Yeh film to super-hit hain!

How do you know that the movie will hit or a flop? My previous post talked about the various techniques used by Bollywood films namely masala movies, remakes and sequels. But one can never be sure that it will work always. Movies are personal experience for each individual. Hence it is highly subjective to find which movie will appeal to viewers and which will not. After hit movies some directors produce total flop movies. So far Indian movies are made with intuition whereas in the western part the extensive research is done on each movie before releasing. India is also experiencing some changes in this regard.

Film makers need some tool which will forecast whether the film will be accepted among the viewers or not. Marketing research companies came into picture at this point. They replicate the population using representative sample with different age, sex, economic groups. This sample is exposed with the movie and promotional material. Feedback and reviews are taken before and after. Depending on the responses right strategy is adopted.

This exercise runs about a month and is the easiest way to gauze consumer’s mind. This methodology saves possible loss, by warning in advance about the film popularity.

It may lead to the old question art for artist or art for people. Well in the world of business, it is all about the customer. Then what about the art?

I will be back

The sequel continues elements of the original story, often with the same characters and settings.

Sequels did made very late entry in Bollywood. I mean, there were few instances like Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy ( Pather Panchali , Aparajita and Apur Sansar ), Harmesh Malhotra’s failed a sequel Nigahen after the Nagina but nothing after that for a long period whereas sequels were the ‘the thing’ in Hollywood. “The Godfather”, “Harry Potter”, “Mission Impossible”, “Matrix” ,“Spiderman”, “Batman”, “Superman”, “Star Wars”, and “The Terminator” are just the names few names.

Even talking about Bollywood Barring exceptions like Mahesh Manjarekar’s Hathyaar (sequel to ‘Vastava’) and Nagesh Kukunoor’s Hyderabad Blues 2 (sequel to ‘Hyderabad Blues’) most of the sequels in Bollywood are hit. The list includes “Phir Hera Pheri” and “Krrish”, “Munnabhai MBBS”, “Dhoom”, “Sarkar”, “hanuman returns” and many films are in pipeline.

Why there is the sudden rush for making sequels?

Sequel is just extension of an existing concept. The initial concept is already bought by public. [Untill now sequels are made only if the first part of the runs successfully]. As the original film is popular and people have already accepted the characters, half the job of selling sequel is done. Even if the quality of the sequel is not comparable to its original film, goodwill of the original film will guaranty most of the ticket sales for sequel.

A hit film raises the credibility of crew helping in the financial issues for the sequel. Few companies are into business of purchasing a sequel option. Generally sequels option expires after 3-4 years, meaning sequel has to be made soon after original movie because people tend to forget quickly. Purchasing a sequel gives you all the rights to make a sequel. You may or may not make it actually.

Current trend is to make stories keeping in mind the possible future sequel.

Mamma, I want the Kkrish Tiffin box

Read here, all exhaustive history of most Bollywood merchandising. This post will look this topic from angle of the three stakeholders involve in the merchandising.

First the movie producers, the direct benefits are profits. Movies make additional revenue by selling the writes to the merchandise manufacturers for a fee. This happens most commonly with apparels, toys. Secondly, market is flooded with the movie merchandising, adding to movie publicity and recall. Third the movie remains alive in the form of the merchandise years after the movie is out of theatres.

Second stakeholder is merchandise manufacturer. Merchandise manufacturing is a big business in itself with many business houses entering into in. Movie merchandising is most of the time is success. There are instances like the toy Tutu sold extensively but film Na Tum Jaano Na Hum flopped miserably.

Finally, what does customer get out of purchasing movie merchandise?

Before going to the benefit part of customer let’s see which segment is being targeted by the movie merchandising. Looking at the nature of merchandise like fashion apparels, toys, stationary items, school items, jewellery etc. The segment that is being targeted is children and youth. Who have biggest influence of movies? Kids have competition among them to grab latest hanuman book. They don’t want to lag behind. Same with the youth they know what is happening from the films and don’t want to feel old fashioned. By grabbing film merchandise people seek attention and pride to have the esteemed belonging.

