The entertainment industry in India, currently estimated to be worth Rs 75 billion, is slated to increase to a whopping Rs 250 billion by the end of 2005. The elation is, in part, perhaps due to current trends in the average cinema-goer's life. The viewers’ overt fascination with home viewing of movies on pirated VCDs and DVDs is almost breathing its last, thanks partly due to the burgeoning trend of megaplexes and gigaplexes. Apart from multiplexes ruling the roost, the market share of cinema as a medium has shot up due to improved infrastructure in the existing theatres. Audiences are returning to theatres, more so in the big cities. In turn, investors in Bollywood are either getting set to or already raking in the moolah.

However, there is another more valid reason for Bollywood to cheer. As is apparent to most Bollywood aficionados, the latest trends in the industry include corporatisation, multinational studios, enhanced production values due to higher production costs, films making a sustained impact in the international arena, increased investments in promotions as well as marketing entertainment properties, and more and more brands jumping onto the entertainment bandwagon.

The time is ripe for Indian Cinema to become an organised industry where films are products that need to be con32 verted into competitive brands through good marketing.

Researching a Spectre
The only predictable thing about the film business is its innate unpredictability. Conventional wisdom still guides and rules scripts, but it is slowly changing into a search for offbeat themes. Most producers and filmmakers are stuck in a time warp, believing that they could connect with the viewers through the usage of traditional ploys. But the society is in a state of flux. The choices and preferences of viewers vary from villages to towns to mini-metros to metros. In fact, even within metros, different pockets of viewers enjoy different fares.

Every new film takes off on an age-old theme; re-packaged the rediscovered by restructuring the styling and changing the execution to touch innate sensibilities that are representative of contemporary society. Filmmakers must initiate consumer research during the pre-release phase which would involve aspects such as “Is this movie the first choice?” and “Why would I see the movie?” And this is where the marketing journey for any smart film-maker should start.

Film-goers love a certain element of surprise and the ‘magic of discovery’. The Indian audiences are ready for change and “surprises” and anything can work, if made well. This is probably the reason why most modern day producers involve an outside advertising or marketing agency to obtain a different perspective and present positive criticism. Today, the final communication message has to be developed from the confluence of the views of the ‘film maker’ and the ‘marketer’.

Additionally, within the film maker's unit there needs to be a team playing the role of marketer (external or internal). This exercise will help greatly in the shaping of the script and the marketing of the film as at every stage there will be two parties within the core team: one creating and one destroying (positive criticism). A point will come where the confluence of both parties will result in the film being packaged for maximum advantage and hit the bull's eye at the Box Office.

Today, any film marketer has the advantage of a choice from a large menu of sponsorships and branding opportunities during the pre-release, release and post-release phases of each film. But jumping blindly into these lucrative offers may not be the answer. It is only through conclusive research that a film marketer can create the right fit in terms of exposure versus the investment that it offers to various brands.

Piercing Through the Catch-22
A well-researched script forms the back-bone of a good marketing strategy. It is through your research that you define your audience based on which you project your returns and that and only that can help you formulate a foolproof budget. There is nothing better than a film whose time has come.

• Dil Chahta Hai was made based on the pretext that the size of the urban Indian population is growing everyday and maybe they would like to see some reflections of their lives. Expectedly, the film did extremely well in Mumbai and Delhi, but was only semi-successful in Dhanbad and Hoogly.
• Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was made on the pretext that Indians love ‘larger than life’ films, and ‘demonstration effect’ in the middle income group Indians is the highest. It was estimated that their aspiration levels were beyond belief. K3G happened and was a super hit.
• Jhankaar Beats did very well in Mumbai. India’s financial capital is fast aping a London or a New York. The fast life people are leading, the city itself decaying and aspirations skyrocketing. Finding pleasures in simple things and relationships is something that city dwellers crave. Jhankaar Beats played on these emotions.The film was a semi-hit.
• Kal Ho Naa Ho: Well, there are films that do not need research. Just pick up the story line of an age-old hit film, give the reins in the hands of King Khan, add dollops of Manhattan, some good music and Hollywood style packaging and what you have is a super hit.

