Dev.D marketing – by chance or choice
How cute....
Getting back to the point, as an advertising professional, what struck me big time is the hype that is building up, day after day. Much of it, I think is happening by chance. Not by choice. Every now & then I get these mails from the Official Dev.D fan site, asking me to see Abhay Deol get himself tattooed (cute but no thanx) or translate emosanal atyachar into English & get an autographed CD and the like. Not my type, but kommendable anyways, as it is being done by UTV Spotboy, not YRF. The ambitious zeal of UTV Spotboy, for a niche projekt like Dev.D, outshines all marketing gimmix by any other biggie.
When was the last time, we filmis, went to watch a movie driven by its sheer marketing klout? Not me & am sure most of us filmis here haven’t been konned that bad, but for an odd Tashan, may be. After a long time I am experiencing an honest film being promoted by an equally dedikated production house and SURPRISE SURPRISE - the damn movie is marketing itself with more frenzy & fervor, than I have ever witnessed before.
If you watch MTV these days, all they talk (in their Tickr) about is atyachaar. Various kinds of it. What happens if Satyam kloses down? Financial atyachaar. What happens if your daily horoskope lets you down? Astrologikal atyachaar. So on & so forth. I dunno if the UTV guys paid MTV for the plug, but if they haven’t, then the kreative genius is kreating mega-dollops of kickass publik-city for the film.
Emosanal atyachar has bekome a part of everyday lingo & i dunno how better to enhance the brand rekall of any offering, irrespektive of its kategory. The songs, as they hit the skreen, one after the other, are generating their own fan following. Nayan Tarse is all poised to become the anthem of all love-birds. The lyrix, the musik – sheer magik. Aah bliss! What to tell you darling kya hua…
I always have this never-ending debate with kolleagues about quality produkt vs. kickass marketing. I win most of the times, but Dev.D has silenced many in my offis, who thought otherwise. I strongly feel that even if UTV Spotboy didnt get into the kutesy tattoo(???), translation stuff, the movie, if it just reaches out to its audience through the regular channels, will take the nation by a storm.
But what takes the kake, baker & the whole fucking goddamned bakery is the LUSTLINE. Drums roll, konfetti blast & the red karpet roll out. Where have you heard such a thing happened ever before, for any movie, fuck movie, any thing??? Balls of steel, each the size of Saturn, wud have gone into konceptualizing & aktually getting it exekuted. I salut those bravehearts & bow my humble filmi head in sincere reverrence.
I have this huge itch to ask the people (kreative & otherwise) behind this film – “Scene kya hai? Ye aakhir ho kya raha hai?” Is all this hype by choice or chance? My guess is that a lot of UTV Spotboy’s future projekts depend heavily on the suxess of Dev.D, so they are doing everything they kan. Well, whatever reason, I wish everyone behind Dev.D a kolossal suxess. Also hope that other projekts that are banking on Dev.D find their deserved audiences. But tattoo, wo bhi naqli…wo bhi Dharam paaji klan ke chiraag ko… kyon yaar???
Disklaimer: My personal opinion. No offense. No ill feelings. LOL.
Tags: Anurag Kashyap, Dev.D, magik, Movie Marketing
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
Magik bhai- I guess we’ve looked at the lustline
)
article at the same time ( btw there is a ” services to this number not available at this time” response now when I wanted to check it out of curiosity
I think the marketing of Dev D is a bit of chance & a bit of choice.There’s definitely a lot of hope riding on the movie.Due to the recession
) the success would help in a lot more smaller movies getting the funding.
( my fav word these days
But of course apart from this the response to No Smoking at the box office is also surely playing on the minds of UTV somewhere & so they must be doing all this with a view to ensure that the movie doesnt go the NS way.Again this is just what I feel.Anurag would be the best person to tell us more on the same.
Enjoyed the read with all the K’s and X’s.
Screen could have been SKreen too
@ Sethu: i m waitin to hear it from the horse’s mouth too!
@ SC: glad u enjoyed. thanx for pointing out the korrexion!
The lustline seems to have got into trouble already.Asked a friend of mine also to call up the number giving him some reason & even he says he got an out of service response
Talk about this movie is Kickass… Emosional Atyachar is part of every 1s lingo.. When I heard it first in PFC, i thot ill hold the copyright of this word in my college (because no one will know about Dev.D and the reasons were obvious). I never thought it will become this big.. I hope the hype gets converted to money and Anurag gets his due.. Im doing my bit in promoting this movie.
