A Big Con : Marketing of the Bollywood Blockbuster
iView Author: Njudo-E-Dara (Nagpur, India)
Email: withheld
A Big Con : Marketing of the Bollywood Blockbuster
———————————————————————–
How people are fooled and blockbuster are churned out.
You call it con or marketing strategy or not matured market (market of moviegoers); there is a mathematical and marketing formula exists which determines how much your movie is going to earn it in the first week. And it is the first week, which decides whether the film is blockbuster or not.
Let’s understand the business first
Henceforth all the calculations will be made pertaining to first week, unless and otherwise stated
NG = Nett Gross = the total collection across India in the first week
T = Theaters = Number of theaters in which film is shown in first week
N = Number of shows per day = a constant 4
D = week days= also a constant 7
P = Average ticket Price= assumed constant for each and every film 120
S = Average Seats = assumed constant for each and every film 150
O = Occupancy= average percentage of seats occupied during first week
NG=T*N*D*P*S*O
In this equation, there are four constant N, D, P, S
P and S are assumed constant for simplicity and even if they are variable, it won’t have deciding effect on the Nett Gross and also as producer/ distributor you know Average Seats (S) and you can control Average ticket Price (P)
Now it leaves you with T (Number of theaters) and O (average percentage of seats occupied during first week)
Now as producer/ distributor you can decide T (Number of theaters). Now as distributor your skill is dependent on
1) At what price you buy a film from a producer and how much theater owners buy from you. (Now there could be an understanding or contractual agreement for specific period of time between distributor and theater owners. Now some distributor may owe theaters and group of theater owners are viewed as one distributor, whatever lets consider distributor and theater owner one entity-Distributor X)
2) Occupancy (O), i.e. Average number of seats occupied (OS)/ Average number of seats(S)
So as distributor you display a film at maximum theaters and hope for maximum occupancy
So everything boils down to occupancy i.e. average percentage of seats occupied during first week
Now here start the skills of a Marketing Man and film stars
Before that let me tell you one thing, doing business in bollywood as safer than doing business in Hollywood. How? Let’s find out.
First week statistics
link 1
Now as intelligent cinephile, how many of this film did you find good enough
At the most 4/19 or less?
But you always asked yourself how on the earth this films are turning out blockbuster , in terms of NG.
One more link to think in terms net profit
Analogy from FMCG sector
Ask yourself what type of soap you use? And why that soap only? Do you use cosmetic products and why… I mean most of the cosmetics products are just mixture of chemicals and nothing else and may not always do what they claim to do.
We do that Because we are made to believe that a particular soap or cosmetic (Film) is good. This is what is role of Marketing
Now having said that, there is kind unethical marketing, where you actually fool your customer giving scientific evidence and as most of the customers are not scientifically aware, they are coned into buying that product.
Now everybody in the market starts doing the same thing, because they can’t be left behind. You soon realize it is not the product but it is the marketing skills which makes the money.
Now in bollywood , it is pre film hype which makes the money and not what the film is about.
Role of “hype” before the film
Now you are distributor, how will you maximize the revenue?
Remember two things
1) The equation, It is the occupancy (O) which is deciding variable
2) and most of the business happens in the first week after that piracy hits
Hence a distributor will demand the commercial star like Shahrukh khan- who heartthrob, market himself all the time, you will put film songs on the all channels MTV, 9X, Music India, You will pay channels for Stars interview, you show steamy item numbers and create controversies about the film. You do anything under the sun, so that you attract maximum advance bookings, You also starts gossiping about the commercial stars and their affairs So that people are coned into investing in the film before they see or hear it. That covers at least starting two three days of the film. This audience is usually fan of a particular star.
So what’s unethical in that?
Advance Bookings
You pay various reviewers who affects third or fourth day business and even if reviews are bad, you flood websites like rediff to neutralize negative feedback.
Also Before the release you purposefully show to interested viewers inflated advance bookings so the audiences are again are coned into believing the smash hit phenomenon. The same herd mentality which crashes a stock market is utilized churning out blockbuster.
The Argument
The argument I want make is, the industry is star based and if you market a bad film, and people watch it and don’t like, its results will affect the star and his image rather than a image of producer distributor and director
Implications of the Argument
1) You go out in any city of India , ask about auteur of the films like “Welcome” “Dhoom” “Hey Baby” , ninety percent will tell you name of stars. They will hardly recall the name of the directors.
2) Star based industry is very much safe to do business because a director, a producer and distributor is forgiven for marketing a bad film.
3) That is the reason Abhishek Bachhan is more important than Sanjay Gadhavi
4) Hence a star like Shahrukh and Aamir demands share in the revenue and constantly tries re–position their personal brands through films and non-film activities
5) As industry is star based, there is no pressure to improve storytelling, just fits as many stars as you can
6) Fans of the stars usually forgive a bad film, after few better films. Reducing the pressure on those constantly prostitute their creative talents
7) The Distributor demands more and more footage to be given to the stars and hence reducing the importance of the character and story.
