Negative publicity works like a charm
Two films opened last weekend to record 100% collections. This is depite the fact that by Yash Raj Films & Sony Pictures' standards, the marketing campaigns were reasonably low key. The fiery protests and government bans on 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Fanaa' respectively have done for the films, what no marketing campaign could. It has kept them on the front page for a good ten days before and after the release.
Banning a film may be the best marketing strategy.Yash Raj Films and Sony Pictures discovered this perverse logic, when their films released this weekend. While these companies already had their media partners in place with the likes of MTV, Sony, HBO and National Geographic, every one of these channels could have earned the media partner tag with their news coverage of these controversial films.
Fanaa
Channel Minutes
Aaj Tak 205
Star News 185
NDTV India 171
Sahara Samay 141
Zee News 26
DD News 8
While Yash Raj and Sony wanted to focus on effective rather than voluminous marketing, both banners are now evaluating the free publicity thanks to the news coverage. Manager Marketing, Yash Raj Films, Tarun Tripathi told CNBC-TV18, "Unfortunately, because of the media coverage of the controversies we could not have a pure campaign, where we limited exposure of the stars and film, had zero PR and even our airplay of promos was limited. But thanks to the free coverage, the curiousity of the audiences was provoked and we have got a phenomenal response in the opening weekend."
Manager Marketing of Sony Pictures, Harshavardhan Gangurde says, "Thanks to the media spotlight, we definitely made more of an impact but it also caused us a lot of trouble in terms of building further controversy. I guess in the end, the numbers speak for themselves - in the weekend, we had the best opening for an English film."
While 'Fanaa' has raked in over between Rs 6 crore this weekend, 'The Da Vinci Code' has managed to pull in Rs 3 crore. What makes the opening weekend numbers look even more impressive is the fact that the publicity was truly cost effective. Although their marketing spend was restricted to 20% to 30%, most of the media deals were done on a barter basis.
Apart from their media tie-ups, these films went with the less is more philosophy in corporate brands as well. Yash Raj decided to restrict brand tie-ups to LG, while Sony went with ABN Amro. Moving beyond product placement, corporate brand fits are now about releasing re-cut ads featuring the product, or as was the case with Coke, actually bringing out a special edition Coke with a 'Rang De Basanti' theme.
And now that media agencies have stepped into movie marketing, the process is streamlined and made more scientific. At last count, there were atleast 10 media agencies, such as Starcom that advise advertisers on which movie brands to associate with, by evaluating the impact of every brand tie-up in terms of reach and recall, through a metric system
The Da Vinci Code
Channel Minutes
Aaj Tak 31
Star News 33
NDTV India 33
Sahara Samay 74
Zee News 4
DD News 13
So, the media barter is getting the costs down - as is the brand tie-ups with corporates - but nothing works like a spot of controversy. Even a film like 'Fanaa' which has lost Rs 8 crore in Gujarat because of the ban, will more than make up for it in other parts of the country, where it has released. This proves that as long as the controversy is just enough to peak curiousity, bad news may just be good news for movie marketing.
Ramya Ramamurthy
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