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