Few Hollywood movies earn more revenue from the merchandise than ticket sell. Merchandising concepts are planted right from the scripting point with consultation from the manufacturer. Signs are that the trend will soon hit in India.

Thank you for smoking

‘Thank you for smoking’ is one of few movies those made most impact on me. This movie is number one recommendation for all marketing enthusiast. Movie doesn’t take any side i.e. smoking versus non-smoking and the best thing about the movie is that there is not even a single smoking scene in entire movie.

Now, I am not going to write its story here or tell you about greatness of that movie. IMDB is best and reliable source for such stuffs. But I will write about what I learned from the movie as student of marketing. (Warning alert! May contain spoilers)

Pasting the scenes those I want to talk about. If you have seen the movie just go the end of each scene.

Lesson 1

Scene 1 –Conversation between father and son (Nick is father and Joey his son)

Joey Naylor: ...so what happens when you're wrong?

Nick Naylor: -Whoa, Joey I'm never wrong.

Joey Naylor: But you can't always be right...

Nick Naylor: -Well if it's your job to be right, then you're never wrong.

Joey Naylor: But what if you are wrong?

Nick Naylor: -OK, let's say that you're defending chocolate, and I'm defending vanilla. Now if I were to say to you: 'Vanilla is the best flavour ice-cream', you'd say:

Joey Naylor: No, chocolate is.

Nick Naylor: Exactly, but you can't win that argument... so, I'll ask you: so you think chocolate is the end all and the all of ice-cream, do you?

Joey Naylor: It's the best ice-cream, I wouldn't order any other.

Nick Naylor: -Oh! So it's all chocolate for you is it?

Joey Naylor: Yes, chocolate is all I need.

Nick Naylor: Well I need more than chocolate, and for that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe that we need freedom. And choice when it comes to our ice-cream, and that Joey Naylor, that is the defintion of liberty.

Joey Naylor: But that's not what we're talking about

Nick Naylor: -Ah! But that's what I'm talking about.

Joey Naylor: ...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best...

Nick Naylor: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right.

Joey Naylor: But you still didn't convince me

Nick Naylor: It's that I'm not after you. I'm after them." ***Points into the crowd***

Scene 2 –Inside classroom giving career tips about the ca

Kid #3: My Mommy says smoking kills.

Nick Naylor: Oh, is your Mommy a doctor?

Kid #3: No.

Nick Naylor: A scientific researcher of some kind?

Kid #3: No.

Nick Naylor: Well then she's hardly a credible expert, is she?

You will face criticism, while defending an idea which even you might not support. Believe that nothing is wrong in the world. People criticise you because you are wrong. But at the same time the one who criticising you isn’t right. When you can’t prove yourself right, your job reduces to simply proving the other party wrong.

Lesson 2

Scene 1 - In meeting

Boss: We sell cigarettes. And they're cool and available and *addictive*. The job is almost done for us!

Scene 2 - Later in meeting…

Nick Naylor: These days, when someone smokes in the movies, they're either a psychopath... or a European. The message Hollywood needs to send out is 'Smoking Is Cool!'

Everybody needs advertising, every product. Creating create image is a long process to. You can’t relax and believe that everything is going right. Your image can be dependent on something which is completely out of your control. In this example, there was no problem in the image created by advertisements but real trick was influencing external factor, the movies. Cigarettes companies did that job to perfection.

Isn’t that true for human beings too?

Evolution

Long-long-ago people used to talk, talk and talk. Then man found out the blackboard, explaining was so much easy with that. Few years later projectors were invented, making transparencies was a cool thing then. Now we are in the era of PowerPoint presentations.

All new inventions were result of the need to grab attention. Everything became repetitive and same when everyone had it. First arrival of blackboard was cool but later everybody had it, suddenly new projectors were cool, then the place was taken up by PowerPoint. Now if everyone has PowerPoint, how to be different, how to stand out of clutter, how to convey the idea?

What is next? A short movie… why not. Check out following two short movies made by two Interest Groups at IIMK to stand out from other presentation. I have my little contribution in both.

