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Movie Marketing

Ghajini Marketing Contd…

December 30, 2008

I had earlier written about some interesting Ghajini marketing strategies and a spoof on Ghajini, but got to notice some other interesting stuffs about Ghajini on digital medium in last one week and from whatever I have observed, one thing is clear that their marketing agency has definitely tried quite some different online marketing strategies for promoting this movie. Here are some of those which I noticed recently:

  • Now having a movie website is quite common these days, but in case of Ghajini, not one or two rather three websites were launched – www.rememberghajini.com , www.findghajini.com & www.wallofsuspects.com. While the 1st one is the official website of the film, 2nd and 3rd links are quite interesting properties around the movie which surely raises curiosity and creates excitement amongst the users over the story of the movie. Do try out and you will yourself feel the same 🙂

  • Speak of any entertainment portal and it is running some or other contest, now again movie contests like these are not new but what I noticed different was the one running on Business of Cinema. This contest is a kind of post-release contest and asks for feedback about the movie and lucky winners get a chance to meet Aamir Khan.

ghajini

  • 3D game CDS were launched based on Ghajini theme and in fact Indyarocks was running a contest where the winners were to get these 3D game CDs.

  • Aamir’s own website is totally donned in Ghajini look since long and as Aamir is quite active on his blog personally, he has written some posts on Ghajini and his feelings around the release of the movie. Can you guess the number of comments on his recent post titled – Yes Ghajini is Releasing??? Its only 3588 as I’m typing this blog 🙂

  • Now this one is not a digital promotion but still I think I need to mention this – other day we went to this mall near our house and we were looking for some tie to be gifted to one of our close friends. The moment we entered Van Heusen shop all we could see was Aamir Khan and his Ghajini collection. All the ties on display were branded as “Ghajini special collection” and their normal collection hardly had anything. Well, I must say the brand was totally Ghajinifioed. In fact it’s not only Van Heusen, but Samsung and Tata Sky as well who are associated with Ghajini promotion because of their pre-association with Aamir Khan.

I am yet to see the film but the promotion of it has definitely created a stir in the market.


Ghajini Marketing: Employees go bald!

December 19, 2008

While I was anyways impressed with these interesting collaterals of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in multiplexes, I get to hear of this another very different kind of promotion campaign of Aamir Khan’s upcoming movie Ghajini. Now first speaking of this Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi collateral which I noticed in a popular retail outlet in the form of a table top followed by a theater in the form of a long standee where I went to watch this movie, it was having a very fascinating dual visual effect. Same standee was showing two different forms of Shahrukh and Anushka if seen from two different angles – one was showing him in his common man avtaar and the next angle was showing him in his hip and cool avtaar. Quite interesting and attention grabbing! Wish I could have taken a picture of the same.

 

But I think what Ghajini has done is far more catchy and really unique in terms of promotion strategy. Ghajini promoters have tied up with leading multiplexes in Mumbai where multiplex staffs have volunteered to sport the famous Ghajini hairstyle from 9th Dec – 25th Dec’08. Well, actually they have gone bald like Aamir, so I am not sure how they are saying that this promotion is valid only till 25th Dec’08. I think it has to be valid till they don’t get their hair back…LOL, isn’t it? Can you imagine everybody i.e., right from administrative and refreshment counter staffs to ushers being bald at the same time??? Have a look on this pic and for more such pics check out this NDTV photo gallery.

 

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I must say I found this promotion to be quite interesting and very hatke! At least I had not heard of this kind of thing before in Bollywood. Looks like Ghajini is not leaving any stone unturned for competing against the big releases like RNBDJ and Jumbo. Though jumbo is a movie of very different genre but RNBDJ is definitely having SRK and when it’s a competition between SRK & Aamir…well the whole world knows how and what it is J. Promotion wise definitely Ghajini is standing out more, but let’s see who stands out more at BO finally?

 

In-film advertising is FASHIONable

November 9, 2008

Watched Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion yesterday, I liked the movie…really liked it, though I think the name of the movie should have been “Kimaya’s Fashion” or “Fashion from Kimaya” J. Another interesting case of in-film advertising with not one or two brands rather many. To name a few, which I can remember – Kimaya, Lenovo, Sunsilk, Café Coffee Day, Reebok, LG, Cellucom were the key brands with Kimaya and Lenovo being the most prominent ones. In fact in-film advertisements were so loud and clear that I couldn’t help myself noticing a Godrej carton as well while Priyanka was relocating but guess Godrej’s presence was just by chance and not planned as it was shown hardly for a second or two.

