Movie Marketing
We have been seeing many discussions online and in PFC, about how smaller and more meaningful cinema like Aamir or Hulla or Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi could be made to reach out to a more wider audience. While the multiplexes have made it possible for movies like Page 3, A Wednesday, Bheja Fry, Aamir to be succesful, there are limitations with this.
Limitations of the Multiplex Model
Multiplexes cater to one segment of the population. The elite yuppie crowd, or those who are loaded. There has been an assumption that people who are yuppie, having lots of money, well educated( read IIT-IIM) are the only ones who can appreciate a Bheja Fry or No Smoking. The fact is like all marketing generalizations this just falls flat on its face. Having been in the marketing profession for some time, i can say for sure, the best way to do marketing is to get your hands dirty. That is actually go into the market, and see how you can sell something. Unfortunately most of our marketing whizkids, are content with just sitting in their offices and reeling off some dodgy theories which makes no sense, and oh yeah if nothing else works quote Peter Drucker.
The fact is that the movie going class in India is diverse, and one can’t try force fitting it to a certain segment. I know of a friend of mine, who is a commercial artist, and who has an astounding knowledge of movies both Indian and International. He would not fit the yuppie profile at all. I know another friend who has his own business in Cuttack, and has a collection of some of the best movies. There are university students, people working in NGO’s, struggling artistes and writers, college lecturers, Govt employees, doctors, social activists who are as passionate about movies, but can’t simply afford the exorbitant rates of a multiplex. Forget about others, i myself can never bring myself to spend 500 bucks on a movie, even though i am an IT professional and earning well.
And its not the fact that all those who come to a multiplex are really serious about the movie. I remember watching Swades in a multiplex, and 90% of the audiences were just groaning and complaining about what a boring movie it is. Yeah of course some come for having fun, and others just to talk loudly on their mobile. So while multiplexes have made a contribution to the growth of alternative cinema, we can’t depend on them in long run.
DVD Bang
When i was there in S.Korea, for a year, i observed that in Seoul, as well as other Korean cities and towns, there was the concept of a DVD Bang( Bang is the Korean word for room). Generally DVD Bangs work on the concept of a home theater, where you could go and watch DVD’s or VCD’s of your choice. So the arrangement is you go to one of these DVD Bang’s, pay an amount of 10$, and watch the movie of your choice. Not many in Korea actually go to a movie theater, majority prefer to watch it in DVD Bang.
Way back in the 80’s, when video was becomming popular in India, there were video tents or video parlors all over. It would generally be a small hall, with say around 20-30 seats, and the video of that movie would be shown. But with parlor owners wanting to make a quick buck by showing sleaze stuff, and police raids, as also the fact that Color TV and VCR’s were becomming more available, these parlors died a slow death. But still if we take the basic concept, there makes a lot of sense to adapt this strategy.
So lets take a low or medium budget movie, something like a Hulla or Tahan. Now even if they release in a multiplex, these movies are not the top priority for owners. For any movie to grow by word of mouth, it needs time, it needs some space. Now lets say a movie like Tahan, which really deserved a better fate, it needed time for word of mouth to spread around, for people to know it. By the time people know it, the movie is taken off theaters.
Now imagine Tahan being released in one of the DVD parlors. And lets say the DVD parlor person charges a reasonable amount keeping in mind the margins, the costs etc. So what happens here is that the movie reaches out to a wider audience. At present movies like Tahan, can be only see in metros, but if lets say the DVD parlor idea was spread even to smaller cities and towns, you could have a larger audience. The fact is for effective marketing, one must need to look beyond the metroes and big cities. There is an India beyond them.
That means one must target places like Ranchi, Raipur, Bhubaneshwar, Trivandrum, Trichy, Mangalore etc. These are places which are small town in nature, but they have a highly educated population. Let me give the example of Bhubaneshwar itself where i am staying. The city has some excellent colleges in engineering & medicine, as well as companies like Infy, Satyam, TCS, Reliance which have set up shop here. But the major problem is that the city has just 5 theaters, most of them lousy, and they generally show mostly the mainstream movies. So if i want to watch a Hulla or a Tahan, i have two options, take the overnight train to Kolkata, see the movie and then come back. Or else watch it online or on a pirated DVD. People complain about piracy, but fact is if we watch pirated movies, its because we have no option.
So when you start to set up these DVD parlors, its a Win-Win situation, movie makers can make their money from DVD sales, and ensure their movies are seen by a wider audience. And people in smaller cities or those who can’t afford to splurge 500 in a multiplex, get to see the movies they wanted to. And yes in a way this could provide some kind of employment to youths also.
Also another way is to tie up with the portals that provide an online viewing, including You Tube. So just as movie makers give rights to TV channels, one could work out some kind of sharing with these portals. The fact is online movie portals, makes sense from a sound marketing reason. People generally do not prefer watching movies on TV, due to the plethora of ad breaks and commercials, that just make us lose interest. Now if movie makers could work out some kind of cost sharing benefits with the portals, to show the movies online, it could again be a sort of Win-Win situation. Again this is just my opinion.
