Movie marketing

Movies are an ever green craze in India. Stardom is equal to God. The cultural impact they have on Indian life and major role they play in our conversations are immeasurable. Today, I am looking at the way movies actually bringing in technology before any other aspect of society adopts it. Especially use of social media to push boundaries of sales.

People remember names of stars better than their close kin. Communities exist for their worship. Movie releases crash booking websites. Why would promotion be essential in this scenario for a movie? Yet, the sheer scale of Baahubali promotions and the reception it garnered, questions you the about the importance of marketing a movie. Particularly the collective good achieved through the cast. The responsibility in a regular company falls under Marketing department, while for a movie, the entire cast becomes marketers, at the same time preserving their individual brand. Unlike spending on advertisements few weeks before the movie release, the focus has been shifted to creating a media strategy, with distinct timelines.

Branding I believe is always about promising what you can give and keeping it. Staying true to the essence of what product has to offer is the key. You need to be brutally honest about it. Explaining through OK Kanmani of recent times, this was an unapologetically urban class movie. Look at the english spoken videos of the crew or the styleOK contest asking for style statements. Could you imagine a crowd who dance for Don'u don'u following any of this? On the other hand, Maari or Romeo Juliet bank on the songs that make people groove.

Bollywood has been always savvy with the social media front, with southern film industry catching up. Remember the S/O Satyamurthy contest introducing the giant cast of the film, the major crowd-pulling point of the movie? Tanu Weds Manu Dubsmash competition or Mr.X unique application, the creative endeavours are truly remarkable. Exclusive blog operation for content is another interesting approach, not to dilute the brand even by miniscule amount giving away to a magazine or online feeds. ABCD2 or Dil Dhadakne Do cast had changed their Twitter names promoting the movie and it portrays the use of major channel of promotion, the stars. The road shows have transformed to online chats, we have seen Parineeti trend on Twitter with her Q&A session. On the other hand, social media is also assisting the actors to remain in the spotlight during the period of no releases.

There are quite a few lessons for regular marketers to learn from the Movie marketing. My takeaways are these special 3.

1. Audience have choice, the biggest boon and bane of technology. So never take any promotion channel for granted. Tight control of all the content is essential for a concrete brand.

2. Be true to your brand, be ruthless in sticking to your target. You don't see OK Kanmani appealing through Tamil catchy punch dialogues or Komban driving feed on Twitter.

3. Employees are the best bets in branding. I can never forget the words of South West airlines employee in a video. "When you see someone loving something very much, you would want to safeguard it too" referring to the CEO.