But the good thing about in-film advertising in Fashion was that the brands were chosen carefully and the presentation was perfectly in sync with the scenes and sequences. Nowhere they looked jarring or force-fitted and instead of being just used in background they were properly integrated with the script esp. Kimaya considering the last round of fashion shows in the movie were critical part of the script. Overall good example of in-film advertising otherwise we have seen some horrible examples of in-film advertisement in Bollywood – remember Subhash Ghai’s Yaadein and those numerous brands within the movie…oh God those were very irritating. Good thing is that commercially the movie has made quite some money by these in-film advertisements. Out of total 220 million investments in Fashion, the producer has made 85 million by just these branded advertisements only! Now that’s approx 39% of the overall investment and definitely is some money to make through in-film advertisements.

In-film advertising in Bollywood is getting popular day by day and advertisers are coming out with interesting ways of integration. If done in the right way, it’s definitely an interesting promotional strategy which is mutually beneficial for the brands as well as the movie – brands get the right kind of visibility and registration in the minds of consumers whereas producers get to make some good money to cover up their cost of production. But such in-film advertisements only make sense if they are done in the right way like the recent example of Fashion otherwise in most of the cases they just end up in being logo showcased in background for few seconds.

Movie Marketing: Drona

September 29, 2008

As I said earlier like Hollywood, movie marketing is getting innovative day by day in Bollywood as well. We can see quite ground-breaking examples with each movie, be it Jaane Tu Jaane Na, Love Story 2050, Bachna Ae Hasseno, Rock On, Phoonk etc. Promoters are trying everything from reality shows, online promotions, interactive websites, innovative contests, promotions on social media to the good ol’ days traditional promotions like television, hoardings and print. While everybody is trying to do some or other promotions but there are some who start a trend by trying out something hat ke. Joining the bandwagon of bit hat ke promotion now is the upcoming movie Drona.

  • This weekend television was flooded with Abhishek Bachchan appearance in every other program, you switch any channel and you can see Junior B doing only three things – either mentioning the fact that Drona is the best movie he would have worked in or praising his dad and wifey’s acting talent or shaking his legs on Kajra Re 🙂. So, what was so Hat ke about Drona promos on television? I mean these days weekends are flooded with star appearances promoting their upcoming movie, so wasn’t Abhishek’s presence same as any other movie promo on television these days? Well, it was more or less same on other channels wherein he was judging reality shows like X, Y, Z, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, 200, 300, 400 (oh I’m actually losing count of ongoing reality shows 😛) but it was definitely different on NDTV and Colors. On NDTV, this time in “India Questions” series it was Jr. B who made an appearance, this program is hosted by none other than Dr. Prannoy Roy himself and I personally like to watch this program whenever I can. But naturally the audience ratio was skewed positively towards females and the way the program was conducted was interesting. Apart from promo of movie Drona in a very subtle way, Abhishek’s fans got to know lots of other interesting facts about Abhishek as well thereby definitely leaving a positive impact of the actor and his upcoming movie Drona. Next was his appearance in this very irritating program Bigg Boss…well personally I hate that program from the core of my heart but the way Jr. B was involved in that program has definitely created quite some noise…the participants not only were made to act some scenes of Drona rather Abhishek got to spend some time inside the house as a normal participant. Well, many people who are not regular viewer of that program also actually ended up watching that episode because of Jr. B’s presence inside the house.

  • Next very noticeable promotion strategy of this movie is the hat-ke merchandize of the movie Drona. Producers of Drona are all set to launch a comic series based on Drona, the first of which titled “The Crowning” is set to hit the shelves of book stores on 30th Sep’08. Now in Hollywood we all know the trend of movies based on comic but this trend of a comic based on movie is quite interesting I must say. Of late, producers have tried games and other interactive merchandises based on Bollywood movies but not many of them were as such a huge success but Drona being a sci-fi movie maybe the comic will click with kids and younger comic loving TG. The comic is priced at Rs. 50 and is distributed by Euro Kids. Approx 20,000 copies have been printed in first phase and will be circulated through various key channels like Shoppers’ Stop, Future Group outlets etc. Hmmm interesting merchandise option and I think comic based on Indian Super hero has some potential as well.

Drona is slated to release on 2nd Oct’08, now let’s see how the end product is and what has box office in store for this movie? At the end no promotion can help in sustaining a product if the product itself is not good 🙂

Phoonk Contest – Movie Promotion Strategy

August 12, 2008

So, it was not hoax… This contest news started doing rounds in media somewhere in last week of July’08 and almost every publication including ET has covered it. But somehow I kept on thinking that it’s not real and is yet another scandalous strategy to promote the upcoming horror movie of Ram Gopal Varma – PHOONK. But well, I was wrong, it’s true that Ram Gopal Verma is running a “Dare to watch it alone” contest wherein he is announcing a prize money of Rs. 5 lakh for anyone who dares to watch this movie from start to finish alone in a theater. Very interesting promotional strategy to instigate people to watch this movie.

