Quite a handful of promotions

After ringtones, Bollywood is now tapping cell phones for a range of offers

Saurav Shah, a Mumbai-based 19-year old engineering student had downloaded a logo of "Yeh Dil Maange More", a recently released Hindi movie onto his Nokia 3220 handset.

In less than 10 minutes, he was one of the winners of the contest to promote the movie. And the prize? To spend a day with the leading ladies of the film.

Two months ago, Arindam Choudhary's debut Hindi film "Rok Sako to Rok Lo" was viewed a day before by at least 6,000 Airtel subscribers. Yashraj Films' "Veer Zaara" had tied up with Reliance Mobile which had two phones on offer "� Veer and Zaara.

Welcome to Bollywood mobile, the latest gimmick that the Rs 1,000-crore film industry has latched on to. Says Rajjat Barjatya, executive director at Rajshri Films, "For us it is a new medium to connect with our viewers and monetise the medium as well."

Why is Bollywood wooing cell phone users big time? Because of the sheer growth in mobile users, from 30 million last September to over 40 million user today. Numbers like these are what Bollywood considers to be its potential viewers.

That's why Rajshri Productions recently signed on with Mauj, a mobile content provider, to design games, wallpapers and screen-savers for some of its hits including "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun" and the evergreen "Nadiya ke Paar".

Yash Raj Films is still counting money from its hit single "Dhoom" "� the ringtone that is believed to have been downloaded more than a lakh times. A mobile application seems to be on the mind of every moviemaker as a means of promotion.

They are not the only ones. Even other film houses like Ram Gopal Verma Corp and Planman Media Life Consulting are looking at exploiting mobile applications to the hilt.

Kacun Sethi, chief operating officer, K Sera Sera Productions says, "We want to cater to the needs of the growing mobile population by creating entertainment applications revolving around Bollywood themes."

It has tied up with Mauj.com to create mobile content for nine of its forthcoming films. This will then be provided to various service providers.

According to Vishal Gondal, chief executive officer of Indiagames, a content developer for computer and mobile games, mobile is no longer just a device to receive and make calls.

"It's an entertainment device, hence it is logical for services likemovies, sports and music to share space on this platform. And Bollywood has always cut across all boundaries in the country," he says.

Adds Alok Kejriwal, chief executive officer of Contests2win, an online contest site, that is an investor in Mobile2win, "Owning film content is very aspirational because it is Bollywood on demand."

This is something that mobile operators realised in 2001, when they heralded their Bollywood entry with movie ringtones.

Vishal Maheswari, chief operating officer of Yahoo! India Mobile remembers: "When the first set of ringtones were offered, it was considered a novelty. Today, even as subscribers have grown, the improved quality of handsets allows for clarity of visuals as well."

According to him, this has now fuelled the growth of other segments in Bollywood that include screen-savers, wallpapers, logos and games.

Cellular operators are also constantly upgrading their services in this segment. While an Airtel live service has the Hello Tunes which allow actual songs to be played as ringtones and playback tones, Hutch has developed a Bollywood portal that facilitates downloads, interviews, gossip and the works of the entertainment industry.

Reliance World allows you to catch the movie trailers. Industry estimates expect this niche segment to grow to Rs 130 crore this year, up from Rs 45 crore last year.

Mobile has endless possibilities according to industry experts. Arun Gupta, chief operating officer of Mauj that works with leading film production for games and screen-savers and wallpapers says, "Mobile can allow streaming of movies on your handset. Internationally, there is also a trend of Memory Cards (MMC) that once inserted in your phone allows you to watch your favourite movies any time."

Gondal, whose company specialises in developing computer and mobile games says, that gaming possibilities from movies are endless if they have a script that can be transferred to a mobile game. The future is interactive movie viewing and mobile is poised to be one of the tools.

But is Bollywood ready to exploit all of this?

"Not really," says Saurabh Sinha, business manager at media buying agency Starcom's sister concern Digicorp India, that looks after media spends on the digital medium. According to him, India may have a huge subscriber base, but the number of people having a high end phone like Nokia's Ngage or a GPRS-enabled handset would form a minority.

Secondly, many film producers still view it as another medium of film promotion, and hence do not consider it a serious medium of promotion.

 Gondal also has experiences where Bollywood producers have come to him four weeks before a film's release to develop a mobile content. This is unlike the west, where mobile content is developed six months prior to a film's release.

Then, Maheshwari feels that currently, the market is driven by volumes rather than margins because people are price sensitive. Hence the Bollywood category is still dominated by ringtones which form 70-90 per cent of the revenues for the operators, content developers and creative owners, according to media owners and content developers.

But the players are optimistic. They all claim that once the high end sets become cheaper and accessible, it is only a matter of time when you can watch Shahrukh or a Hrithik shaking a leg on your mobile. Quite a handful, isn't it?