Amar Akbar Anthony & K

Nostradamus

Human mind is always attracted towards new things. Idea of presentation with the help of movies clicked. Which helped creating hype and good publicity for the IGs.

Just a thought: What will happen when even short movies will be cliche? god knows…

Catch them online

Check this link. It has links to websites of recent releases. Internet website is a relatively new promotional tool used by Indian movies.


More or less every movie website has same structure. You will hear title track or theme music in background when you open the site. You can see the sections like storyline, director’s note, cast and crew. Websites also provide downloading/viewing of movie teasers and wallpaper.

For whom?

Website promotion is mainly targeted at net-savvy, young, urban Indians. Their decisions to watch movies are influenced by online movie reviews. They prefer multiplexes for watching movies and most importantly they have disposable income to spend of leisure activities. Hence an easiest way to tap this net-savvy target segment is by catching them online.

Is it better than existing promotions?

Conventional promotions like TV/print ads have very small life. Whereas for movie websites there is no limit on life period, we can have a site running forever. Hence TV/Print ads stay only for first few weeks of release whereas website can do the job of maintaining excitement thereafter.

Websites are targeted ads rather than a mass ad. Logic behind this is the way of reaching at the movie website, either by googling it or clicking its ad-link from another website. No one is forcing us to watch it unlike TV or Newspaper where we don’t have control over content.

Cost for creating/hosting a website is very small compared to the total promotional budget, making websites one of the cheapest promotional way. Typically a superior site with decent multimedia grabs attention of person visiting the site for significant duration. Good music and interactive media of the website ensures complete attention of visitor.

What’s next?

Few sites went one step ahead by providing Links to official movie blog, Links to Orkut/Facebook communities. These virtual places provides movie-fans space to gossip about the movie which act as viral and word-of-mouth marketing.

Read next Blog for: Another recent phenomenon – Celebrity blogging

He writes blog… so cool!

It catches attention no matter how bad the actor/actress is. If you come to know about the blog, you will definitely have a sneak-peek. Blogs are most useful for actor to reach to fans which otherwise not possible. Actor can express himself, convey his message to fans. In return receive replies and reactions from readers directly.

Does it matter?

Blogs by actors came into limelight when Aamir started writing one. It reached highest publicity in media when Aamir wrote the controversial blog entry on Shahrukh khan.

Now Aamir's blog receives total media attention, everyone has close eye on what Aamir writes next. Aamir’s every blog entry is news now. See Aamir congratulates Abhinav Bindra and Blog and tackle!

Beyond reaching fans: the utility of blogs for marketing

Aamir’s blog have lot of expectations from media and Aamir lived upto expectations by providing them time-to-time stories and making them happy. Aamir invited Imran and Jenelia to write on his blog. Both of them are starcast of his own production ‘Jane Tu Ya Jane Na...’. It was enough to create gossip material for urban youth which was also target market for the film. At the same time Aamir is also creating the pre-release excitement for its forth coming movie ‘Ghajini’ using the blog. And all this advertising is coming at no cost at all.

Take example of Payal Rohatgi. She is using her blog consciously moving from her sex-symbol image to a much respected actress. She writes about her film shootings, her media appearances. The blog has mix of her family and movie photos. Agreed, she doesn't write well but after visiting her blog you will certainly look at her beyond an item-girl. Check out yourself.

Now the downside!

If you are celebrity, you do not have 'freedom of speech'. You need to have strict control over your expression. It might not matter for Aamir to make any comments on Shahrukh but for anyone else it might backfire.

You need to maintain regular frequency of blog-posts, any laziness of this front will lead to reduced interest of blog-readers. Blog will die along with its popularity if loyal readers are not provided daily dosages of blog-posts. Bloggers know that it is not an easy task.

Other Bloggers

Check out the list of Bollywood bloggers (Lot of efforts went into searching of them). Many of these blogs have specific purpose of existence, some obvious, some are beyond obvious.

