Saawariya Vs OSO: The great marketing battle!

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It's time now to deconstruct the marketing noise around Hollywood's first Indian production Sony Pictures ' " Saawariya ". As it gets louder the question begging to be asked, is if the rumor of Rs 20 crore marketing spend for the film is for real?

 

With media merchandising and half a dozen brand tabs already in place, will Saawariya a film that has only spend some Rs 30 crore to make, actually rework the way the films are marketed.

 

Shah Rukh Khan , Producer, Om Shanti Om says, "I don't have Rs 30-40 crore to promote my film. But I'm competing against the international giant; would you help me make my film also count?"

 

The Hindi film industry is reigning superstars and producer Shah Rukh Khan is using every platform he can to promote his film "Om Shanti Om". That takes Hollywood's first Indian production Saawriya staring two new comers Saawriya's USP is clearly the director Sanjay Leela Bansali. Despite that the film has manage to gun visibility worth sum say Rs 25 crore.

 

Uday Singh , CEO, Sony Pictures , says, "You have the brands who have associated with it and they bring their own media buying to enhance what we are doing. No way that it should be taken our spend that is this is not our core spend on our film. What I'm really concerned with our core spend with our film and it is no where out of whack what any other film would be doing and in fact it might be a little lower. So we have not gone out of on a limp and thrown away money irresponsibly."

 

Besides Airtel, Citibank and Pantaloon sources says that Saawariya has also tied up with Reliance Life Insurance and FMCG major Lotte India as well as Jewellery and Apparel brand. Each of these associations are worth to Rs 2-3 crore. The biggest being the merchandising deal with the future group approximately worth of Rs 10 crore.

 

Navin Shah , CEO, P9 Integrated , says, "Having brands at one end and exploiting media because as we talk by the end of November you'll have 30 more channels which are launching so you can do many more media tabs."

 

The scale and youth connect of Saawariya is drawing brands compared to Om Shanti Om to activate with the Indian marketers spending 60% of their marketing budget during the festive season and the film is benefiting by association. Apart from the Hollywood formula of spending up to 30% of the film's budget on marketing, Sony pictures is releasing 2,000 prints of it's first production and making it a tuff act for home grown producers to follow.

 

Ritesh Sidhwani ,Director, Excel Entertainment says, "It is going to reset may be a benchmark for the people to follow. I mean if you don't achieve it and you don't get a so called Rs 25 crore because you have got a good content I think you have got safe ground to reach."

 

While the Saawariya and the Om Shanti Om tussle has already whipped up expectation. The real verdict of getting people in to theatre will be delivered during the opening weekend in Diwali.