Total co-branded marketing media spend for Hindi films Rs 100

The total co-branded marketing media spends for Hindi films have reached approximately Rs 100 crore a year, according to a report.
In the past 10 years, film-brand associations have steadily increased with the only dip coming in 2008 when the entire economy was hit by recession and there was a dip of around 2 per cent in co-branded marketing associations, as per the report titled 'Showbiz'.
The report, prepared by ESP Properties, the sports and entertainment programming arm of media agency GroupM, stated that the year 2017 has seen a similar dip, perhaps due to various economic reforms in India and digital content increasing its share.

"Between 2014 to 2016, we saw a steep increase in associations in sync with the rise in number of films. In-film and co-branded marketing associations nearly doubled. In 2017, though, we saw it coming downwards. Like many high-value businesses, the co-marketing sphere too was impacted with the demonetisation that hit India in November 2016. The last quarter of the year was marked by a sudden decrease in advertising media spends and hence co-branded marketing associations dipped as well," it said.
The report observed that over the years, more brands tied up with films through co-branded marketing associations than in-film associations. The former route allowed brands to replace their existing communication with a fresh one, directing the planned media spends towards the tie-up.

It pointed out that of all films released in India across languages, approximately a fifth of them are being used by brands for co-marketing.

The report noted that many youth-centric brands preferred Hollywood movies to connect to their target audience despite foreign films not giving them in-film integration options.
Almost 30 per cent of the total Hollywood releases in 2017 had brand associations, while Hindi films saw a decline in the number of brand associations from 2016 as the number of releases also declined drastically, it said.
Regional cinema too has seen a rise in brand association and in 2017, over 15 per cent of the films released in South India had brands associated with them, while Marathi films have seen a phenomenal growth in last three years and in 2017, almost 16 per cent films had brand associations.

FMCG, apparel and e-commerce are categories that are most active in in-film integrations and co-branded associations. Among these three, FMCG tops the brand integration charts.
"From 2015 to 2017, there was at least one co-branded campaign for FMCG every month. There have been around 13 brands active in this category across genres and films," it said.
The report noted that brand categories or sectors that are warming up to film tie-ups go way beyond fashion and electronics.