Amitabh Bachchan

Aamir Khan

Ram Gopal Varma

Payal Rohatgi

Anurag Kashyap

Rahul Khanna

Shekhar Kapoor

Karan Johar

Art of Product Placements

It is very common in movies these days. Broadly, Product placement is classified as

1. That provides only clear visibility (product/brand name shown)
2. That is used in scene
3. That has spoken reference
4. That provides hands-on use and mentioned by a main star

Most Indian films make mistake of going for the last type of product placement and spoil everything (Read my last post Advertisements within movie). There is art of product placement which is perfected by very few Indian films. One such good example is ‘Hum Tum’ directed by ‘Kunal Kohli’. The film placed within products like Times of India, Kodak, Fanta and Lays.

Saif Ali khan was shown as Times of India cartoonist. ‘Hum Tum’ cartoons were published in TOI even before film was released and continued to appear till the movie was running. These cartoons were successful in creating curiosity about movie. Movie was hit on box-office. And cartoon strips were smash-hit and are forwarded over e-mails till the date. Recent news is that Yash Raj films are making cartoon series of Hum Tum over television. Film has 2-3 highest points, film freezes at those points. Photo-clicking sound along with ‘Kodak’ moment appears on these screens.

I liked the films over its Hollywood inspiration ‘When Harry met Sally’. Film didn’t do foolishness of placing newspaper now-and-then neither hero explained the efficiency of Kodak cameras. Everything seemed real and nobody was making any conscious efforts of popping up products. Movie also had Saif eating Lays and Rani drinking Fanta. Both the brands are completely match to their personality and didn’t look odd to eyes. All the brands were blended so well with the films story that it becomes the part of the movie. Product placements of such type benefit both the parties’ brands as well as the movie. I am of the personal opinion that product placement should not play with film’s aesthetics.

But now comes the main question, will the advertisers be agree to spend lot of money for glimpses of their product in some corner of film-frame which may or may not catch viewer’s attention.

This lead to the fundamental question, ‘Does subliminal advertising work?’

Advertisements within movie

Hindi films have advertisements and not subtle product placements like Hollywood movies. I was thinking of giving an exaggerative example this. The movie which came to my mind was Virudh, Directed by Mahesh Manjarekar and acted by Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila, John Abraham and Sanjay Dutt.

I knew the film mastered in awful placement of products. But was not able to recollect anything, but writing scenes was necessary for highlighting my point. I took little help of the Yeh picture kyun bani... and I am very Virudh product placements for writing on the advertisements in movie.

• Elf lubricants: Ever seen all the mechanics at a service station togged out in spotless navy blue Elf lubricant overalls? Standing under an Elf signboard?? There's a small lecture thrown in too - on the importance of using the 'correct' engine oil.
• Nerolac paint: Mera beta do saal ke baad London se aa raha hai! So, Papa and his four friends - all age 60 and above - paint the house. They can afford Nerolac emulsion but not a painter. Nerolac's commercial plays in the background as Amitabh Bachchan paints the house to welcome his son back from the US.
• Western Union money transfer: Amitabh asks Sharmila - 'Aap ke paas paanch hazaar rupaye hain? Lawyer ki fees deni hai". Then he reminisces... how his son used to send him money from London (most students I know of ask their dads to send them money nut never mind!)

Son on the phone from London: Dad ek short code hota hai ...
Dad: Mujhe paise mil gaye
Son: Itni jaldi?
Dad: Yes, thanks to Western Union
Or well, something like that....

• Calcium Sandoz: Amitabh offers Sharmila Calcium Sandoz during the movie to keep her bones healthy. The bottle is distinct in all the scenes. Later in the movie Amitabh shoots son's murderer and is arrested and giving deeply moving speech - there is again a praise of Calcium Sandoz, Calcium Sandoz???!!! I mean this is a part of the dialogue. Products hit in this movie when you’re down and in a teary-eyed moment.

Good script, great actors, finest director
+
Excessive advertisements (not a product placement)
=
Bad movie experience

Such shabbily-handled product placements are not useful for products. Rather, there is possibility that such placements will backfire and products can be hit to negative feelings of disappointment with movie. Consumers watch to movies to watch movies and not commercials. Hence product placement should be intelligent enough to be a commercial.

Found this funny post on same subject - Bollywood making idiots out of automobiles
Worth reading :)

See next post for: Movie that perfected product placement.

