What is trending among denizens of Mollywood these days is social media and digital technology to market films.
For instance, for days before the release of Anjali Menon’s Bangalore Days on Friday (May 30), the makers of the film have been running an innovative marketing blitz. Apart from utilising ‘conventional’ promotional channels YouTube and Facebook, the film’s campaign has simultaneously tapped other popular social media and mobile platform such as Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, We Chat and Whatsapp. In fact, Bangalore Days is perhaps the first Malayalam film to have been promoted using WhatsApp, a smartphone app that allows users to exchange messages for free.
“We have a strategic plan in place with regards to the digital marketing of Bangalore Days , the key to which is releasing morsels of information about the movie and the characters in a phased manner. Essentially, it’s a campaign to connect with each viewer on a personal level and heighten the anticipation without resorting to actual hype. The Whatsapp campaign, for instance, clicked well, with thousands joining the group, so much so that our phones crashed! The trailer of the film, released two week ago, is trending on YouTube India, and has crossed eight lakh views. What we have been successful in doing is reaching out to our core target group – the young audience – through multiple mediums,” says Sreenath P.S., of Iced Tea, who has been managing the movie’s digital media and mobile marketing campaign on behalf of Anjali and the film’s producer Anwar Rasheed.
Rosshan Andrrews, director of How Old Are You (HONY), too is quick to acknowledge the role of online movie marketing in building visibility for a film. “It has become an integral part of promoting Malayalam films. It is fast, is easy on the pocket and has proven to be beneficial too. It is because we aggressively marketed the film online, through posters, teasers and so on that its trailer received over 4.5 lakh hits within hours of its release!” he says.
While Mollywood still has to catch up with the other film industries in terms of big time marketing stunts such as film merchandising, games, promotional tours, corporate tie-ups, and the like, there are several “effective” ways to go about online marketing. Most often it stars with the launch of an ‘official’ Facebook page, with the poster of the film or working stills as its cover or profile photo. For example, Ranjith’s Njaan , which is currently being filmed, has already started off its promotional activities with the release of a photo of a cast and crew on location on its page. Naku Penta Nakku Taka , set to be released next month, also had viewers keyed in from the beginning with eye-catching posters of the film and pictures from the location hunt in Kenya where the movie is set.
Other times the marketing campaign starts with the release of a teaser of the film.
Months prior to the release of Arun Kumar Aravind’s 1 By Two its teaser was released as was, more recently, the teaser of Srinath Rajendran’s upcoming film Koothara . Campaigns can also start with emails, launch of posters, trailers, theatre cards, songs, character introduction…
“The idea is to somehow break the shell and get the word out there about a movie. The promotional campaign for each film will be different and often starts well before filming begins,” says Shaji A. John, chief executive officer of Technopark-based start-up metromatinee.com, a marketing and celebrity brand management portal that’s undertaken the promotion of over 118 Malayalam films.
Often the stars of the movie are also roped into promote the film through social media. Before the release of HONY, for instance, its heroine, Manju Warrier, on her Facebook page, interacted with fans in a live web chat, responding to questions from fans. Director Arun adds: “When the stars of a film, who would each have lakhs of followers, also get involved in the campaigning, the visibility of the film increases several fold.”
However, Arun points out that “visibility online does not necessarily fill up seats in theatres.
“Those connected online account only for a small percentage of the movie going public.
That’s why a balance between new media and traditional modes of marketing is essential,” he says.
Strategic ideas
Bangalore Days has come up with a rather interesting strategy for marketing that could well set off a trend. “It was Anjali’s idea to make use of mobile technology and project the movie into several social media platforms. Her brief was that it’s a fun movie and our primary target was the youth,” says Sreenath, 30, a former TV producer. “We started off with content introduction – letting out small details of the movie. For instance, that the three main leads (played by Nivin Pauly, Nazriya Nazim and Dulquer Salmaan) are cousins and revealed posters with the three of them. Then we went on to emphasising the pairs Fahadh and Nazriya, Nivin and Isha Talwar, Dulquer and Parvathy and took up character introduction. We released the song ‘Maangalyam’ first because it was a wedding song that featured all the three leads and other important members of the cast such as Manianpillai Raju and Vijayaraghavan. Prior to the release of the song we put up a video of Nivin talking about spending time with his cousins. The release of the trailer was also well planned. Then we invited fans to ask questions to the cast and crew…Everything has been designed to sustain the interest of the viewer,” he adds.
