AgVoice | Bollywood's setting new benchmarks in reach; are the Brands ready to exploit this opportunity

Chennai Express released on 3500 screens simultaneously!! About 1000 to 1100 of these screens were in multiplexes and another 2000 approximately were digital screens. This scale of release has been on the cards but it was surprising even for me to see it happen so fast. CE could do it because of the huge clout that UTV and SRK have in the industry. They were able to ensure that there was no competition for CE – that notwithstanding it at least coveys that Bollywood now has the infrastructure to go big!

By the time its last quarter of 2014 we will have about 1500 multiplex screens across the urban centres and with the advent of the foreign chains it would take another two to three years to reach to 2000 screens. The digital players are also making a very serious contribution to the numbers – the pace of converting the decadent 12000 single screens that the country had is gradual but undeterred and is going to take the movies to even the smaller centres first day first show of release.  

What this is going to do for the industry is that the apart from the 5-6 biggies that are made every year, the slightly smaller ones that used to release with 700 -800 prints will start averaging a 2000 (by this time next year) screen release. You can easily put this number to 50-60 movies in a year.  Lets do a little math here – a movie releasing with 2000 prints with 4 shows in a day and about 300 seats per screen will have the potential to reach 1.68 crore people each week. That is more than 1.5 cr consuming class captive audience ( SEC ABCD) week after week throughout the year.

Are the Brands ready to use this mass reach medium?  I believe –  still not.

With a maximum of 15- 20 in film placements happening every year, seems like the marketing manager has still not woken up to the possibilities of Cinema. Though, I would rather not place the blame on the marketing manager. The point is that movie associations are guided by the CMO’s , CEO’s and MD’s – cause there are still no guiding principles on how to use the medium. Cinema is unlike TV, print and digital where the marketing manager knows the TRP/slot/readership/impression rates and their justification. Cinema is still a subjective decision that comes from the top boss’s gut!

To use cinema continuously throughout the year the Head of marketing will have to develop a strategic direction, lay out benchmarks and set the procedure for the team to follow when doing infilm placements. Though, its easier said than done. With no measurement or reporting available, with no breakdown of what constitutes good, average or bad how do you create a strategy is a complicated question. A measurement tool seems to be an answer. But in absence of such a tool , brands intent on using the medium ( as of now) can surely follow a simple effective approach – every brand worth its salt has an emotional/functional though built into it. Build on that.

Coca Cola is ‘open happiness’, Standard Chartered is ‘here for good’ – the simplest approach is to brief your agency to work out movies which can accommodate scenes/sequences pertaining to the Brand thought and are able to weave in the Brand seamlessly. The trick is not to get greedy and ask for more and more screen time, instead have small seamless presence in a number of movies in a year. This is how your American and European counterparts have been doing it. This simple strategy a) takes away the risk of one movie’s failure b) requires smaller investment per movie c) gives repeat audience though out the year and d) provides you multiple instances to build the brand story.

Hence once the top boss has defined –

  • Kind of movies ( genre, starcast, production house)
  • Kind of Placement ( funny scenes, serious scenes, family scenes, friends hanging out)
  • Maximum placement amount per movie.
  • The decision making ability of the marketing manager will increase many folds and we will be able to see the medium being utilized in a much much better manner.

Before I end the write up, just out of curiosity, it would be great to know what is the CPT a single burst of TV campaign for a FMCG Brand gets for (lets say) an OTS of two? | By Gaurav Srivastav, Founder, In Film Placement Evaluation Matrix

About the writer:

Armed with Integrated Management degree, Gaurav started his career in Media and Communications within the Entertainment Sector. He has over seven years of experience in Entertainment partnerships specifically for in film placement wherein he has worked for brands like Slice, Pepsi, 7 up, Horlicks, Godrej, Yamaha, Close up, L’oreal, Garnier Men, Mercedes, Axe, Castrol, GSK, Nakshatra diamond jewelry, Tata Motors and many more established brands. While working with these leading brands he started nursing the idea of developing a model for an in film placement evaluation model. This is where ‘IFPE Matrix’ came into existence. He has designed this tool to specifically bring in greater transparency and bring about a quantitative measurement criteria for both movies and brands alike. His brainchild will help brands understand reach, impact and cost of each project and equip them with relvant knowledge so that they can take quantitative strategic decisions. Besides IFPE Matrix, Gaurav has is also a co-founder/partner of SD Idea Factory LLP which is developing entertainment based apps. 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not reflect in any way of Adgully.

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