Come on we don’t copy! It is inspired.

I initially thought of writing on all the movies those were copied from the Hollywood. I sat and Listed few names which I knew. After searching on internet, I found that this research work has already been done.

Link 1 : Bollywood Inspirations
Link 2 : Bollywood films and plagiarism
Link 3: Whose movie is it anyway?

I am feeling cheated after reading the list. I was sad after reading names of movies which I rated as great. Bollywood is notorious for copying (Read: getting inspired) the music, plot, scenes and sometimes entire movie frame-to-frame.

Reasons

• You do not require brain.

• Many producers want to repeat the success of the films that is hit somewhere. It is highly likely that the remake will also be hit. Most reasons of copying are same as motive behind masala movies (Read to my earlier post on psyche behind masala movies)

• There is no threat of punishment from coping, you simply copy and forget.

But as the bollywood market size is growing, even west will have eye on the India. In the past, there were talks of sony sueing Indian partner for copying 'Hitch' , but it dint not happen. But suppose if such things happen, it will be act as to all copies thereafter.

Actually, one unsuccessful suing attempt was done in past on ‘Karishma’ serial telecasted on ‘Sahara Television’. Author ‘Barbara Taylor Bradford’ claimed the serial was based on her novel.

Author lost, thanks to Sahara lawyers. It saved India’s face in front of entire world. Let’s hope judiciary systems will favour India like this always.

Yeh India hain bhai.. yahan toh aisehich chalta hain…

3 things that Indians are crazy about are... cricket, politics and movies. You be in any of these and be sure you have lots of money and celebrity status. Few even reach position of god. But at the end it’s all business. More money you put, the more you get. And film industry is not exception to it. A lot of money is being spent on making movies. 50-core movie budget doesn’t raise the eye-brows anymore. Actors don’t talk below cores.

Pouring huge amount of money in movies is increasing but the quality is not. Many failed to understand what happened to the Indian cinema which had glorious past of creating great films which reduced to dumb, senseless bollywood masala movies. It is not that India was deprived of talent for all these years. Everything was done with some purpose … and that is business. Let’s see how.

Customer is god.

But we need consumer. Who is consumer of movies? If you think that the answer is everyone. It is not. Everybody watch a movie but not everyone is paying for it. From a producer’s point of view the very first customer is distributors, whose customers are theatre owners whose customers are people who go to theatres to watch movies. So, ultimate consumers who matter the most for producers are people who go to theatre for watching movies.

[For those who are unheard of this marketing lingo, consumer and customer are two different concepts. To explain in simple words, ‘customer purchase a product’ and ‘consumer is consumes it’. For example, Mother buys dairy milk chocolate for kids. Here, Mother is customer for dairy milk and kids are consumers.]

The point that I want to make out from above discussion is movies are NOT made for people who watch it on television channels or on pirated CDs. But for the people who take trouble to come to cinema hall to watch it.

Well that doesn’t mean that this is ‘the’ only way of making money. Producer can sell overseas rights, broadcast rights, music rights and etc. But money earned by the other means is function of success at the box-office or to be precise prospects of the film’s success at the box-office. As many of the rights are sold before movie is released.

What consumer wants?

[I tried to get hands on some study on which did profiling of people who go to theatre and what takes them to theatres. Unfortunately I didn’t found anything. So I will make a profile based on my understanding.]

Prominent segments are college-crowd at weekdays and families at weekends. Both of the segments look at the movies as mean of entertainment. They want spend some time away from their routine problems. Movies show them what they just can dream about. Big houses, trip to foreign, sensuous girls, comedy situations, item number, and good wins over bad. But this what the consumer wants? No one is interested in watching the cruel social reality of what is happening around. That they see anyways on newspapers and channels. They are in cinema hall for 3 hours of fun. And no one can do entertainment job better than a masala movie. Considering that Indian viewer is not yet mature it makes logically sensible to put your money in masala movies.

[Let’s finish the post with bollywood-style-ending…]

Masala movies are past, now things are changing….

