YouTube India will make all-out effort to woo the Malayalam film industry to use the potential of the video-sharing platform to the fullest to promote movies.
Accordingly, Satya Raghavan, head of entertainment content at YouTube India, interacted with prominent members of the Kerala Film Producers’ Association here on Thursday.
The objective was to share insights on matters like planning in advance and the right time for releasing trailers and to educate producers on how Bollywood and other industries were using YouTube’s marketing potential.
“We help movie producers create a business model, which we call ‘online to offline’, whereby people consume promotional material online and then go and pay at the box-office,” Mr. Raghavan told a select group of media persons here. Interestingly, YouTube shares 55% of whatever revenue generated through advertisements.
Mr. Raghavan said the key was planning in advance even as early as when a film goes on floor. “Decisions should be taken on the content to put out on the digital space two or three months before the release of the movie,” he added.
Trailer reactions
Mr. Raghavan said the minute any content is put on YouTube, it generates other kinds of conversations.
“For instance, there are people who do trailer reactions, a process started by a foreigner. He began by watching trailers of Indian movies with a camera capturing his reactions to them,” he added.
The trend was also catching up in the Malayalam industry as well, and the blockbuster Angamaly Dairies was one of its beneficiaries.
Actor and producer Vijay Babu said producers often left marketing to directors who might hardly know anything about marketing.
He added that the Malayalam film industry was yet to explore the full potential of digital marketing, as it was always in a tearing hurry to get movies released. Movies are submitted for censoring in the eleventh hour, whereas in other industries, the censoring is done at least two months in advance.
“We then complain that the movie was taken out of theatres even before the people could take notice of it. People often get to know about the release only through advertisements in the print media on the day of release, and half the audience would have not seen the paper that day,” said Mr. Babu.
“Plan in advance and use two months for marketing on the digital medium and drive home the release date and the content,” was his mantra for effective promotion of movies.