What i have stated so far is for small and medium budget movies. If its a “Jodha Akbar” or “Ghajini” kind of movie, people will prefer to see it in theaters. But the plain fact is that however is responsible for movie marketing, needs to think out of the box. Its a plain fact, that the multiplex model, can only help to some extent, one has to look for solutions beyond it. Unlike in the West, where marketing is taken seriously, and applied, in India, most of the movie makers, dont really have much idea about it, or somehow feel that if they focus on marketing, it would be too commercial in nature. I guess maybe 40 odd years of socialist rule, has made us not yet totally tuned into marketing. But in the good ole days, there was NDFC, which financed and promoted the art house cinema. Right now NDFC is totally different, so its every one to his own.
Indians have two things in abundance-passion and enterprise. Trust me, the most passionate movie loving crowd happens to be in India. In fact abroad, i found that Indians are more crazy about Hollywood flicks, than Americans themselves. And Indians are more enterprising, basically Indian business works on a concept of “jugaad”, creating something out of nothing. We have the passion, we have people willing to take the initiative, we have the ideas, and i think now its time to put them into action. What i have mentioned here are only some ideas that have come into mind, i would appreciate more and more inputs and ideas in this regard.
Tags: DVD Bangs, marketing, Peter Drucker
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
I’d say, release movies in College Campuses. Organize screenings at a lesser cost. May be 40Rs or something. Imagine the number of students. They’ll have a good time. On top of it, people like Mr. Kashyap or Sudhir Mishra, can once in a while travel to the colleges and help mould the future movie-goers. Sudhir Mishra went to our college for a day. Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi has been a cult since then. Many students might not even know about some of the movies otherwise. I was fortunate to hear about No Smoking. What if I didn’t hear about it the first day and never got
the chance to watch it ever.
Like Rock concerts why can’t we have movie screenings? If it’s well organised, won’t we get people? I think in the campuses, surely there’ll be audiences.
Just like watching a match in a stadium offers you a different atmosphere, the same is true about the Rock concerts.
Just think of it, go to a small city, say some city in Tripura. Go there and organise this kind of a show. You think people won’t come? I bet you’ll get a huge audience. People in those cities don’t have avenue for entertainment. Even if they don’t like the movie, they’ll enjoy the event. Small cities are for ever neglected. They can generate sizable revenue too.
College goers often don’t have the bucks to pay 200+ for say a Tahan. But show it for 30-40 bucks in a show organised inside the campus or close by, you get them to actually pay for it rather than see it on pirated vcds and dvds.
And promotion has to improve. Probably Anurag has no idea why No Smoking bombed. It didn’t bomb because it was killed on personal vendetta agendas.
That’s just part of the story. The other part is, The movie never got the promotion it deserved. I showed my friends the movie recently. After seeing it they said, it was an exercise in vanity and non-sense. Then I made them read Anurag’s blog “I was reading Classic Mild” and after reading it, you know the same people told me it’s the best movie they’ve seen. Do you get it? The same blog, communicated over and over, before the movie came out or just when the movie hit the scrins could have changed its financial fate and make it the success it deserved to be. Hell, If I knew about the contents of the blog earlier, I’d have ensured I reach the most people I can. You gotto address your audience before the movie comes out.
Subashish, this is precisely the kind of feedback i was looking to. I am seriously hoping some of the movie makers on PFC do take your suggestions seriously.
Our movie makers are talented, but marketing is something they need to improve seriously and big time. We just cant restrict ourselves to metroes and big cities, there is a wider audience,we have to tap it and reach out.
I hope people here are listening to what Subashish says. Unless and until we properly market our movies, all we will do is just keep on cribbing on PFC, till the end. Sorry if i am sounding bitter here.
But whenever i discuss this with others, i get the standard responses, the standard nay sayer arguments. I just got fed up of it, as people were just not interested in thinking about it.
Subhashish,
The idea of college campus viewings is good.
I guess you mean only for viral marketing purpose and not regular movie shows on campus. Cos no college authority will allow regular movie shows.
Or you can have weekend shows.
The only other thing is not many colleges have enough big campus or facilities.
We can definitely try it out to know the feed back.
I agree that for publicity, campus is the best place for movie.
I think Oz had written an article about using technology for creating the buzz for a movie. It was an excellent excellent article.
Yup, sometimes its very important for a film-maker to tell where he or she is coming from while making that movie.
For commercial mainstream masala movie, it backfires if you try to find lot of meaning, something like the makers of SiK said they wanted to show Sikhs not as stereotypes. Yeah, right!
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Its very surprising that directors who are so sure about their movies and their techniques somehow opt for herd mentality when it comes to marketing.
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I still have not watched NS but the promos were very song and dance or even JG or recently Maharathi.
@ Subashish-2
Yeah agree with u there, more effort was needed on AK’s part to sell the movie. The Indian audience has not yet reached that maturity level, where you can just show them a movie, and hope they can make it out. Had there been some better marketing, it would have succeeded.
@ Vishesh
Generally many colleges do have special movie screenings on weekends or last Friday of a month like that. It is there in most of the IIT’s and NIT’s for sure.
