First click, first show

Even films are now using Internet as a promotional tool.

Now that "word of mouse" is louder than its decibel level would suggest, marketers are turning to the Internet as a promotional device. This was to be expected. But marketers of mass-market fare such as popular cinema? That's a whole lot more interesting.

Notable experiments last year were Apaharan, which had its female lead star Bipasha Basu "" supposedly "" running her own weblog to entreat surfers to a watch, and Mangal Pandey: The Rising, which had an interactive weblog for its lead actor Aamir Khan to explain what the film was all about.

Both these films proved controversial for varied reasons, and though they did reasonably okay at the box office, the jury is still out on the role of the weblogs.

Anyhow, the idea has not been abandoned, and that's a sign of continued faith in the value of pre-launch discussion even amongst surfers who prefer anonymity. Khan's latest film, Rang De Basanti (RDB), is also going the blog way in concert with MSN Spaces, a web service that enables blogging, picture sharing and much interactivity.

According to Krishna Prasad, head-programming, MSN India, "The star cast of Rang De Basanti, including Aamir Khan, Soha Ali, Madhavan, Alice and a few others, will interact with their fans through a blog. Fans can post questions, comments et al, and get feedback from the cast as well. This apart, we will also be showcasing the premiere of the movie live on our site via web-casting."

Filmmakers and internet services profess satisfaction at the arrangement. It's win-win, they say. While the filmmaker is happy that his movie is being talked about, in whatever way, the web-service gets a sudden surge in its number of users, apart from the promotion fee payment.

In Prasad's experience, such a promotion can give a web service a 20 per cent jump in daily visitors. Some of these may be people who have never gone online before, but have a passionate opinion to air on a film.

"This medium is gradually becoming mainstream," he adds, pleased that film ads have encouraged other mass-media advertisers to try the internet for the first time. MSN has gained Sahara One, Reid & Taylor and Yamaha, which have put their TV commercials on the site for online viewing.

However, there's no denying that low internet usage in the country limits the reach of such promotional fare. Also, MSN users are mostly in the age-group of 21-32, so the demographic slice is very thin, not to mention a possible psychographic mismatch between geeks and romantics.

Still, it is a big audience for entertainment, and other players such as Pos Online Services are packing commercial messages into such services as voicemail. That said, India still doesn't have any major campaign success to report that was carried out exclusively on the Internet. So, as

Santha John, managing director of Mindset:eyw Advertising, puts it, this "wonderful medium for advertising is best used only as a complementary medium".