Business tuitions from tinsel town

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Bollywood is evolving and films today are not just entertainment but also a business model, and marketing is an intrinsic part of filmmaking. Therefore, Indian B-Schools are taking up films high on promotions to study new age marketing strategies focussed on the first three days of the release. As a result 3 Idiots, Delhi Belly make up for case studies at Nirma, JBIMS and IIM-A.
Be it a small film or a mega budget like Ra.One, the ratio of budget recovery vis-a-vis the first three days of business is paramount. Till the late 90s, the films had golden and silver jubilee runs but that’s no more the case.
Actor Anshuman Jha, of Love, Sex Aur Dhokha fame, says that with the advent of multiplexes the number of screens has multiplied, which in turn has multiplied the cinema going audience which in turn needs to be tapped via marketing to get a good opening. “There is something to learn for all business students here. And they should study the marketing models of successful films as well as the not-so-successful films. These days films are products and stars are brands. Therefore, marketing becomes an important tool to tap the large consumer base and what better example to study than new age Bollywood films,” says Anshuman.
But he feels not all films are perfect business models and the industry is still a little disorganised. “Our focus should be clear. And that’s where films serve as good marketing models,” he says.
Seconds management trainer Shiv Sood, “For any marketing strategy, the key is to find the right kind of market. For Ra.One, right from the beginning Shah Rukh Khan knew that his main target was children. That is why he came out with video games and merchandise to attract kids. That is the ground rule: target the right market, and that will attract the people automatically. And there is no better and popular way to impart these lessons than through films.”
Whereas author-filmmaker Ahmed Faiyaz, who studied management, doesn’t believe that this move will work. “I think the only thing that they can be credited for, where marketing is concerned, is making a lot of noise about the upcoming film. In most cases, it turns out to be much ado about nothing. Many recent films raked in moolah on their opening weekends. But I don’t think there’s any benefit in teaching students how to hype something and earn huge profits from it.”
However, Ahmed feels that the curriculum should include cases of how a pathbreaking film was marketed. “Maybe Lagaan is a good example, and so is Dil Chahta Hai, which stood out for its freshness and presented three male leads on all promotional material, as opposed to the traditional hero-heroine song-dance routine. In Hollywood, the Spiderman and Batman franchisees are a good example as they’ve managed to create a cult following on the back of comics, cartoons, graphic novels and merchandise.”