See one thing if you take IIT, NIT and IIM, they do have good screening facilities in the campus.
Now all over India, you have around 7 IITs, and if you take into consideration new ones proposed it could go to around 15. NIT’s i think are around 20, and plus you have BITS, Pilani, BIT, Ranchi, BHU etc. So in effect it means you are having a base of roughly 30 colleges here. Assuming the average intake per college is around 2000-3000 per institute, what you are looking at is approximately 60,000 students, which is a huge user base.
So ur having a base ready there to be built upon. I am so far as referring to Engg Colleges, as i dont have much idea about Mgt Institutions culture. So out of this 60,000 odd students, even if we get around 30%, it is around 20,000 heads, which is a sizeable number. Just a hypothetical assumption.
I am quite like the person you have in mind when you criticize the multiplex culture. I HATE (a moderate word, the feeling is even more extreme) the multiplex culture simply because of the EXORBITANT rates they charge per movie… Although, yes the weekday morning shows are cheaper (I think around 60 here in Delhi) but the timing obviously is too awkward (College bunk? Kabhi nahi – random aside: that ad was for pan pasand right? that “Shaadi aur tumse? Kabhi nahi!”) to watch a movie at that time regularly… Result? The last time I spent money on going to a theatre (not considering the free movies i/we watch on friend’s birthday treat) was for Johnny Gaddar (in fact, even amongst the ‘treat movies’, the next, and only, movie seen was ‘No Smoking’). The alternative is that I quite easily get the pirated movie (within a week) and watch it for free… Ofcourse, now I treat even THAT as equivalent to spending money, and give many movies a skip coz I dont want to waste time getting those movies…
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What about any sense of guilt? – I do feel slightly guilty when watching movies like OLLO or Dasvidaniya but I absolve myself thinking about the other alternative (of spending that amount).
Do I regret on loosing out on the ‘experience’ of watching something like even The Dark Knight on the big screen? – The money compensates for it
The sad thing is that I am not alone in thinking like this…
But, I think what Subhashish suggests at comment 1 and 2, would be simply great, but really how many movies would really be a hit like that? The odd No Smoking, Sehar, maybe Hulla, Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi?
But the idea of a DVD Bang is really interesting… Maybe the other non-mainstream stuff like Docus, film festival stuff can be released like that… hmmmmmmmmmm
@Ratnakar (7), altho the facilities are pretty good for a movie screening, but I doubt 30% to be the number… I have seen barely 50 students turning up for the screening of Seven Samurai, Rashomon and stuff (in a pretty reputed engg college, here in Delhi, having a capacity of total around 2k students). Though one may attribute it more to the lack of publicity and all (of such movie screenings in our college), but still…
I think the idea of screening in college campuses is great and can be further extended to local libraries, big modern housing complexes (example, Hiranandani) which have community/media centers.
These type of screening will definitely bring a shift but will require some educating. People find comfort in watching movies in traditional venues such as theaters and initially may resist these alternate screening venues. Some publicity and education will be necessary for them to embrace the new alternative.
We organize a South Asian independent film festival in US and have attempted to screen the movies in local libraries. It was quite challenging initially as far as quality of screening/acoustics, actual turnout and not to forget amount of efforts we had to put in for each venue.
A lot of ground work, planning and ultimately franchising the screening operations would be needed to make this model plausible and efficient. May be production houses and distribution houses in India can begin this as a pilot project.
Just my thoughts.
fyi-video parlours(sleazy/non sleazy both) r stil on in mumbai…ndtv is coming up as india’s answer to korea’s bang theory…setting up cinema ki dukaan in every gaon,mohalla possible…but guys again smthng r meant to b xclusive, yes multiplex r very costly , surely, but again thy r not meant ‘ONLY’ for film buffs…remember thy r in a business…v watch films out of our passion n love…its business for them…jahan paisa hai wahin jayenge…its yet to b seen how ndtv comes up wit thr bang theories…
coming back to no smoking…like v choose a right director for a script, right editor for a cut, we need to choose a right producer for a film…not anyone…mr.kumar mangat & eros together r not rite pepl for a film like no smoking!!!
dev d wil b a test for both ak & utv…lets c, wat thy do wit it…wat u thnk guys???
v shud start dvd culture in india…films made for dvd audience,on dvd, only for dvd lovers,like a collector’s edition :-) juggad ki jai ho!!!
ratnakar pls note its NFDC not NDFC.
In the US here, they have a really good concept of dollar theaters (tickets ranging from $1 to $2 in comparison to $8~10 in regular theaters). It’s not prevalent in all cities, but it has made its presence felt. What happens is after a movie has done the rounds of major multiplexes, after about a month or two (depending on how well the movie does), the prints are handed to the dollar theaters and they show them for a very low price.
They could also introduce student discounts. The target audience for most of Bollywood movies is the yuppie crowd right? Par agar target audience hi kangaal ho toh phir woh cinema hall baar baar kaise jaayegi? Student discounts could be a hard one to implement in India though. Next thing you know, every 40-year old will carry around a student ID to claim his discount!
