With evergreen dialogues like, “Pushpa… I hate tears!” and “Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost”, Bollywood has engraved its popularity among the masses.
Bollywood movies have audiences spread around the world. Besides India, they have a huge market in nearly ninety foreign countries like China, Africa, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Dubai, United Kingdom, United States and so on. In India itself, Hindi films are distributed to nearly 22 states, which have countless theatres that cater to the masses.
In the entire process, film marketing and promotions have a very important role to play and the industry seems to be taking it very seriously. These days filmmaking does not end with the final-cut and neither does it end with the circulation of commercial posters. In the early days, hand painted posters and billboards were the maximum efforts taken to market a movie. These are still used today, but in a digital format and they do not serve the purpose entirely. Promoting a film is as important as making the film itself.
For instance, appearing on reality shows has proven to be a great promotional strategy. Now-a-days, a special PR team is deployed so that it can undertake the responsibility of promoting a movie.
Apart from regular promotional gigs, teams are constantly trying to engage and adapt newer techniques and some are super-eccentric and stay with the audience for longer than they imagine it to.
Zero: Shah Rukh Khan plays the role of Bauua Singh- a vertically challenged man in Zero. In order to make the movie a must watch and widen its promotional bases, Shah Rukh and the makers of Zero created a verified and official, dedicated Twitter handle for Bauua Singh. He would communicate regularly with his fans and is very popular on social media with his one-liners.
Taking promotions to another step ahead, Shah Rukh Khan has launched a line of merchandise for the film. The promotional team has made a website named shop.redchillies.com where they have a shop named Bauua Ki Dukaan. This online shop has a variety of designer T- shirts, customized mugs, wireless headphones and even mobile covers at affordable rates.
Beauty retailer Nykaa is to initiate a campaign against body shaming, an issue that Zero also deals with. Other brand partners include Shaadi.com, Amity university, Bikaji and clothing and accessory company Doodlers. The latter two brought out special Zero collections close to the release of the film.
Red Chillies Entertainment has also come up with a fan inclusion initiative called “Bauua Ki Toli” where users can participate in activities online and win points to redeem them with the merchandise created especially for the film.
Introducing a whole new category of promotions, Red Chillies has collaborated with online retailer Amazon for Bauua’s voice to be made available on Amazon Echo smart speakers as well as other Alexa built-in devices such as Bose Headphones. Zero is the first Bollywood movie for which WhatsApp has created special stickers Snapchat has created AR (Artificial Reality) lens.
Thugs Of Hindostan: Amir Khan has always been known to have the quirkiest ideas when it comes to promoting his films. Be it walking around with a radio for P.K or just disappearing for 2 weeks during the promotions of 3 Idiots, he has not failed to surprise us till date.
And just as we thought it couldn’t get better, Thugs of Hindostan proved us wrong. Prior to the release of the film, whenever
Android and iOS users navigated to their destination with Google Apps, they were accompanied by Aamir Khan’s character Firangi from the movie ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ who is seen sitting on his pet donkey!
Dialogues like 1-2-3 quick march had also been added and it gave a feel to the commuter that he was actually travelling with Firangi.
Sui Dhaaga: To celebrate the rich and diverse handicrafts of India, the team of Sui Dhaaga reached out to local artisans and craftsmen from across the country to create the logo of the film in their unique stitching styles.
It took the team six months to plan, research and execute the film’s logo in 15 different styles, including in hand needlework forms of Kashida and Sozni from Kashmir, colourful Phulkari from Punjab, the intricate thread work forms Rabari and Mochi Bharat from Gujarat, Phool Patti from Uttar Pradesh and Zardozi work from Lucknow. It has also been created in Rajasthan’s prominent crafts like Aari, Banjara and Gota Patti, Tamil Nadu’s popular Toda style and Karnataka’s Kasuti design. From the east, the film’s logo has been made in Pipli style from Odisha and handloom work from Assam, Kantha stitch work from West Bengal.
I think Bollywood has reached the heights of innovative promotions. However, we don’t really know what is in store for us in the future, do we? You never know when Bollywood can surprise you with something out of the box, just like these above!
