RELEASES GALORE BUT A BIG NO TO GRAND PROMOTIONS
Film releases sans exuberant promotions have made marketing pundits realise that they need to chalk out newer ways to engage with the audience
After quite an underwhelming 2020, it’s finally raining theatrical releases in Bollywood with many small, medium and big films making a beeline at the box office. And what has been an integral part of film releases are the elaborate promotions including city tours, press conferences and more. But given the pandemic and rise in number of cases, is that feasible?
“I’m working on RRR, Radhe Shyam, Bhoot Police and Antim. Our strategy is to give the feel of the magic of cinemas, only then will they come and watch the film,” says Varun Gupta, founder director of MAX Marketing. He further goes on to add that they’re not involving actors a lot in the promotions, something that they used to do pre-pandemic.
“It’ll be limited but not compromising on how we’re pitching the film as a big screen experience. We’re not looking at city tours for promotional,” he adds.
Cutting back on grand promotions is also the social responsibility on the actor’s head as even the audience would not want to venture into some place where there is a lot of crowd. Filmmaker Vipul Shah feels it’s still going to take at least six to seven months before such promotional gigs resume. “The fact that digital platforms have a wide reach, touring cities has become redundant. You’ve to work with newer ways, the world has changed. I don’t see the need of physical promotions. But yes, we’ll all have to be innovative and we’ll be fighting for people’s attention,” he explains.
Having said that, digital promotions have their own set of challenges. Jay Gotecha, who looks after marketing at Emmay Entertainment, says they released Indoo Ki Jawani in December last year, and it was challenging for them to market the film fully, using digital as a medium.
“But it was also a great learning experience as there were no physical promotions. While we’d want the actors to go all out and promote our films, for us, health and safety would be priority, not just for the actors but for the fans and cine goers as well,” says Gotecha.
Therefore, he adds, “We’ll focus on more innovative mediums to engage with our audiences. We would want them to watch our films like Satyameva Jayate 2 and Bell Bottom in theatres with all safety precautions.”
Yusuf Ibrahim, the security consultant for many top Bollywood stars, says he still has no information about on-ground promotions in different cities. “There’s no protocol in place. Things will be clearer when films start this month onwards,” he says.
Even if physical promotional activities are out of question, innovation is going to be key and marketeers will have to come up with novel ways of promoting the film.
“Now that films are releasing in theatres, we can’t only be relying on digital promotions. If you expect an audience to shell out 250 bucks to watch a single film in a theatre, we need to go beyond the basic marketing of where we are just informing that a film is releasing,” concludes Gupta.
INNOVATION IS GOING TO BE KEY, MARKETEERS WILL HAVE TO COME UP WITH NOVEL WAYS OF PROMOTING A FILM