Exposure of different cinema to a new audience, to new markets, is very important as well. The post by Richa Chadha was heartening because it shows that the ‘masses’ (driver) can, and are ready to, accept something different. That they can see through OLLO’s subtle messages. That they are willing to go beyond the item number and melodrama. Unko dikhaao toh sahi ke aur kaisi kaisi filmein ban sakti hai, then you say me (yeh Dolly ka bhoot utarta hi nahin) ke aam junta ‘art’ film nahin pasand kar sakti.
Ratnakar
I want you to differentiate between movie making, promotion, marketing and exhibition.
Lets, Leave the making and promotion…. We will talk about the other two.which you were referring to
What is the budget of the small films we are talking about .. 1.5 to 2.5 crores.. this are the budgets for both Hindi and Telugu films..(small films)
Your suggestion of video parlors is out…because, In Andhra Pradesh the video parlors are banned…
we can’t show films in colleges as you and Subhashish suggested.. Because it is illegal.. we can only have a charity show not a regular show.. govt. rules, entertainment tax and.. .even if we do have a show , what is the collection at these places. In the best case scenario,even if 500 students turn up.. they pay Rs.30 each. that will be.. Rs.15,000… now if the college happens to be in a district like Warangal which is 120 k.m from Hyderabad.. for me to take the film there and hire the hall( I am sure the college will not give me the hall free) get my projection system in place, my sound system… (a decent one).. what will be my total cost.. I am sure it will be double the money I am going to collect..
Ratnakar I did think of this with my film .. where I was not interested in making money at all. I wanted to show it to as many people as possible this way,in bargain all i wanted was to recover the cost of that show…that’s all…. Still there were no takers.. ..
In my school days, there used to be some real small theaters like embassy, Tivoli, light house and dreamland.. these were theatres which had the capacities from 30 to 300..
The rates were low.. I saw most of my films in these theatres..
we don’t have these theaters any more.. this are the days of multiplexes.. because of economics.. a small theater is not feasible now a days because of the real estate prices. So the only way out is multiplexes.in A.P The government has given a tax holiday to these theatres.
For them the cost of maintenance and establishment are very high.. So the cost of the tickets are also high (Rs.100)compared to single theaters. (Rs. 50)
Since the prasads multiplex started about 5 years back, since then,I must have seen about 20 movies outside, rest all I have seen in Prasads.. why? .. comfort, ambiance.. Accessibility.. all the movie’s release here.
So cost is OK for me, for what I am getting..
Now I will also tell you what the problem is and I will tell you what is the way out..( this is not the only one, but surely a very important one) … in good old days.. there used to be a distributor who used to buy movies along with the theater owner , where he also used to invest little money and release the film. Now gone are those days… there are no more distributors.. there are people who control theaters.. the theaters are in the hands of few people who have taken them on lease… now these people control the releases and removal of movies.. they have hiked up the rentals so high it is next impossible for a small film maker to release a film.. because the cost involved is so high and the risk is also so high he is scared to book the theater for a longer period, thinking what if the movie doesn’t work..
The rentals for a theatre will range from
Rs. 1, 00,000 to Rs. 2, 00,000..a week. The cost of one print and publicity in one theater, will be around 60,000 to 70,000… plus his establishment costs..
How many prints and how many theaters .. 15..?.. that will be 15 prints X 70,000 + (20000 X 10 + 150000X 5)=38,00,000 + his print and other publicity about 15,00,000 = 55,00,000.
Second week – above cost minus the print cost (which is one time) .. i.e 35,00,000 is constant… so this small producer has to make at least 35,00,000 to keep his film in theaters.. Forgetting his cost and interest on his investment.. now that is a big risk…
The rental for a multiplex like Prasad’s is 20,000 per show.. now we have to book the theater in advance, so we have to decide how many shows.. Three?.. then it will be 20,000 X 3 X 7= 4,20,000.
If all the shows go full the revenue is 8,40,000.. (the risk is very high here).. if the openings are bad and expecting the movie will recover or even get a 60 % fulls after the first week… still, you have already accumulated a huge loss… added to this the multiplex work on the theory of big cinema, housefuls, so that there canteen sales are also high.. if they see that their canteen collections are bad and the movie is doing 40% Or 50% fulls.. and even if the producer is willing to take the risk… he is asked to remove the film… Why?… fall in canteen collections…
So what is the solution.. to me as a film maker..is reduce rentals of the theaters.. Then that part of the money comes to the producer, and he need not pay that much as rentals..
If he saves 50,000 on each theater that is a lot of money… that is the need of the hour..
not all college students are film junkies..and when the whole collection of Kurosawa is on your college LAN u don’t really want to watch it on a special screening..in my engineering and MBA days i was part of the club which used to screen movies..i remember “Sixth sense” had the whole audi of close to 3000 people packed. same with Matrix and Wild Things..very few turned up for The Truman show unless there was a special “late night movie” screening scheduled after that.
. same in MBA..Jaane bhi do Yaaro ..full house..Der Untergang..no one there..we even had a course where the syllabus had 15 movie viewings..nobody had heard about the selected movies so the course was scrapped..movie snobs are looked down upon i our colleges too..we have money so well go to a multiplex but well still prefer a Rab de or Chandramukhi before No smoking..