022-61424800-lustline is not working…. Bold campaign but error in connection.
Anurag’s got it wrong……..he should be coming out on TV shows and news channels promoting DEV D ,instead he is canvassing on PFC where most of em will see the movie even if it’s released underground on pirated CD’s without a release date.
If Abhay hates marketing then he needs to start marketing & promoting films from right now (tatoo stunt was different but not that effective **purely my view).
If only you dnt want your film 2 b a forbbiden film ;-)
Sometimes, by marketing you just hype the movie and compel the audience to watch it.
Marketing by chance – Khosla ka ghosla, OLLO, HAZARON KHWAISHEIN AISI – word of mouth publicity
*exceptions – Black, taare zameen par…
Marketing by choice – Krish,OSO, Singh is king…
*exceptions – TZP…
With no offence to anyone it’s all my view.
I started with Abhay cos I read his blog ysterday on Marketing , OLLO.
Thanx
Anshu
I dont really know if big hype is building up for this movie. If it is really true, i will be really happy. I am saying this because, last monday i went to planet m in bangalore, asking for the audio cd of dev d to which they asked which dvd? they didnt know the existence of such a movie. I still hope that promotion of this movie works really well and music gets its deserving due.
Ghajini i think you forgot to mention this movie which has become purely successful on it’s marketing capacity.
In my Opinion,
Somewhere in promos they should state
that ‘Dev D’ film is a Modern version of Devdas.
I have thought of a another effektive (IMO) way to promote Dev.D. That is to organize a nation wide – Dev.D Dukhi Dil Bash. A perfect setting to bring out ppl fallen n hurt in love. a party only for singles. Pay, get drunk, listen to emosanal atyachar, bitch abt the bitch, get sloshed, go home & turn up at the BO when Dev.D releases. Irrespektive of anything, I have started this mikro campaign within my humble purview. It’s fun. Especially when the emosanal (rock version) gets played… priceless… thanks AK.
@Shekhar Shimpi ,
I agree with you. After watching emosnal atyachar on tv, my cousin was asking me whats the movie about?
@ shekhar / sharat: wudnt it b better to watch this without any reference point. dont u think zyyaada mazaa aayega. Otherwise most of the time will be spent on komparisons etc… my opinion..
@ Magik
For us, sure it will be fun to watch without any reference point,
But for Aam Janata, who think before paying 100 Rs. to watch any flick,
And have options to choose which film to watch,
So why not alluring them by telling
“see Devdas in new Avatar”
(I have no idea whether there is copyright issue on mentioning “Devdas” )
-
“Dev.D Dukhi Dil Bash” bhi sahi hai baap!!!!
@ Shekhar: yaar kopyright ka locha i dunno, the damn koncept is working out here. talli hone ke baad, aisi aisi kahaniyaan sunaate hain log, each story worth a film. LOL.
ha ha Magik,
sahi , you should collect all those stories,.
you can come up with Omnibus movie like (”Darna mana hai”)”Pyar karna mana hai”.
where do you guys gather together?
@ Shekhar: absolut yaar… i wud b a fool to let go off this wealth. the get togethers depend on the maal that we hv. dingy bars, decent pubs, bachelor pads etc.
My personal opinion is Dev.D is not getting adequate promotion. Mails and blogs , though are innovative ways to advertise a product, TV channels are still leading the chart. So , the cast and crew of Dev.D should definitely make repeated appearance on idiot box. Reality shows are also a great platform for the promotion!!
So doubt, songs are simply awesome, kickass or whatever, but still the kindda hype, i was expecting is still missing!! or its me only , who is missing the hype!
i wish Dev.D to be a massive hit rathar than a cult classic and hope UTV devise a few more stratgies before movie hit the screens!!
@ AKS: one place where the promosanal kampaign is falling short is the musik stores. till y’day 7.45pm (ist) most stores in south b’lore didnt know such a film exists… thats a loop that needs to be taken kare of ASAP.
@Ajay Kumar Saxena,
I agree with you,
Still people are not aware of Dev D,
There should be more promos and stuff on TV, Radio Mirchi and all,
I want Dev D to be a Massiv hit too
Abhay Deol has already made an appearance on Sony’s Indian Idol show with emosanal athyachaar playing… there they also revealed that it is a modern version of Devdas
Dev.D is worth being a rage but it is not :-(
Still have a lot of time to promote it.
Nice write up dude…as always.