You Got It: There is no ‘Formula’ no Longer
For years (if not since the very inception), in Bollywood what has worked are formulae: two brothers separate in the Kumbh Mela. One becomes a police officer while the other decides to take off on the wrong side of law. Needless to say, the mother or sister or wife or girlfriend goes and gets herself raped and the protagonist takes his revenge. The story does not end there. The villain most probably turns out to be the hero’s father; the good old love-triangle; re-birth; double-role; hero is poor, heroine is rich or vice-versa, feuding families; and the list continues.

Every few years, the formulae change, but the basics remain the same. The four formulae this season are:

• Big stars, a rich ambience in the foreground and the hint of an age-old script in the background
• Crossover or unconventional cinema ranging from the ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) to the slapstick and spoofy themes
• The underworld (a la Dawood Ibrahim) and over the top ghost-based thrillers (from Ram Gopal Verma's factory)
• Indian, patriotic, shaheed and the Line of Control: all elements that appeal to the average Indian and are fuel enough to keep the fires burning even for otherwise weak films
• Castaway: Although recent revelations by a private television channel have cast a spectre over it, but the perfect casting for a film is an extremely significant and professional exercise, and not necessarily associated with the ‘couch’ (ouch!) word. The starcast in a film is of prime importance to the overall marketing strategy for the product. There are broadly three categories that one can look for:
• The Amitabh Bachchan/Shahrukh Khan category
• The Arjun Rampal / John Abraham category
• The ‘Anybodyelse’ category

Unfortunately, the casting of any film today has more to do with the demand of the distributors and/or the price of the actor concerned, than with the appropriateness of the actor for a particular role or character.

So how should casting really be decided? While doing your researches, do ‘focused group discussions’ and ‘characterisation exercises’. When casting for the role of a school going protagonist, ask the respondents and the group members to put a face to the characters mentioned in the screenplay. The trends in Bollywood today are such that the whole phenomenon of film making is catering to an audience profile of a 30-plus age-group and so it is no surprise that the superstars we have are in that age group. The actor in maximum demand today in Bollywood is 60-plus. So, for a film in which your lead character is between the age-group of 16 to 18 you have three very scary choices:

• Cast a 30-plus ‘superstar’ and pray that his screen presence and/or acting skills carry your film through and also satisfies the distributor
• Cast the only star who exists in the 16-18 category: Shahid Kapoor, a one-hit wonder (actually only a semi-hit), and hope that before the release of your film he is not seen in a film like Style
• Cast a complete fresher. Kill your relationship with the trade and distribute your film on your own.

I know I am not doing much good to my profession as a film-marketing consultant by scaring you away even before you put your time and money into this industry. But now that you are prepared for the worst let us go and take a look at the logical way of promoting a film in this bizarre place called Bollywood.

The 6Ps of Film Marketing
Whatever you do don’t fool yourself. Create a script that even when narrated excites you and the listener about the way it will be treated on screen. Visualise it as a pure delight for any cinema-goer. At the end of the day, do what Philip Kotler says: “Good Product, Good Marketing, Good Returns

”The film marketing strategy for any good film can be best described based on the 6Ps of marketing, namely:

Product: It is time and again that we keep coming back to this. The base for a well-defined film marketing strategy starts with the film itself. A well researched script with a well-woven screenplay is where the core of the film-marketing strategy for a film should be invested. It is not about who sees the film only, it is also about catering to a definitive audience who watches your film in theatres, and more often than not, more than once. While other elements of marketing focus on attracting these audiences it is this aspect of marketing i.e. ‘the product’ that aims at satisfying these audiences.

Placement: With the first element satisfied we move on the element that makes the first element possible. It is true that an audience will be satisfied only when they are attracted to go into the theatre to watch the film. It is ‘placement’ that accounts for attracting the audience into crowding the theatre. ‘Placement’ as a term is used to describe the modus-operandi of placing the communication and promotion strategy of the film on to media and non-media platforms available in the industry today.

There is a complete media-mix that should be put into place usually 15% to 25% of the production cost of the film is invested into the marketing of the film in Bollywood. But then there are films like Lagaan, Boom, Out of Control, Khel and others who have spent as much as 40% of their production cost on marketing. But only Lagaan out of all these films became a super-hit and needles to point out that that had a lot to do with the central theme of the film.