Interesting discussion here.
These are some really shocking rental costs.
Though I wonder how Prasads can run films that are not real international ’successes’ for so long? Do the rentals differ for the IMAX format films? Who pays for the heavy cost, as I don’t think the shows go full occupancy all the time.
Satish, do the rental costs vary as per the language of the films? Because that is how it works in Bangalore, the whole structure of preference affects the ticket rates, the promotion, occupancy and eventually the economics of a film.
Tushar
the ticket rates are the same for all the movies..
there are five theaters + i max Screen in Prasads.
the ticket rate is Rs.100 and the I max tickets are priced at 200..
as i told you if a movie is not collecting well they remove that film…since it is the only one in the main city right now.. it is doing well.. come next year we will have at least three more coming up, then we will see how they do
Tushar-
I think language does vary the cost of rentals in Prasads too.I can say this since I know Prasads screens tamil & malayalam movies also ( mainly in the weekend mornings ) & I’m sure in such cases the question of rentals being on the lower side seems quite likely.As far as IMAX format goes , I dont think it works similarly.Most likely it should be a combination of Prasad’s sourcing a movie from most likely a foreign company.But very often the IMAX theatre @ Prasads also screens the regular movies like a OSO, Dasavatharam etc in the regular format
( they call it large screen viewing ) instead of IMAX & probably for this the rental system would be similar to the regular multiplex screens.
Ratnakar-
I remember in my B.School days we once had a workshop on Satyajit Ray’s movies & had screened 4-5 of his movies.Out of the strength of around 300 students those days, some 50 odd people attended the same which was considered to be quite good.But yes it would be a housefull for a
“regular” movie.Apart from the engineering colleges mentioned by you there are a lot of good B.Schools where the screenings can be done with some basic publicity on campus.Of course one must consider logistics & costing as mentioned ny Satish.
Nowadays with digital cinema ( Qube & UFO) its become a lot more cost effective to have more and more centres getting access to new releases.With this scenario it surely wont hurt if the movie makers can increase/improve the way they market their movie.Did any layman even know anything about Oh!My God or a Hulla or a Tahaan?WOM is good & necessary.But WOM can be more effective if it can complement some good work already done by marketing.I think Aamir is a good example for the same.
Sethu, some films ignore the importance of music and other departments to their own disadvantage.
You need to have one factor going for you, and that better be a strong one. If not, have a couple of them, you never know what will work, take the film to groups, to anonymous groups, have them tell you how real it sounds to make money with this film. Frankly, half the films come with success/failure written on their faces, its only that we don’t accept it for some reason or the other. The 3 films you mentioned had hardly any thing going for them, so goes for many other films. So unless you are Subhash Ghai, better go by the people and respect their opinion, if 100 people are saying the film can’t work, there must be some truth to that.
At the end of the day, good cinema does succeed, but it is again a subjective term, so it is never ending. One should get the basics right, and like Satish suggested, work out the basic math, don’t be a fool in the market, know your film, and know your audience.
Tushar-
Well of course I agree with you.Any movie must have one or more strong factor going in its favour & this factor(s) must be highlighted in front of the viewers.At the end of the day unless you are able to tell the audience what the movie is all about, how do you expect people to make up their mind to watch the movie?
Subash Ghai would soon become extinct if he were to still live in his false world.Nowadays with paid previews getting arranged for a lot of movies on thursday nights, the fate of the movie gets decided very early on.Its a pity how people still go on & try projecting their movie as a success later on.Basically good marketing helps but not if the product itself is bad!!!!
Talking about marketing & promotion I must appreciate the aggressive work being done by the Sun TV group.They have ventured into film production & distribution too.Their very first movie Kadhalil Vizhunden ( tamil) was heavily promoted on the channel especially with the already popular chartbuster- ” naaku mooku” & the movie took a great opening inspite of having a new hero & heroine.Once again they seem to have repeated the act with Thenavattu which is a typical potboiler but is doing well in the B & C centres especially!!!
I completely agree with Subhasish. Screening movies in college campuses would ensure that budding people would be encouraged and that in turn would result in intelligent movies coming out..movies with meaning…not jumping and dancing and chatting…
This way originale work gets appreciated…And as a small project it would be a big hit.
