the masses.

Another way of ensuring interest in the film is by creating some sort of a controversy. The most common one is of copyright of the film’s story (whatever shred of it that is there). Someone somewhere will file a case in the courts before the release of the film. The fellow will simply vanish after the film’s release. The other is to fill the media about a romantic link up among the lead stars which also incidentally vanishes with the opening week’s revenues.

Most of the times films release a number of prints and hope to cash in on the pre-release hype generated. Most films today seem to be keener on breaking the opening week records than having a film that will run for weeks on its own steam and by good word of mouth. Why is this so? It is because of the paucity of fresh ideas in the writing department. Nobody seems to bother with a good script now, the bottom line being that we will be able to generate revenues without a good script. Even if one-tenth of the marketing budget had been spent on the film’s script we would have much less of a “tamasha” before the release of a film.