INDIE FILMs : No publicity is Bad Publicity
iView Author: Partha Sarathi Chatterjee (Kolkata, India)
Email: beyondbarriersfilms [at] gmail.com
INDIE FILM PROMOTION : No publicity is Bad Publicity
Here, we will discuss about the low budget Indie films, with no star cast, but certainly have a strong story to tell ! Often, we see films of that genre suffers big time due to its promotion rather than its quality. Quality can only be judged after watching the film. And, we know to get them in the halls you certainly need to impress them some way or the other so that they wish to go for it. Unlike in the big star cast films, promos, controversies, promotion through channel programmes all these are effectively never possible in the an Indie. Normally, people goes for any film after watching it’s star cast as well as its promotions. If they like the promo that they get to watch in the T.V. they wish to watch the film. And, the film is good or bad that comes after you pay for it.
Thus, we see, the total matter depends on its promotion packages.
So, what we can do for an Indie?
Try to catch n tie up with as many as mutual sponsors where there’s no money involved, like a barter system. You won’t pay them for your film promotion what they would do it for free, and you just show that they are your official sponsor.
Try to get where the most footfalls are, for e.g. if you tie up with say Shopping Malls, Pantaloons, CCD, Barista, Discs and wherever the major footfalls are. Give them standing hoardings for your film that they will place in their showroom for free, and you would show them as your sponsor in the film.
Now, the tv channels, fm stations also work likewise as a free sponsor.
You know what, when the normal people would get to see your film ads wherever they are going, the normal psychi is that they would think, “Bapre, Kitna publicity kiya”, they hardly know there’s hardly have any cost involved ! They are not bothered to know that this particular film promos is on TV or not.
Today’s generations don’t have that leisure time to watch the TV! They better like to roam around with their mates and etc. They are more FM friendly than of a TV.
They consume the net more than they do for the news papers!
Therefore, Affiliate Marketing i.e. Net marketing has come into play in big ways.
Promote your film using the net. YouTube is far more popular than a Zoom or V or
Something else.
Last thing is, “No publicity is Bad Publicity”
What does “Publicity” mean?
To make people aware. You can always do that anyhow, there’s no such problem. Come on, tell me the truth, from where you got to know the names of “IMS” or “Career Launcher” ?
Mate, if you say, from your friend, then please ask him or her, and get confirmed that he or she got to know the names from near their college gates where he/she had collected a Sheet of paper of “IMS” or “Career Launcher” ! Truth is this man. That sheet of paper is worthy enough to have a great “Word of Mouth” for them for which you know the name. Nothing is small here. If you are not convinced and still thinking “well, that’s too cheap yaar” .
Go and print few for YRF, UTV, BIG whatever you think “it’s BIG” and distribute it to your fellows, publicise their films to recover your shyness!
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
Partha, a very apt post. The larger point is that any film needs to move down the awarenss, interest, desire, action curve. Now, these so called “Indie” films, more often than not, always struggle with budgets, and if there is any more money, they’d rather invest it in the production of the film itself. However, we need to start thinking beyond the traditional ways of promotion. A movie, at the end of the day, is like any other product, and it needs its consumers. That understood, look at examples of successful brands, and quite a few of them have been created without spending enormous monies on classical advertising, 30 sec spots and press ads. Don’t search too far, Google is one
So what are the other cost-effective ways of promoting a film. I don’t intend to list answers here, but colelctively, we could think of many creative solutions. It is a pity that all most film-makers invest every drop of their creative energies in making the film, but when it comes to packaging it, little of it is applied. For starters, just look at the film poster, which is usually a no-brainer with images of actors, or a scene of the film which producers think is the high point in the film. A lesson or two to be learnt here from advertising and communication of brands. More so, when such films are made for a niche audience, and if the film-maker assumes this audience is intelligent enough to understand and appreciate the film, then let the poster to make it think hard, and look forward to watching the movie. If your film is the Apple 1984 commercial, you can’t have its poster as a Nirma Detergent Tikia kinda wall painting!
Posters aside, here is an example of a unique promotion. I remember there was this TV channel trying to promote its programme based on the Indian annual budget analysis a few years ago. They did not take up bill-boards or cross promotions on other channels. All they did was to print the face of 100 rupee notes. Lots of them, and left these at places like bus stands, theatres etc. People obviously picked them up hoping to pocket the unexpected cash. But the reverse of these notes that a message “To know how the government will spend this note, tune it to XXXX”. And it worked, becuase the programme snapped up the largest TRP’s for budget shows amongst all channels that year.
There are no standard answers, because every film is unique. But yes, if we think hard enough, we can make up for impact where we lack in monies.
Hey, its a good 1 tht u mentioned abt 100 rupee notes..bollywood is surely lacking in publicity in a different ways than the normal..where hollywood s far ahead..they hardly depend on d stars images..our country is still depends on star to sell d film..-thts d fact at d same time a shame !!! Google ADWORDS if properly used can’t have better publicity than that..give it a thought guys..be creative..be bold..its urs !
cheers!
the truth is that “No Publicity is Bad Publicity” . the figures we get to know by d channels n nwz ppr for a film like d gross profits n all, all r fake..its all for damn publicity..the movie is so good tht it has grossed 8 cr. on its opening..n no wonder whnever new big budget films come they publicise that it has broken all d prev. records !
excellent post dude. keep up d gud wrk as u guys often do in this community..poster mein kuch diff. creativity dala karo..boss, wht I knt to knw is, if we make an indie..n go n approach d multiplexes, will they take our kind of films to show them?
That “IMS” n “Career Launcher” thing is damn true..infact, everyone will accept dis fact