The college I am studying in US, they have movie making competition for all students in the campus and everyone can enter in it… And they screen movies of all the participants….And big people come and see the winners work
“unfortunately most of our marketing whizkids, are content with just sitting in their offices and reeling off some dodgy theories which makes no sense…”…unfortunately, this statement really DOES have a lot of validity to it…i’ve spoken with many marketing and pr heads at various b’wood production homes, and it is quite sad to listen to most of them talk about marketing, and more specifically, the marketing of their films. marketing, whether one wants to believe it or not, really is significant…especially if your film doesn’t have a big star it becomes more crucial that you create a marketing strategy that helps generate enough hype to draw people into theaters to see your film. what’s really sad is that in a lot of b’wood production homes, many marketing people do not even seem to care that much about marketing their films in a manner to reach the most potential movie-goers…they seem content with the way things are going instead of finding ways to reach more members of their target audiences, or even better, find new target audiences/markets. a marketing person from a leading production home i was talking to recently mentioned how their production home mainly wishes to target NRIs…yet they don’t think online advertising and promotion is important…i asked if they have actual research to back this up and was told that their conclusions were based on informal research…personally, I think to market films (and music) integrated marketing communications is the key…you can’t just rely on one media outlet…it takes many messages from many sources to generate hype for any product. production homes seem to not even fully understand the preferences and mentality of their target audiences and how to best reach them…a lot of practitioners just come up with random theories NOT based on solid evidence…
btw, in case anyone is interested, i did a very basic bollywood research study a while back: http://passionforcinema.com/bollywood-research-study-the-details/
@ Rbehemoth
Well it would make sense to watch Dark Knight or Pirates of Caribbean or Jodha Akbar on a big screen, just for the appeal.:)
But comming to your point, well see the question here is not how many of those movies would be a hit, but at least if we spread awareness that such a movie is there, that wud be of great value.
For eg if you take Hulla, most of the critics wrote it off saying, the movie has no appeal. But when i saw the movie, i found it interesting, and appealing. Now actually how many people even know that this movie has been released.
Not all indie offbeat movies are good. Some r downright boring. But let people be given the chance to decide that. See here you are not even giving people a chance to see what the product is. So when you start to circulate these movies, at least some kinda awareness goes around. Not every one is interested in a No Smoking, in fact i would say around 70% of the junta, but let the 30% get a chance to see it, and take a call, whether movie is good, bad or ugly.
@Madhuri
Actually right down in Puri here, we have a Silver Sands movie festival, where docus, short films are displayed. It is a pretty much indie kind.
well libraries and museums are a good option, but problem is most of them are sufferign from a major fund crunch in India right now. They dont have funds for proper upkeep too, so am not sure, how far they cud go in screening movies.
Also i am not sure if housing complexes is a big idea, the audience there are mostly families, and if something like Sex,Lies and Videotap, wud be screened, there wud be a major outcry.
But yes indie movie festivals would work. But the main factor is we have to make the viewer pay for it. Most of the people attending film festivals in India are freeloaders or Babus, who come there only to watch the “Hot stuff” in movies. They want to see Euro movies for the scenes, not the movie. If some kind of reasonable pricing structure is put in place, it could attract serious movie viewers.
@ Vikas
Hmm NDTV’s Cinema Dukaan seems an interesting concept. Lets see how it works out. Well dont have anything against multiplexes, but we cant trust that model alone right now. It has its limitations.
Actually am hoping UTV does a good job with Dev D, they are turning out to be India’s Miramax, this year their output has been really excellent.
@ Pratik
Hmm the dollar theaters funda sounds good, well even down South we have that concept of A and B theaters. So after a movie completes some time in an A theater, it is given to B theater too.
Hmm will am not sure how effective student discounts wud be. In India its quite easy to fake an ID. The Richa example u given is pretty apt.
@ Satish
Well its great to hear it directly from some one who has been hands on in the field. Obviously you would have a much better perspective, as you have been on the field than me.
But Satish tell me, is it not possible to get Govt permission to start these DVD parlors or video parlors. I mean why do not the small movie makers in Tollywood, approach the Govt to take a step in this regard. There are enough movie makers like yourself, Anish, Shekar, Shekar Suri, Yeleti who could take an initiative in this regard. Again this is just an outsider viewpoint.
And thanks a lot for the Gyaan.
@ Duke
Well even if not many turn up to see the movies, at least if we create some kind of awareness it wud be fine i think. I know as of now its an uphill task. Well at least its great that there was a full house for JDBY, because i remember watching this gem in a near empty movie hall. As of now my concern is not much about Kurosawa or Truffaut, i mean even if not many see them in India, they have an audience worldwide.
My focus is mostly on the small & medium movie makers in India, and how effectively can we market their movies.
Ratnakar
In good old days movies were bought by distributors from all over the state and released. They used to buy them out right or make a part payment and the rest they used to recover from the theater revenue on a share it with the producers..
But now those buyers are not there, except for a few top stars and directors movies , rest all are released without paying anything to the producer. The print and publicity cost are born by the distributor(some times if you are lucky), he then releases the film. He recovers his cost and rentals of the theater first and then shares the profit with the producer.
Why I am telling you this is, with so much of organization and govt rules and systems, the accounts are not clear.. then how can you start a video parlors , who will monitor them who will control them.. simply they are not viable..
So what I feel is ..by being in the present system, we should promote a film, not market it.
This is only in reference to small cinema..
If an Amir khan or a Pavan kalyan film is marketed well.., then their film will fetch a better price.. and if the film is promoted well the buyers will recover their money.. there the equation is very simple.
not for small film..
Hmm Sethu and Tushar, interesting discussion going on there.
I am wondering if instead of doing a standard movie projection, how it would be if we could have a kind of Home Theater setup with DVD.
I think the costs of setting up the Home Theater, getting the DVD’s and displaying wud be lesser compared to normal projection.