Azam Khan the producer of the film says, “We’re confident that the film is so scary that it will be extremely difficult to watch it all alone in a theater. We will be running a contest and giving out details on our website about how to participate in it. Right now we have decided that we will screen the film for the winners of the contest a few days before the release of the film, that is on August 22. At the moment we have planned four trials that we will screen in a preview theatre.” (source: economictimes.com). Infact the contest details are out on their website www.phoonk.in as well as their official communities on facebook and orkut. Official communities on facebook and orkut are asking people to visit their website and I must say that PHOONK website is a very well done up website unlike many other movie website which are just a collection of some html pages promoting the wallpapers and ringtones. I really liked the UI of this website and the background score is creepy enough to scare a person like me at night :P, have a look on this snapshot yourself:

This contest has definitely become a hit I think, as out of 423 members (as of today) on the official community of facebook, more than 180 people have commented saying they are willing to accept the challenge. Not only that all official articles in online newspapers, official blogs etc are flooded with comments of people dropping their mobile number and email ids to participate in this contest. It had to happen for sure, general human psychology is that the moment you dare people for anything, most of them would like to try it out. I am sure that because of this contest and hype about Phoonk being one of the scaroest movies ever made, many people will go now to watch it in theater. Apart from this dare to watch it alone contest there is another contest announced on their website viz., “It Happened to me” contest wherein participants are supposed to share their real life scariest experience, black magic stories or ghostly encounter and the 10 best entries selected by Ram Gopal Varma will be paid Rs. 25,000 each. Not only that, if your story is good enough to be made into a feature film you will win as good as Rs. 5 lakh and if your story is selected and you can write a complete script for the film you will win Rs. 10 lakh!

Yet another exciting and very impressive promotional strategy from bollywood! As I mentioned earlier bollywood is getting seriously innovative day by day to promote its movies and PHOONK is another example of that. Now let’s wait and watch if these marketing gimmicks are going to give any success to Phoonk or it will be just another dud from RGV factory!

Phoonk Contest – Movie Promotion Strategy

August 12, 2008

So, it was not hoax… This contest news started doing rounds in media somewhere in last week of July’08 and almost every publication including ET has covered it. But somehow I kept on thinking that it’s not real and is yet another scandalous strategy to promote the upcoming horror movie of Ram Gopal Verma – PHOONK. But well, I was wrong, it’s true that Ram Gopal Verma is running a “Dare to watch it alone” contest wherein he is announcing a prize money of Rs. 5 lakh for anyone who dares to watch this movie from start to finish alone in a theater. Very interesting promotional strategy to instigate people to watch this movie.

Azam Khan the producer of the film says, “We’re confident that the film is so scary that it will be extremely difficult to watch it all alone in a theater. We will be running a contest and giving out details on our website about how to participate in it. Right now we have decided that we will screen the film for the winners of the contest a few days before the release of the film, that is on August 22. At the moment we have planned four trials that we will screen in a preview theatre.” (source: economictimes.com). Infact the contest details are out on their website www.phoonk.in as well as their official communities on facebook and orkut. Official communities on facebook and orkut are asking people to visit their website and I must say that PHOONK website is a very well done up website unlike many other movie website which are just a collection of some html pages promoting the wallpapers and ringtones. I really liked the UI of this website and the background score is creepy enough to scare a person like me at night :P, have a look on this snapshot yourself:

This contest has definitely become a hit I think, as out of 423 members (as of today) on the official community of facebook, more than 180 people have commented saying they are willing to accept the challenge. Not only that all official articles in online newspapers, official blogs etc are flooded with comments of people dropping their mobile number and email ids to participate in this contest. It had to happen for sure, general human psychology is that the moment you dare people for anything, most of them would like to try it out. I am sure that because of this contest and hype about Phoonk being one of the scaroest movies ever made, many people will go now to watch it in theater. Apart from this dare to watch it alone contest there is another contest announced on their website viz., “It Happened to me” contest wherein participants are supposed to share their real life scariest experience, black magic stories or ghostly encounter and the 10 best entries selected by Ram Gopal Varma will be paid Rs. 25,000 each. Not only that, if your story is good enough to be made into a feature film you will win as good as Rs. 5 lakh and if your story is selected and you can write a complete script for the film you will win Rs. 10 lakh!

Yet another exciting and very impressive promotional strategy from bollywood! As I mentioned earlier bollywood is getting seriously innovative day by day to promote its movies and PHOONK is another example of that. Now let’s wait and watch if these marketing gimmicks are going to give any success to Phoonk or it will be just another dud from RGV factory!