When it comes to arousing interest surrounding a movie release amongst Indian movie-loving audiences, the trick has been to connect the audiences’ love for the celebrity starring in the movie. The recent Bollywood marketing scenario has also seen hyping the movies through its music and Instagram reels.
Take a look at Bollywood movies like ‘Zara Hatke Zara Bachke’. Rather than talking about the subject matter explored within the movie, the buzz had been created purely through its trending songs that eventually became hard to miss.
Zee Studios’ Head of Marketing, Neeraj Joshi believes it's effective in terms of getting the presence going. However, he underlines that the issue with Bollywood when it comes to movie marketing is that they tend to assume that presence and noise create demand and appeal.
“Reels are important, but I would say they are a support medium, they are a reminder medium. They are being looked upon as a must-do activity. I would look at it as a good to-do activity.”
Movie Marketing ft. Zee Studios
Zee Studios has a roster of films amassing regions, languages, and genres with movies like Raazi, Manikarnika, The Kashmir Files and regional language movies like Jersey and more.
The production house’s latest release Gadar 2 has been marketed for the mass audience by selling the characters of Tara Singh and Sakina as relatable yet someone who can be rooted for.
Pitching the characters’ ‘grass rootedness’ came through on-ground activations globally where actors Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel could be seen visiting cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Indore, Ahmedabad, Dubai and more for events, interviews and fan meets.
They also hosted a music concert for the film in Delhi, created murals of the characters, and created several challenges for the audience, including the ‘Hand Pump Challenge’ by installing an actual handpump in malls so movie-goers could unveil their inner Tara Singh.
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They also remastered and re-released the first movie ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ in 4k and added a post-credit scene to tease the sequel. As of today, the movie has amassed a box office collection of Rs. 482.45 crores.
The secret recipe to the movie was that its marketing didn’t rely on media. Joshi mentions that they took a regional approach and marketed the movie as an ‘election campaign’ owing to Southern films and audiences’ love for them.
“More than 70% of the marketing budget went into on-ground activations, which were followed by social and then display. We used a lesser number of mediums as compared to any other general Bollywood film. Whatever happened socially after that, we wanted to keep it organic.”
Their on-ground commitments for different regions came from a cross-pollination of Telegu, Tamil and Punjabi film industries and unlearning everything they knew about marketing in Bollywood, continues Joshi.
He further comments that this is a lesson they have learned from the Southern marketing playbook, which doesn’t rely on influencer marketing but rather on the stars and characters’ interactions with the fans.
Learning from Hollywood’s marketing strategy
Joshi notes that Hollywood movies have a clear communication strategy across territories and regions when it comes to marketing. On the other hand, Bollywood’s concern is that they have started taking the easy way out for movie marketing campaigns, be it communications, creatives or media wherein films are unable to connect.
Awareness about the mediums is there, but the application matters. When it comes to application, he mentions how the message needs to be the medium rather than the medium being the medium. That’s something that Bollywood needs to learn.
“I wish Bollywood was a little more fearless in applying higher-risk media approaches or campaign strategies. It’s possible to fail but it’s also possible to win big.”
This can clearly be seen with the success of Hollywood movies like ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ and even series like ‘Wednesday’ and ‘Stranger Things’ as they showed the world the impact marketing can have.
The extensive marketing plan, including collaborations with brands, the organic traction created for Barbenheimer through friendly competition, and the focus on the characters taking center stage, has resulted in a box office collection of over $ 2 billion worldwide.
India as a country is good at scaling and making its presence known; however, as it becomes easier to communicate through various accessible mediums, Joshi draws the conversation to a close by saying the risk is not being able to communicate properly, and this is something Bollywood needs to learn.
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