The DVD Bangs in Korea i am referring to are basically Home Theater kind. And regarding WOM, Sethu i think u nailed it correct. First of all to create WOM, u need to know that the picture is there.
Tahan i believed was one movie that really deserved better visibility. It had a wonderful story, beautiful photography, music, and fab performances from the child actor and others. I wud want that kind of a movie to be marketed more as a kids movie, than crap like Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic.
Tushar actually in case of Tahaan/Hulla many people did not even see the movie. I mean let 100 people watch the movie in first place. Here its like we r not even giving people a chance to judge a movie.
Who goes to multiplexes on weekdays? Certainly not working professionals, because however much passionate i am bout movies, i cant bunk office. The crowd u will have on weekdays is most likely some bored students or youngsters with nothing else to do. And generally these movies are released at these slots. Since there is no response it is taken off. What is happening here, is even before people have seen the movie and decided about it, ur not giving the chance there.
Satish i got what u were trying to say. U had raised a point, about theater rentals reduction. So is there a way where a small movie makers body can negotiate with the Govt, act as a lobby for it?
I mean in the present scenario, is there really no way out for small movie makers, other than multiplexes?
Also one more thing Satish, one thing i observed in West, is that movies nowadays depend more on DVD rentals to recover costs, best example being Shawshank Redemption which was commercially a failure at BO, but made ground mainly due to DVD market.
So say we have a movie like Avakai Biryani, which i think commercially is a flop, is there a way it could recover costs through DVD’s and other avenues.
Sorry if i am asking too many questions.
@ Ratnakar
I completely agree with you.consider movies like Hulla or Tahaan- which are the slots the movie is likely to release in the multiplexes? ( most likely any slot before 6 P.M as from 6 P.M onwards it would be considered as prime time).So what happens is that if you dont get to watch the movie on the very first weekend of its release
( mind you lot of people even work on saturdays so its practically only sunday) you actually dont get to watch the movie at all.
Ratnakar
sorry.. there is no way out for a film like that.. if it is not good in theaters then it is not good anywhere.. That is the rule or scene here in A.P.
Any film to be successful a part of the audience has to see the film more than once.. which is the case with all big star films, the fans and people see them sometimes 10 to 15 to 20 times, Then only they go on to become hits.
But when it comes to small cinema, if a large number of people see it once it is enough to make money.. recent film Ashta Chemma, which was released was taken off after 49 days in theaters .. why?.. because the producer could see if i run this film for one more week it will go into red.
he made this film for something less that 2 crores, it recovered 4 crores.. why and how?
Simple it was promoted well.. in fact he promoted the film so well, that he recovered 75% of the cost before releasing the film… mind you , most of the cast was new.
The movie had good openings.. once you have good openings and the movie is good then it will run..
i Feel promotion is what we should talk about.. how can we come up with new ways.. how can we generate interest in the audience to come and see this film
I did my Engineering from a rural college in Kopargaon. The place had only 2 theatres.Being a movie fanatic and hating piracy, i was left with very few options if wanted to see “my kind of cinema.” I remember going all the way to Pune, or coming down to my home city of Bombay to see those movies.
But i missed gems like Phir Milenge,Khosla Ka Ghosla, Iqbal among many others.Movies like No Entry, Main hoo na among others used to run for 4-5 weeks.
So the only option was to travel. I came up with a idea, to talk to the distributor of the movie, after getting in touch with the owner of the theatre, and give him a guarantee of minimum number of seats for a particular show. Then the distributor would sometimes agree to put a matinee show for that movie.
I dont know how feasible it would be for other towns, but it was quite sucessful in Kopargaon
Let me tell you about a personal experience.Both A Wednesday & Tahaan released on the same day
) & so I had to watch both the movies on the day of release itself.Now while A Wednesday had a late night slot ( thanks to UTV) I knew I could catch it easily with friends.But in case of Tahaan the show was @ 4 P.M.Since I was free that day, I went ahead & saw it and of course liked it.But nobody else could accompany me for it.And I find out later that A Wednesday with WOM continued to run there while Tahaan got removed after a week.So how many people even saw it to generate WOM???
( 5th September 2008 ) & I used to be in Chennai at that point of time.The very next day ( 6th Sept)I was to go off for a trekking trip to Ladakh & was to return only after a couple of weeks ( interim period between job shifts
@ Satish
But isnt promotion actually a subset of marketing itself? I dont think these are actually two mutually exclusive aspects.
Sethumadhvan
it is, but in the given conditions, we should first concentrate on promotion.. Promotion is the first step, then marketing.. dont you think so?
Satish- I agree with your example of Ashta Chemma.
It was truly a “small” movie with no stars, but the way the movie was promoted helped a lot.Also positive WOM worked in its favour big time.
On a different note let me add that I really liked the makers acknowledging Oscar Wilde in the end credits as being the “inspiration” behind the movie.I guess people lot of others can take a cue from this
Yes I agree that promotion is much more crucial especially in case of the smaller movies.But I have a concern here- if the movie is being backed by a big corporate like UTV or a Big Cinemas
( like the recent telugu release Vinayakudu) promotion budgets wouldnt be an issue.What if there is no such backing?How do they manage to pull it off?
