A few months before Excel’s Dil Dhadakne Do was to release, co-producer Ritesh Sidhwani told me how they were planning a totally unconventional marketing strategy that included locating dysfunctional families in different parts of the country and flying their entire team there to meet those families. The connect was, of course, the dysfunction. Excel didn’t believe in the usual TV appearance strategy and would not follow it.
Cut to their release last week Baar Baar Dekho and its lead actors Siddharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif were visible on every possible TV reality show from the very popular The Kapil Sharma Show to the low brow Comedy Nights Bachao. Was it because Dharma Productions was a co-producer or has Excel changed its policy? Whatever the reason, it failed to give the film the eyeballs it needed and indications are the film has tanked. And this despite the multiple million hits the songs got and the crossover promotion from the film industry denizens.
Image Source: Manav Manglani
But this column does not mean to make BBD a scapegoat but to generally comment on the lack of coherence in many marketing ploys. Marketing and PR go hand in hand. Its aim is to eventually get the paying public excited enough in the project to book tickets over the first weekend. And yet when you read the sort of PR stories that are put out its found that often the thrust is something about the celebrity or wannabe celebrity and not about the film in particular. How that is expected to contribute towards a desire to see the film is anybody’s guess.
Then there is the question of the multiple TV appearances. The problem with this is that it creates a false sense of achievement and excitement about seeing stars is mistaken as excitement about seeing the stars’ movie. Tell me, if night after night the star appears in your living room on some programme or the other where is there going to be curiosity to see them on screen? Common sense would dictate that if stars desist from being seen and heard all the time their exclusivity would be greater. This is also the thinking that keeps many celebrities away from social media but then social is a different animal.
Meanwhile, the box-office continues its relentless spiral downwards with Freaky Ali and BBD, as films drop by the wayside like ninepins. Everyone is hoping Diwali will be the big rescuer and hopefully they won’t be disappointed. But if the makers hope to get the humongous footfalls needed for the two films to go way past their cost, the marketing and PR plan has to be at least, intelligent, at best, amazing. Can they do it? Watch this space for more.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of SpotboyE.com.
Image Source: twitter/DDDTheFilm & S1dharthM