I came across a article which says that DPS MMS scandle of 2004 is a part of anurag’s much hyped movie Dev D. I think its another marketing gimmik..(wut say dude)
Even the lustline on Dev D website says –
” In school I was a really naughty girl. I hated all subjects except Biology, if you know what I mean. I never studied for my exams but the teachers were satisfied with my orals.”
The firang actress who is playing the Chanramukhi (AKA Chanda) in the movie has agreed on the fact while the spokesperson of the movie disagreed on this.
Agree or disagree, oral or no oral, MMS or no MMS wudever, the movie has got the hype which was intended.
A very unique concept of movie marketing without getting a weird hair cut of all the employees of PVRs and Big Cinemas of the country. LOLz
~Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale.
@ ashu: weird hair cut of all the employees of PVRs and Big Cinemas of the country. LOLz
COMPLETELY AGREE BRO. That was too fawkin desparate. Paapi pet ke naam pe taklu kar diya saala… how fair is dat?
Didn’t mean something like that :-(
The music is awesome, something from that front?
Hey Anshusharma@in.com, r u a part of the team that is promoting Dev.D?
I am not Magik :-(
What mad eyou think so?
I work in a news channel which is nowhere related to movies :-(
Anshusharma@in.com: Dunno yaar… u kommented that – Dev.D is worth being a rage but it is not
Still have a lot of time to promote it.
so i thought may be u r getting ur hands dirty, promoting Dev.D. And yaar, these days news channels r making better ‘films’ than the real film makers… no offense… kidding!
Yeah! If I talk about my network, they are making some commercially hit movies but I do not endorse them much.
And being a news channel – Satyam is hugely acclaimed movie so far ….. :-D
Anshusharma@in.com – u said it yaar… appreciate ur spirit & humor!
:-D
I was thinking that Dev.D is using just PFC n few blogs here n there for promotion till today morning when I surfed thru B4U Music, Zee Music, ETC and few other music channels.. Dev.D is getting promoted big way (musically) with almost half of total(18) songs being played every 3 or 4 mins…
@ Oxy: dats also y i feel UTV Spotboy is going all out to make sure that Dev.D makes the kut, so that other releases in the offing get adequate respekt & weightage, despite the SPOTBOY tag. Wink!
I am so happy !!!!!!!!!
See I told you the music of the movie is really good and you know what The music director Amit Trivedi is just 1 movie old, the last one was AAMIR.
Cheers to him !!!!!
I feel Ghajini is a classik example of a 360 D Movie Marketing.
Just have a look on the markeing activities done for the promotion of Ghajini
1. weird hair do for the Big Cinema employess (first ever).
2. A life size statue of Aamir across the multiplexes n cinema halls across the country
3. Van Heusan range of Aamir khan corporate look. (Earlier it was done by Louis Phillip (Another aditya birla group company) for SRK starer DON. Now its done by every other movie – Tashan n Bachna e hasino by pantaloons
4. Ghajini Toys – Hollywood is a baap of movie toys.
5. Samsung Ghajini phones (WTF) L700 and M200 – A brand which aamir endorses. SRK has used i10 in RNBDJ
6. Tata indicom has sent 10 million subscribers, an exclusive mobile content on its wap portal. Also a Ghajini hairstyle contest (Was it a hairstyle anyways??
7. Tata Sky (Another brand which aamir endorses) interactive quiz, welcome screen n filler ada about the movie
8. PC console game based on Ghajini (Lara Craft – Tomb Raider is one of a very popular PC COnsole game.
9. Indiagames has developed 3 ghajini games for mobile. And also a interactive mobile application that allow users to follow Khans training sessions for getting 8 pack abs.
10. Probably a first ever in bollywood www.wallofsuspect.com, a contest wherein users can upload their photos on the wall.
11. Online treasure hunt – www.findghajini.com.
12. Khan’s blogs and his presence in the reality shows (He has done it for the first time, though everybody do this. Its quite a normal thing now. The wierdst ever promotion was done by Tusshar Kapur (Jitendra ka ladka)for C Kkompny, wherein he walked in as a journalist in valia house (Don dare to ask WTF is Valia’s House..still if u wanna know, please watch Kkasam se on zee tv mon-fri at 9 pm…or 9.30 pm (I Dunno the rite time..cos there is no rite time to watch tht soap)
And i am sure there is much more been done for the promotion.
Now thts wut we call Movie Marketing.
Lolz
~ Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale
@ Ashu: terrifik insights bro! thanks for the value addition.