Sethumadhavan
your case study should be Ashta Chamma.
this movie was not from a big corporate or a UTV.
the producer Ram Mohan was making his first film, the directer Had a commercial flop behind him. cast as i said were new names except for Swathi( on her own she cant get any one to theaters, .. before this film)
yet the movie was promoted.. we have a success story..
Its an interesting discussion. I am personally seraching answers for same questions :-)
My analysis is, as Satish righly pointed out the missing piece in the puzzle – Distributors. We, passionate filmmakers, some of us must take a role as Distributors who can take a claculated risk and with a clear objective and a viable model.
I liked 2 ideas presented here.
1. Taking film to appreciative audience – my take on this is initially this should be for few shows and use that a promotional tool.
2. DVD-Bangs: I think that is the future of film exhibition. Extend it to marketing each day/show to a like minded group/location/family as a package.
I have seen most of the marketing folks are nor innovative and graping USP of each movie. These guys just not ready to take an extramile and test their ideas and thoughts.
Lastly,
I am very open to work on these issues with everyone.
KAMLI-My daughter – I got a print in CA/USA with english subtiles. I am ready to lend it to any takers who wants to test our theory in US.
Shh..-My second film, planning ti release Dec 26-Any specific ideas to promote the film, or somebody wants to test their new ideas pl let me know.
Great forum, and this is the crux on the problem.
Please forgive my spelling mistakes. I do it on the fly- read graping as grasping, subtiles as subtitles and crux on the problem as crux of the problem. :-)
I think too much emphasis is given on theatrical collections.There are many films which failed miserably at boxoffice which have done well in DVD sales.An example being ‘Manorama Six feet’. I think internet is a great boon for good cinema.As Ratnakar has proposed tie up with portals like Youtube is a great idea.
@ Hari
Please do mail me more details of your 2nd movie @
sethumadhavan.n@gmail.com & I’ll try to get back to you on what I feel regarding the promotion of the movie.
@ Satish
I agree with your point on Ashta Chemma.In fact even I feel Swathi post this movie ( and Subramaniapuram in tamil) has become even more popular.I have a question to you- as far as I remember Ashta Chemma released along with Ankit,Pallavi & Friends another small movie.What do you think were the differences in approach to the promotion of these two movies?I remember seeing the makers of both these movies going aggressive on the internet.
Sethumadhvan
The producer of Ashta Chemma is from IIM Ahmadabad.
he is a good friend of mine, his planning is amazing… he started the promotion of the film from casting stage, by tying up with idlebrain for casting.
Satish
Thats nice to hear.I am aware of the tie-up with Idlebrain for casting.In fact even Shekhar Kammula has done it for Happy Days if I’m not wrong.I was just going through your blog- is your friend Ram Mohan the one who helped you with script writing the same Ram Mohan who produced Ashta Chemma?
Sethmadhavan
Yes he is the same person.
@ Nidhi-23
well i think thats a great initiative from your college. But tell me one thing, what is the percentage of Indians(NRI/Desi/FOB whatever) taking part in that competition? Also how good is the awareness of Indian movies in your campus?
@ Amanda-24
Amanda u nailed it right, the basic problem with most of them, is that they just r not willing to think out of the box. Marketing or what Satish says Promotion is vital for a movie. U need to reach out to ur target audience, let em know about the movie. And i dont understand why Indian movies should be targeted at NRI’s only, i mean if Chinese,Korean movies can be shown all over US, we cud start to target more and more non Indian audiences to Indian movies.
Satish
Thats really nice to know.Is it possible to pass on his co-ordinates ( mail i.d atleast) as I would be quite eager to know the finer points on how he managed it for Ashta Chemma?I would be very eager to learn & understand from him.Of course thats only if you feel he wouldnt mind.
Whenever, I on my laptop I can’t get away except a google search ! I knw u guys r no exception. Hour b4 while doing the same abt film marketing (as I alws used 2 do) I got this one on PFC, PFC is known 2 me, bt this 1 is new. It’s amazing we guys share same kind a ideas, god knws y r still far behind in application ! I would like to thank every 1 conrtributed n who went through this discussion..m sure whoever did tht, he or she had to read all n couldn’t get away without a post. Currently, m planning to make my 1st feature film, my production house “Beyond Barriers Films” – d banner will produce d film titled
“Yeh Hai Youngistan Meri Jan” (both registered @ I.M.P.P.A) Looking forward to mae it done ! God knows d rest. I just want to tell a single thing to all of u, i.e. “when u cant plan a hit (read profit) u can always minimize ur losses” !.. all d bst guys..try 2 go 4 as much as mutual barter like sponsors u can get who will promote ur film at free n u will show them ur partner..lyk d radio channels, shopping outlets n whtevr possbl thtway u knw better ! trust it doesn’t luk alws cheap.. thnx n regards. PSC @ PFC
well, thr r several filmmakers..d person above u r bang on selecting ur film title
“Yeh Hai Youngistan Meri Jan”..thts d pulse of d youth like us..all d bst..PFC will alys b thr to help guys out..