8) Stars usually have a style which he repeats film after film( and yet we call them actors )
9) When producer distributor feels that film is getting boring, they ask for a popular star dance and an item number
10) Show maximum cleavage of heroine and all her fans will rush towards theaters. Now it is also started for heroes
Market Feedback
Now where is the market feedback? If people are fooled, there should be market reaction
To neutralized the market reaction
To mitigate risk on the star image, star tends to do multiple films, so flops will be forgotten.
Brand endorsement are done
Publicity Stunts are managed to create positive atmosphere.
That is the reason stars have to attend public shows, dance at marriages, appear on reality show, give away charity in the media presence
Also some stars will do offbeat film once a while to reaffirm their image
Also sometime multi-starer is preferred by distributors
And all that amounts a year or two after a “hyped-hit” and stars are pardoned by the public , after all fan ka Rs 100 to gaya tha yar aur, Akshay and khan’s ke liye to jaan haajir hoti hai
Those who can do all this are called “commercial stars”,
If the industry is “director based” it is difficult to repeat this “marketing formula” and those doing business in bollywood is well aware of it and hence they don’t want industry to become director based, that is why “RGV ki aag” was actually his “maut” (he came back with filmmaking tools (but stereotypical story), full credit to him)
That the reason when Anurag kashyap says “I need to promote not just my film, but me and my team” he sounds genuine (btw I am no Ak or Ramu Fan) In fact every offbeat auteur has to fight strong marketing and business brains sitting in Mumbai offices. And those brains, believe me, are better than their counterparts in Hollywood, and doing business in India is much safer than the Hollywood
You will realize that it is all showbiz on the name of “entertainment” and not cinema as art from-a medium of expression and “Nirmal Anand”
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Interesting. The most recent case of this has to be Aamir’s Ghajini, right? I mean all news of mega advance booking records, blah blah …
And yes, Aamir was over the media, sometimes intentionally creating controversies. All fits in. Thanks for the info.
Good article, the number of mainstream movies, marketed purely on basis of their merit, is very low.
Most of the marketing i see is on how X Hero has got 12 pack abs, or Y Heroine has 0.5 size Waist, or X Hero/Y Heroine have been snogging around or that the producer spent a fortune to shoot a song in Timbuktu or Iraq. Its no wonder that most of them are duds, and only a few like Ghajini, SIK, RNBDJ pull ahead due to the star power. Thats it.
But actually i think this decade Bollywood has become somewhat director centric. If you take Madhur Bhandarkar, most of the actors in his movies are not big stars, but people flock to see his movies, based on his name alone. One may accuse Bhandarkar of anything, but the fact is in a star driven industry, he has proved that even the director can be a king.
to add to cmnt#3, even WTS was awaited bcos of shyam benegal and so was jodha akbar due to gowariker[although it did have stars]. actually, a lot of movies are awaited bcos of directors like imitaz ali, sudhir misra etc
Nice article.Given below are my thoughts on the same-
1. In today’s world marketing a product is a must chahe woh sabun hoh ya feature film.
2. Just as you can’t make consumers come to a store and buy soap without some form of marketing- you cannot have a viewer watch a movie without some form of marketing.
3. I wouldnt rate marketing as a complete con activity.Yes you can mislead a consumer and make him buy your soap once, but if the consumer doesnt like it there’s no repeat sale & the soap is flop.
4. Similarly for a movie – you can fool the people to come & watch a bad product- but no sooner the first show gets over, public opinion is anyways out.
5. Of course a Race or a SIK may not actually be called good cinema- but when it appeals to a large section of the paying public- you just have to ignore it or accept it.
6. Focusing on 6/8 pack abs, size zero heroine etc might all bring in the early audience- lekin mamu unko agar picture pasand nahin aayi , to picture gayi tel lene.Example Tashan- lot of noise initially but not accepted by the majority.
7. While stars still rule the roost, there are still certain directors who are a brand in itself- apart from Madhur Bhandarkar as pointed out by Ratnakar, I would include Yash/Aditya Chopra,
Karan Johar,Farhan Akhtar,Ashutosh Gowariker,Priyadarshan etc in this list.
Overall I would say marketing a bollywood movie is a necessity & is here to stay.But yeah focusing on the movie a lot more than the frills would be more appreciated.
@3Ratnakar you are right…but here again we are talking about metros only.People in interiors where Shahrukh,Salman and Akshay are treated like gods still will not go to watch a Madhur Bhandarkar movie just based on his name.But yes in cities Karan Johar,Yash Chopra,Madhur Bhandarkar,Anurag Basu,Mahesh Bhatt does bring in crowds.
Awesome article!!! Its high-time this bulshitting-marketing trend should change!!
You can fool some people some of the time but not all the people all the time. All the marketing crashes if the product is not good.
Case in point: ‘Mangal Pandey’ (it too was an Aamir Khan film and crashed after opening weekend) and more recently ‘Tashan’.
It’s easy to dub marketing as ‘con’ or ‘bulshit’ but it is an integral part of business.
