Hard sell in Bollywood

Film producers houses are finally using every trick in the book to hawk their movies

In early 2004, those who watched "Jassi," Sony Entertainment Television's (SET) popular serial, would have seen Jassi's colleagues discuss and hotly debate a cartoon strip. One fine day the cartoonist visits Jassi's office and has a tete a tete with her. The cartoon strip in question? "Hum Tum" "� two characters who were part of the movie of the same name. The cartoonist? Actor Saif Ali Khan.

For television programme viewers, Khan and the cartoon strip might have been a mere diversion. But Yash Raj Films (YRF) had just marketed one of its films on a television programme.

The selling of "Hum Tum" is not an isolated instance. In the last three years, film marketing has come to occupy centrestage. Newer film makers such as Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and Ram Gopal Verma are creative, market savvy "� and are beginning to look at branding films seriously. They're doing this through corporate tie-ups, sponsorships and merchandising, in the process opening some new revenue streams too.

Film producers used to rely on posters and radio spots for film promotion. No more. Now films are promoted through interactive websites, contests and offline events.

"Hum Tum," for example, was promoted via the comic strip in "Jassi." Alpana Mishra, business head at Leo Entertainment, cites the case of "Kaante" "� six actors in the movie drank Thums Up and Coke promotions used stills from the movie. Britannia sponsored a "Lagaan" cricket match just after the movie was released.

Film producers are also hiring young men from business schools to professionalise film marketing. Men like Tarun Tripathi, head of marketing  at YRF, have realised that films have to be treated as a consumer product.

An MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Lucknow, Tripathi joined YRF two years ago. Says he: "When I joined YRF, I had a tough time asking questions like the return on the investment (ROI) in promotions." Rangita Nandy, creative director of Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC), works with advertising agencies to promote films.

Several ad agencies have been quick to cash in on the chance to market movies. Leo Burnett was among the first to set up Leo Entertainment in 2001.

Starcom entered the world of film marketing with Ram Gopal Verma's "Ek Hasina Thi" and has chalked out marketing plans for movies such as "Ab tak Chappan" and the forthcoming Amitabh-Abhishek Bacchan starrer "Viruddh." Explains Leo Entertainment's Mishra: "Like film makers, ad agencies are also in the business of ideas."

Pranay Anthwal, head of Starcom Media, points out that ad agencies are putting some structure to film marketing. The agencies prefer working with a film right since from its inception.

For example, when Leo Entertainment worked for Ravi Chopra's "Baghban," the agency was given a complete idea of the script and the director's vision which centred on what parents expect of their children.

The agency then coined the phrase for the film "Can you depend on your family?" The agency also used a Holi sequence from the movie for the detergent, Tide.

Film producers are also earmarking a bigger portion of their budgets for marketing their movies. Ten years ago, producers earmarked Rs 25-30 lakh for posters, promotions and radio spots.

Today, Nandy says it is around 150 per cent of a film's production cost. That's still small beer by Hollywood standards. According to an Ernst & Young report for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Hollywood spends 34 per cent of its film costs on marketing and promotion versus approximately 10 per cent in India.

If movie makers are spending much more on marketing, it's for several reasons. The days when a film celebrated its golden jubilee are over "� film makers are ecstatic if a movie completes a 100-day run in theatres.

Says Nandy: "Many years ago there was a mass audience for every film. Today there are entertainment options. So it is getting difficult to pull audiences to cinema houses."

Topping such problems, a huge number of movies flop at the box office. Of the 226 Hindi movies released last year, just two per cent of them made money.

This year, trade analysts  expect a flop ratio of 97 per cent "� that is, just three 3 out of every 100 movies will recover a decent sum. Says Subhash Ghai, film maker and head of Mukta Arts: "Despite the dismal rate of returns, the cost of production is high, with expensive technicians and the works."

But marketing alone cannot guarantee a film's success. Ghai cites the example of Sooraj Barjatya's "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun" which was released with only 10 prints, had no publicity "� and went on to make history.

He argues that if a film is good, it hardly needs marketing. He has a point: if a film is bad, even the best of marketing cannot save  it from bombing at the box office.