Off-beat movies like ‘Lagaan, ‘Rang De Basanti’, ‘Swades’ ‘Chak De India’ and ‘Taare Zameen Par’… are well accepted by audience….

This will prompt more film makers to take up and this will bring revolution …

Movie lovers will be freed from evil crutches of masala movies…

And Indian cinema will get back its past glory….

OKEY… it was just a too-good-end-to-be-real… But isn’t what movies do too… selling dreams...

I have got the formula…

Lately Indian movie producers believed in giving value for money to all its viewers. They found out a formula for films which is followed blindly over the years till now. The formula is “Masala film” (A mixture of many spices). A Masala Movie will have comedy, drama, romance, action, and a dozens of songs. A mixture of all the elements required to make a box-office-hit-movie. Unlike western movies, a masala movie cannot be easily classified under single genre. They believe if you mix all elements at right quantity. It’s not that India forgot its legacy of making thought-provoking films; just the numbers of such films were countable using fingers (might be of just one hand… ).

A typical story for a masala movie will have a handsome-young hero with muscles-and-dancing-abilities, young-beautiful heroin with perfect-figure-and-insufficient-cloths, dream sequence at foreign locations, cunning villain creating numerous hurdles for hero, songs after regular interval as short toilet breaks, a comic character which pops out time-to-time, an item-number from item-number-specialist [ ;)] , a deadly fight sequences with villain, ends of hero-heroin meeting each other and living happily thereafter.

Some tried to have uniqueness by trying permutation-combination of rich-guy-poor-gal, poor-guy-rich-gal. Some movies changed villain by parents, gangster, dacoit, politician, police, second-girl-in-love-tringle, second-guy-in-love-tringle.

A (mis-)management case : Is there really a formula?

Some years ago management guru (self-proclaimed!) Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM fame) announced in the press that he has found a magic formula to succeed at the box office. And his new movie is going to be a smash-hit. Read the old news article here

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/890576.cms

Story after that: He released an extremely unbearable movie called Rok Sako To Rok Lo (RSTRL). The movie was a super-duper-flop everywhere. And with this so called scientific approach, exhaustive marketing research, focus groups analysis, failed along the movie miserably.

Very few films try break out from this year-old success (so called??) formula of masala movie to make different kind of movies. But a point to ponder is success ratio of these off-beat films is much higher than all the masala movies made ever.

Read next post for: Psyche behind Masala Movies.

The story of Indian Cinema

It all started with Dadasaheb Phalke’s ‘Raja Harishchandra’ in the year of 1913. This first Indian film was hit and the formula was replicated in scores of films in later years. Noteble ones are Satyawan Savitri, Satyavadi Raja Harischandra, Lanka Dahan, Shri Krishna Janma and Kalia Mardan. All these mythological were based on the epic stories of god and goddess with lot of drama.

Indian cinema learned to talk with Alam Ara produced by Ardeshir Irani in the year1931. Needless to say singing and dancing soon followed it. At the same time, Mumbai was rising as a hub of Indian film Industry.

Movies of thirties and forties were social type mainly contributed by V Shantaram, a legendary director. His films took up issues like like cast system, religious bigotry and women's rights. Ayodhya ka Raja, Amirt Manthan, Dharmatama, Kunku, Admi, Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, Do Ankhen Barah Haath.

Next era of Indian cinema was associated with director such as Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt and Mehboob. Cinema of this period dealt with subjects like caste, feudalism, rural India, urban migration. These include Guru Dutt's Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, Raj Kapoor's Awara, Shri 420 and Jagte Raho, and Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zameen, Devdas and Sujata, to mention a few.

Popular movies of the seventies and eighties movies were had lots of dhishum-dhishum scenes (read it as fighting). Hero was typically a common working-class angry-young man who stands against the corrupt system. These movies were just reflection of the sentiments of rising workers, students at that time.

This was the broad classification based on the subjects that cinema handled. Many remember these periods based on the actors’ at those times like Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bacchan. But I felt it is more important to know what changes cinema went through rather than who made the changes.

Read next post for: Suddenly after this, every Indian movie produced fall under only one genre. It was beginning of Masala Movies.