A good write up on how films are marketed but why is it a “con” or “bullshit”? If things were so easy, every star would deliver a big hit all the time. But that does not happen. Each star has had his share of big flops or at least let downs (where the big opening is not sustained) – Aamir (Mangal Pandey), SRK (Paheli, KANK), Akshay (Tashan). Bracketing films such as Ghajini, SIK, Welcome, RNBDJ (I am not entirely sure about this one), where audiences have kept coming in even after the first weekend and the majority appears to have liked the movie is in fact bullshit.
thought provoking read. but ye hota aaya tha, hota hai & gawd forbid… hota bhi rahega. all said and done, its all abt the money! Jiski Lathi Uski Bhains. So solution wud only be when the Lathi & Bhains belong to the same person. Like Farhan Akhtar, Aamir Khan. Lets all pray for better times.
I am not saying that marketing is not important but the market reaction are not geared towards generating good quality films(product) … because it is star based … usually film trailers are songs and no part of story … and there is hardly any attempt sell the product on its merit … that is film … here is the case where marketing is more important than product … and a product which highly differentiated as compared to soap … it directly affect the quality of storytelling
there are directors who can bring audience because of their name and craft … but they carry bigger risk than star like shahrukh khan
The point is either market matures and or industry evolves into a director based medium … there might be inter relation as well and can happen both way… i mean director changing the paradigm like ramu and bhandarkar and or people rejecting films like yuvraj … tashan
@ KIC
i didn’t get the point
” Bracketing films such as Ghajini, SIK, Welcome, RNBDJ (I am not entirely sure about this one), where audiences have kept coming in even after the first weekend and the majority appears to have liked the movie is in fact bullshit.”
@Abhishek
it is con because product is story and not star image … it is con to me and people like me who expects good stories and not three hour star worship… btw it may be selling “fair and lovely” for some … but for me it is like buying a damaged condom
@Magik bhai
)
this is recent phenomenon … it is started when the first week business was proving deciding factor … when piracy hit the industry … if you go buy first week phenomenon sholay is flop
i think we need trendseter directors like ramu , nagesh, anurag ,bhandarkar and educated cinephiles rather than rich kings … and i think “new wave of diretors and moviegoers”is kind doing that
But what about low budget films.
Lets take a film like Dasvidaniya, does it really make money?
Is it financially sustainable for the entire chain (director, actor, producer, distributor, theater) to continue making these films?
If so, whats the math? any thoughts.
@Njudo
nice write-up. a very recent example can be the under-production ‘kites’. the media has started crying hoarse over the hrithik-barbara linkup. thats the breaking news nowadays.
its been going for such a long time. its not entirely the film-makers fault. we as audience have become complacent. if we want change we have to demand it, its not going to be delivered to us on a platter.
Keeping film in the news right from its making days has become an art these days. In the days of aggressive marketing and getting the all important first week collection what intrigues me is somebody like Salman Khan. He has never given a damn to marketing or media. He was made to promote Yuvraaj but that’s it. He hardly ever tom toms about his films before the release or makes a noise after they are successful. He goes to a promotional event and says ‘I am here because Mr. Ghai dragged me here’ or ‘Ye marketing wale ghar pe aake baith jate hain’. Only Salman Khan can do that and get away with it.
“if we want change we have to demand it, its not going to be delivered to us on a platter.”
complete agreement
—
@ Neeraj
i am also actually trying to figure out for low budget films as well, but it needs inputs from the person who works for marketing low budget … so all this math may become little illusionary
–
… anyway
i combined
T N D refer above and calls it shows
S=T*N*D
And now lets assume that low budget film is made in 1 crore and producer sold it at 2 cr to distributor and if it earns 4 cr it will be called as hit
The marketing budget is offset by TV rights , so you spend 1 cr , the same money you gain from TV rights
P and S are the same
O = is assumed constant 60 percent, as marketing budget is low and hence it will be tough to get 100 percent occupancy
So by above equation(refer post equation)
we need 3704 shows to recover money
ie the film should be displayed at atleast 67 screens across India and should sustain 60 percent occupancy over 2 weeks
——-
now you can build scenarios for film having different budgets
Now according to 2005 figures , there are 73 multiplexes having 276 screens
so it is tricky for low budget films , but who knows 2008 figures
Link 1
http://www.dessenceconsulting.com/pdf/multiplex%20industry%20in%20India.pdf
link 2
http://in.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/24spec.htm
i remember the vishal bhardwaj interview on program “bollywood bosses” where he was clearly mentioning that maqbool recovered cost and even made profit for distributors and producers
or otherwise
“profit hota hai to hi to “low budget films” banati hai
great article..but according to me this funda has become outdated now.As movies like CC2C and Billu biting d dust being well marketted as well having star powers, and DEV D and RAAZ making the money.so now audiences have become more content centric rather star strucked.
Thanx Preeti
“so now audiences have become more content centric rather star strucked.”
Say Amen!
)
I will be the first one to admit that I am a huge SRK fan but lately I have been disappointed with the star power movies which lack the novelty of a “low budget” flick. 2009 is going to be the year where the pendulum starts to swings back to content. I believe stars have already realized that and will be willing to give chance to novelty and give chance to new directors…
But YRC or Karan will comeback in 2010 or 2011 with another KKHH or KHN or DDLJ and hypnotize the audience in loving the star again… its a pendulum…