Bollywood Embraces Online Movie Marketing
With the burgeoning growth on India’s online population, Bollywood movie marketers are ramping up their online marketing efforts, according to The Hindu Business Line.
According to the article, over 38.5 million Indians have Internet access, and although broadband penetration is in its early stages, over 1.5 million homes already have high-speed access. There are also an estimated 20 million Indians living abroad who are interested in keeping up with the latest Bollywood productions.
Indian film marketers have noted that young, tech-oriented professionals with disposable income are highly likely to use the web to discover movies to see in theaters:
Says Rajnish R., Head - Digital Marketing Revenue and Strategic Business, MSN India: "People who use the Internet are twice likely to go watch movies in multiplexes (than those who do not). Indians abroad go online to read movie reviews before they book a ticket or buy the DVD. So, the adoption of online media is attractive to new-age producers, who themselves are Net-savvy."
Online promotions on large portals such as MSN India typically cost between 800,000 and one million rupees ($17-25K dollars). Promotions on Indiafm, Bollywood's #1 movie portal vary from 50,000 to 1.2 million rupees ($1100 -$26,100) depending on the targeted regions and audience.
Individual film sites are also become more common, and traffic has been booming – Hungama, a top online promotions company for Bollywood, noted that some of their larger sites attract up to 12 million page views a month. Online interactive contests are also becoming popular, and are now sporting major corporate sponsors.
The migration to more sophisticated online marketing methods mirror’s Bollywood’s increasing marketing savvy in other channels. Recent calls for more integrated marketing have increased lately, even culminating in top talent calling for the emulation of Hollywood-style marketing.
The Indian film industry sold more than 3.8 billion tickets in 2005, grossing over $1.14 billion dollars, according to a recent article on Bloomberg. By comparison, Hollywood grossed nearly $9 billion dollars during the same calendar year.
Breaking News: Warner Brothers Preempts Chinese DVD Pirates
According to the Los Angeles Times, Warner Brothers released 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' on DVD in China the same day it appeared in North American theaters:
...several industry executives said they believed it was the first time a major U.S. studio had taken a movie scheduled for a wide-scale theatrical run and released it simultaneously on DVD in another country.
"It's a necessary move," said movie industry analyst Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. "It's obviously not as good as having control of the Chinese market, but it's about the next best thing that you can do."
The move comes during a recent debate over DVD release windows here in the United States. Another recent experiment in the Chinese market, which is widely known as a bootleggers paradise, included Sony's svelte 45-day release window for 'Kung Fu Hustle', which resulted in an impressive 2 million copies sold.
[Via the Los Angeles Times]
Bollywood Star Urges Shift to Hollywood-Style Marketing
While speaking at a conference in New York, veteran Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan urged Bollywood production companies to refine and redouble their marketing efforts to make them more in-line with western standards:
"Bollywood is a movement known to Americans only through satire. That needs to change. The Americans have a very good marketing system in place... which can, and should be emulated. (Bollywood producers) should get together as one united force. We need to market it [Bollywood] much better, and a lot of discipline is required for that. Hopefully with everybody's concerted efforts. I'm sure the good word will go around and there will be great interest in our cinema."
The Indian film industry's output is the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced and in number of tickets sold. Given that production values have been steadily increasing as the audiences demand quality comparable to Hollywood, it seems only natural that Indian movie marketing budgets will follow. Perhaps we'll soon see the first big "crossover" hit?
Bollywood Star Urges Shift to Hollywood-Style Marketing
