100 crore no longer benchmark for success in Bollywood: Niche films marketed smartly turned profitable in 2018

Crossing the Rs 100-crore mark is no longer the benchmark for success in Bollywood. New-age cinema is talking profits in terms of investments made. Many low-budget movies, which otherwise failed to catch the country’s attention, were marketed cleverly enough so as to make profits.

Small-budget films – Pari, Pihu and Mulk for instance – were marketed with special creatives, teasers and campaigns. These films, that feature on the list of flops for 2018, have actually been profitable ventures for the producers. This is courtesy the new-age targeted marketing that is changing the game for films that are not the quintessential big-banner films.

“We see a film and plan its promotions and campaigns accordingly. For example, Pihu had a child protagonist and we made a two-year-old girl calling people for help. That got a lot of people talking and even if some people weren’t a fan of this strategy, any publicity is good publicity we believe. We made the audience curious and that worked in our favour,” said Amit Chandrra, Chairman and Managing Director at creative agency Trigger Happy Entertainment Network.

Pihu opened with Rs 46 lakh, taking its opening day collection way above Sunny Deol-starrer Mohalla Assi, which could earn only Rs 25 lakh.

“Trigger Happy didn’t just make the trailer, they created another film out of a film. We were overwhelmed with the way the trailer of Pihu created a buzz not only in India, but across the world. Rarely is a trailer reviewed in more than 20 countries, including America, Canada, France, Germany, Pakistan and UAE,” said  Vinod Kapri, director of Pihu.

Trigger Happy took up a number of niche films that were meant for a  restricted audience and with their marketing campaigns they opened them up a bit more by making them stand out in the clutter so they could turn profitable too.

Pari is another film from this league. The Anushka Sharma-starrer was made at a budget of Rs 14 crore and went on to make Rs 35 crore. While Rs 35 crore isn’t a big number, it was enough to make the film profitable from just theatrical release earnings.

Pari was a love story with a supernatural backdrop, but it was marketed as a horror film leaving the audience curious. Ten ad films were shot and released before the film hit the screens. The marketing strategy worked, leaving both the producers and the audience happy.

Shooting ad films or short clips that are not a part of the film altogether is a popular marketing tool these days. Stree was a film where the trailer clips were not a part of the film so that it could be filled with exclusive surprises. Creative agencies have raised the bar of the marketing game.

Mulk, made at a budget of Rs 10 crore, made close to Rs 25 crore at the box office. Though the film didn’t make it to the list of hits in 2018, it sure recovered its money, making the director and the producers happy.

Talking about creative marketing, Anubhav Sinha, the director of Mulk said, “It is such a precarious mix of art, science, data, economics, execution and interpretation.”

Gone are the days when the budget for marketing a film equalled the budget at which a film is made. “We make our clients spend only how much is required and that too in specific areas. For instance, if there is a small film being made with Diljit Dosanjh, we will make the client market the film heavily in north India, especially in belts like Punjab where he is very popular. Marketing in the present times is targeted specifically towards the market it is meant for and also budgeted tightly,” Chandrra said.