Movie Marketing in India

Executive Summary

The Indian film industry has been going through a sea change in its attitude. Multiplexes are fast dotting up the metros and are slowly realizing the potential of even the smaller areas. Today, there are far more avenues to make money out of a movie than just its box office earnings. DVD releases, music launch, merchandise, overseas distribution rights etc all form a part of the earnings. This has been a slow process which has taken off only recently.

For a long time, producers had been inconsequential in the marketing of films to consumers, which often resulted in many good films failing to do well. But with the entry of satellite TV and foreign films into the domestic Indian entertainment market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Bollywood films to earn the numbers it used to.

Also, with the industry's international profile getting a boost, a number of Bollywood production companies have started taking marketing of their films seriously.

At its core, a movie is just a concept and its marketing is akin to being a prototype of the concept. The movie promos and publicity try to form an 'image or perceived quality' of the movie in the minds of the consumer. It tries to convey to the consumer, what sort of quality and attributes the movie will have. Here, it competes with prototypes of other movies in the customer's mind space and in the process hopes to sell the product in the future by extracting a 'promise to buy'. The function of marketing is not that of simply 'launching' the film, although the launch plan is very crucial. A well developed research, marketing and feedback system can be beneficial to a film throughout the entire process - from generation of ideas to post release period of the movie.

While selling a product, it should be kept in mind that 'who' you are selling the product is as important as what you are selling. Hence, proper targeting and communication is a very important component of the entire marketing plan. Also, targeting psychographic segments can help to communicate the idea faster, thus helping the film to succeed. Further, it is important that some demographic groups (women, youngsters etc) must be targeted since these have a lot of say in the consumer behaviour of an entire group. About 70% of the buying decisions are made by women and 36 % of the population in our country is between the age group of 5-25 yrs. This data itself gives an idea of the enormous potential segmentation has as far as marketing is concered.

As of now, movie marketing is just focused on getting the audience out on one weekend. And by using the right tactics, if the producer's manage to create hype about the movie and then cash on it. A large share of the credit of a hit today goes to the marketing whizkids in the production companies. In fact, a number of B-school graduates are being hired by big production companies to take care of the marketing of their movies.

Since today's young audience is very receptive of new technological advancements, movie marketing online is huge globally and is picking up in India as well. Marketing movies over the Internet offers advertisers a wide range of choices such as web sites design for movies, online reviews, video trailers, bulletin boards, email, etc.

Still, its role will be tertiary or secondary at best when compared to traditional media.

With the satellite TV, television and imported foreign films making huge inroads into the domestic Indian entertainment market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Bollywood films to earn the numbers it used to. These losses in the domestic markets are now being balanced by the increasing returns from theatres in Western countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, where Bollywood is slowly getting noticed. This is because of the increasing number of Indians migrating to these countries. In addition to this, foreign audience for Bollywood movies in East Asian and Western countries is also growing slowly.

In short, movie marketing is only going to get more expensive and more competitive in the near future and marketers will continue to explore creative uses of the available technology.

Introduction

Earlier, with no other entertainment option available to the public, movies experienced a golden age, at least commercially. But the onset of liberalization in the early 90s saw a sudden increase in the entertainment options available to the public, apart from movies. And assuming that public, i.e. the consumers have fixed amounts of time and resources allocated towards leisure activities, movies face much more competition against them now then ever before.

The Indian film, industry will be worth around Rs.100 billion by 2008, according to a report by FICCI released recently. Here, Bollywood alone churns out around a thousand films a year, making it the second largest motion picture industry in the world. But ironically an industry with highest mass appeal in this country, has, until recently, hardly paid much attention to marketing. For a long time, producers had been inconsequential in the marketing of films to consumers, which often resulted in many good films failing to do well. All the while, there have been instances of average films doing well because of the smart marketing strategies employed by its producers and distributors just before their release. Over the past few years, with the industry's international profile getting a boost, a number of Bollywood production companies have started taking marketing of their films seriously.

Whenever asked, 'watching movies' is one of the most common hobbies amongst the populace. People don't necessarily watch movies because they are marketed to them -- they watch them for the entertainment value they have. Hence, it becomes relatively easier to attract attention of an already interested audience. The theatrical release of movies is unique, because its formula for success relies on building a brand in a few weeks. While press and buzz are important, heavy advertising is a requirement to drive awareness, favorability and to finally pull the audience to theatres. Recently, a lot of producers have started to market or brand their movies as a product just like other fast moving consumer goods.

Project Objective

The function of marketing is not that of simply 'launching' the film, although the launch plan is very crucial. A well developed research, marketing and feedback system can be beneficial to a film throughout the entire process - from