Bollywood ventures focus on digital marketing campaigns, Sanju joins list after Baaghi 2

Sanju

Bollywood films seem to be taking inspiration from their Hollywood counterparts for innovative marketing strategies. The latest example on this front is Ranbir Kapoor’s new venture, Sanju.

The makers of the film are looking at digital-focused marketing campaign. They opted for live streaming of the film’s trailer launch across five cities. They also got Kapoor to take over Fox’s Twitter handle.

Team Sanju was clear with their marketing strategy--- priortise digital promotions followed by television. But they have gone beyond likes and shares and involved people through conversations.

Fox Star Studios that has acquired the distribution rights of Sanju tried new things to promote the film. They offered users the chance to try Sanju-style lip sync and face filters and post videos to win prizes.

The studio also got director Rajkumar Hirani to post an image from the film introducing people relevant to actor Sanjay Dutt’s life, on whom the biopic is based, along with tidbits of information since the teaser launched.

On Father’s Day, the distributing partner invited fans to post pictures with their dads captioned with #JadooKiJhappi, a popular phrase from Hirani’s successful offering Munnabhai MBBS. Ranbir Kapoor also did a live video chat and shared pictures from his childhood.

But this is not the first time Bollywood is thinking out of the box to promote films. In April, makers of Baaghi 2 introduced a chatbot at the end of the film’s promo allowing people to strike a conversation with the film online.

Making use of the similar strategy, the chatbots or software that can interact with humans via textual or auditory methods were introduced for Sanju to enable fans to book tickets or have a conversation with the protagonist.

Other marketing techniques

The 2015 release Bajirao Mastani’s content strategy involved launching an animated web series called the ‘Blazing Bajirao’. It was released three months prior to the release of the film.

Gamification too has been the area of interest for digital marketers to have a swifter, wider reach. Apart from Baaghi, films like Sultan, Ra.One, Kahaani, Munna Michael, Krish, Ghajini, Brothers, Dhoom 3 have used games to engage with the viewers.

The digital marketing team of Vidya Balan-starrer Kahaani developed an online game titled ‘The Great Indian Parking Wars’, required players to park Vidya’s taxi on a street.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Ra.One had a game sharing the film’s title which was released as the prequel to the movie. Aamir Khan’s Ghajini was the first Bollywood film to be made into a 3D game for PCs.

Films like Kambakkht Ishq and Love Aaj Kal too used gaming for promotions. The former had spent close to Rs 7 crore in digital marketing.

Although a film’s promotion budget is highest on television with 40-50 percent share, digital is growing significantly going up to 20-30 percent. As more and more Indians are accessing the internet, movie marketing budgets are bound to include the online platform.

Not too heavy on the pocket

While marketing spend for a big-ticket film would come around 20-25 percent of the total budget, Sanju’s campaign was limited to less than 10 percent thanks to their digital-centric campaign.