Today it makes perfect sense to collaborate with one or more media partners in order to ensure maximum focused publicity of your film through certain guided platforms.

Positioning: The entire media, marketing and communication strategy of the film depends on the positioning of the film. Positioning is that particular slot in the mind of the audience that the film positions itself in. This kind of positioning has a lot to do with how well defined your target-audience is.

The time-consuming and highly complex ordeal of pin-pointing the target- audience is something that a good film marketer should take care of in the conceptualisation stage. The film by and large should appeal to the sensibilities of all kinds of audience but prominently should be positioned for a well defined audience. Based on the projected associations with your target-audience you must formulate the ‘positioning elements’. These ‘positioning elements’ should highlight and reflect in all the promotions for the film.

People: The positioning of the film has a lot to do with the personification of the film. Personification finally is the key to creating a brand out of the film. Lagaan is brand India and Cricket.

It is the central characters (not the actors) of the film that should enable the making of a brand out of your film. There should be a well-defined promotion plan that has to be put-into place for promoting the people of the film (both on-screen and the technical team). The build-up should be such that without over-exposing the team there should be enough flurry of activity that will catapult the audiences into the character of the film even before they see the film.

Public Relations: Besides the advertising and promotion of the film there should be a strategic focus on public relations for the film, both media and non-media public relations play an important role in the success of the film.

Partners Brands and Bollywood: There is evidence of shortened attention spans and a greater effort to break through the clutter of multitudinous brands and media vehicles. The best way to deliver the message is to catch the customer off-guard when the rational defenses are down. The best way to do so is to use the emotional gate rather than the rational gate. The rational gate examines the advantages, benefits, features and seeks value for money; the emotional gate is all about trust, love, identification and belief. It has been noticed that films operate at the emotional level. These aspects have been leveraged by brands such as Coke, Pepsi, Lux, Airtel, Hyundai, Bagpiper, Lux wherein movies and brands flash discreet (and sometimes indiscreet) messages at their target audiences.

Then there is also the need to examine synergies between the brands and films. The successful integration of product placement within the film’s storyline has a long history: the first example being the yellow Rajdoot bike used in Raj Kapoor’s Bobby. Hollywood also leverages brands such as BMW (Bond movies), Jaguar, Ford, Ray Ban (Tom Cruise in Risky Business and Mission Impossible and Will Smith in Men In Black), Starbucks coffee, AOL, AT&T, and so on. My personal favorites are the brand fits created for ‘Nike’ in What Women Want and for FedEx in Castaway. However, at this point it might be crucial to point out that what is important is that there is complete transparency in the agreement that the film-marketer and brand-marketer get themselves into. Otherwise things can get really dirty. Recall Rakesh and Hritik Roshan of Koi Mil Gaya vs Killer Jeans and Emami.

Films are a different medium ad one bad placement can do more damage than 10 good placements. Artistic integrity is crucial for successful brand placements and the operation has to be woven into the script. Sometimes, unreasonable clients demand more footage although research has shown that a 2-minute clip can effectively deliver a message in a credible manner. The placement should be a natural fit and shouldn’t be contrived and unnatural. Each effective tie-up between a brand and a film involves hectic negotiations of around 3-6 months.

There is no fixed formula but the factors that are taken into consideration MEDIAduring the negotiation stage include: cast and credits; size of the projects and the producers; timing of the release; brand impact; number of screens during release and post-release phase; and possibilities of brand associations through contests and promotions. Depending on the content of the film and its story line, the film-maker can sketch a profile of viewers who would flock to see the movie. Then the film-maker approaches all those brands who could appeal to the targeted viewers. This is followed by a 360 degrees marketing plan for cross-promotions during the various stages of a film’s release.

Film placements are currently raking in anything between Rs 500,000 to Rs 5,000,000 for the producers.

Well, welcome to the big, bad and ugly world of Bollywood, but also welcome to the world of dreams and passions. It is a world of opportunities and a land of ambitions. It is for sensible film-makers to come and grow as part of Bollywood, but remember ‘good product + good marketing = Hit-film’.