Branding catches Bollywood flavour

Companies are promoting brands via films

With brand managers running out of innovative ways to promote their brands, it was only a matter of time before Bollywood stepped in, to fit in their scheme of things.

While in-film placements have been popular for quite a while now, the new favourite seems to be co-branded lines.

Fashion brand Provogue has tied up with the producers of the forthcoming movie Rang de Basanti and launched a special range of clothes designed on the movie, which has just hit the stores.

"The movie is about the youth, who are also our target profile," said Arti Poddar, general manager (marketing), Provogue, adding "so our special range too has a lot of colour and graffiti. What's most important is that the brand identity should fit with the movie."

This trend has been popular with the jewellery brands as well, with Tanishq pioneering a tie-up with Paheli last year to launch a special range, which was also used in the movie.

"This proved to be a big growth driver for us, and if we find similar synergies where our brand fits in well with the movie, we would be open to similar tie-ups," said V Govindraj, general manager (marketing), Tanishq.

Most recently, D'damas joined hands with a newly released movie, Zinda, and introduced a special range under its Glitterati brand. Mehul Choksi, chairman, Gitanjali, who markets the brand, said with brands getting more popular in semi-urban and rural areas, movies are the best way to reach out to the masses.

Titan too had a special co-branded range with The Rising, which starred its brand ambassador Aamir Khan. This is also a viable option for brands if they decide to associate with the movie after it has been completed.

Since the majority of these ranges are for a limited period, it translates into fast sales for the companies. Sanjeev Agrawal, president (marketing), Pantaloon Retail, which had similar tie-ups with movies for its clothing range, had a relevant point to make.

"The success of such ventures is almost entirely dependent on the success of the movie," he said, which could be one reason why companies have been slow to take this route.