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This article was featured in IIM Shillong’s monthly B School Newsletter for Marketing. Download it here.

One of the largest money churners in India, Bollywood: the business of making movies, for which once marketing meant putting up Eastman Color posters across the streets of Mumbai has evolved dramatically. Bollywood producers and filmmakers have realized that their movies are products that need to be branded, positioned and targeted at the right audience. The recent Salman Khan starrer, Dabangg which was made on a budget of 30 cr. had a marketing budget of 12 cr. That is a whopping 40% of the movie budget. The high marketing budgets are not just the norm for big budget films, Peepli Live a film made on a budget of Rs. 10 cr. had a marketing budget of Rs. 4 cr.

While Bollywood scripts have far from evolved, with the same stale movies being churned out day in and out, the way Bollywood is marketing its movies, would make Kotler proud! Here is my take on the 5 P’s of Bollywood marketing with examples of many movies released in the recent past.

The 5 P’s of  Bollywood Marketing

• Product: The entire cinema experience is the product that you as a filmmaker are trying to sell. When a middle class worker spends Rs. 200 to watch a movie, he is paying more for the experience than for the movie itself. Bollywood marketers realise that marketing movies means selling the entire experience of watching a movie to its end consumers. Moviemakers need to understand which category their movie belongs to it and which audience it aims at targeting. Hence, the marketing strategy for a Dabangg and a Peepli Live would be poles apart. While Dabangg was targeted at the masses and single theatre screens, Peepli Live was targeted at the multiplex audience. Hence Dabangg’s promos reflected the masala experience that the masses will relate too while Peepli Live’s promos had sarcasm and black humor which would generate interest among the multiplex audience. UTV Motion Pictures Marketing VP, Shikha Roy says, “Most of the promos were shot separately and not as a part of the movie, to generate a kind of viral campaign and to have the people talking”.

Marketing is all about catering to the needs of the consumers and making profits by satisfying those needs. Who better to know this than filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, most of the recent films made under his banner Vishesh Films revolve around recent controversies. Vishesh Films’s latest offering, Crook, is centred around the racial attacks on Indian students in Australia. Such subjects which the public relates to help gather enough interest and curiosity amongst them.

Bollywood makers are also giving a lot of thought to the naming of their products (movies). Like other products, movie names too should reflect the spirit, genre and feel of the movie. Gone are the days when a name like “Vijay” would sell, Innovative names are the order of the day. Dibankar Banerjee is one filmmaker who gives a lot of thought and importance to the naming of his films. His last offering “Love, Sex And Dhoka”, made on a shoestring budget of 2 cr. caught the eye balls of the youth just on the power of its unique name. The name of the movie was enough to generate curiosity in the minds of the public and attract them towards the movie screens.

• Placement: The timing of the launch of a product is a crucial factor in determining its success. Similarly, the release date of a movie is one of the smallest but most significant factor in determining the success of the movie. Observe for the past few years the biggest blockbusters are released during the Diwali season or during the Christmas Eve. What is the common link between Taare Zameen Par, Ghajini and Three Idiots? Apart from the fact that all these blockbusters star Aamir Khan, the movies have their release date as 25^th December. Filmmakers nowadays invest a lot of time in deciding the right time for releasing a movie. Even a good movie released during the exam season of students or if it is clashing with a major event such as IPL cricket extravaganza may get a dismal opening. Film makers also watch out if any big banner movies are being released during the same time as theirs and accordingly postpone or pre pone their release. Karan Johar, on his show Coffee With Karan once asked film maker Farah Khan what would she do if she realised that a Himesh Reshammiya movie was releasing at the same time as her’s. Farah replied with a smile, “I would postpone my movies release date”. That was the time when Himesh had the Midas touch.
  

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