The Hindu Business Line : Hindi films bank on Web to weave spell overseas

While big-ticket production companies such as BR Films, Mukta Arts and Venus Films have flagged off innovative promotional strategies across various film portals, others such as Yash Chopra Films are banking on their own portals to do wonders.

"Internet has emerged as a primary medium of promoting Indian films in the overseas market since no single medium covers the entire stretch from South Asian countries to Western markets," said Mr Saleem Mobhani, Founder, India FM, a leading entertainment marketing portal.

Venus Films recently tied up with India FM as its online partner to promote three movies, which included the recent Hulchul and Elan and Raincoat, which are due to be released.

For Hulchul, the portal offered downloads of wallpapers and screensavers besides providing on broadband a sneak peek and the making of the movie. The result: a total of 1.1 million surfers accessed the movie zone in a period spanning two weeks and spent 49,266 hours. Around 50,000 surfers also participated in the contest hosted by the Web Site.

"The return on investment was so phenomenal that against a total of 22 prints that were committed for release by Venus in the US, eight more were added in the circuit," said Mr Mobhani, adding that he has lined up similar innovative promotions for Elan and Raincoat.

BR Films has also come out richer from its earlier Internet experience. While the production house ran contests for free tickets on leading Web sites, it explored MSN Messenger to draw attention to its earlier movie, Baghban.

"These online experiences served us well in overseas markets. We will immediately scout for competent online agencies once our next movie, Bulbul, is completed," said Mr Abhay Chopra, Vice-President (Films), BR Chopra Films. The company is also updating its Web site to service its e-commerce needs.

Mukta Arts has increased its marketing monies over the years. The value increase over last yearwas significantsince it had released a small film like Joggers Park. This year Mukta Arts had two big releases in Kisna and Aitraaz.

"We are planning to tap all important Web sites such as Sulekha, Sify, MSN and Yahoo to reach the NRIs and international audiences and will be advertising on these. Besides this, we have a PR campaign running alongside where we are targeting these sites to get content featured on Kisna," said Mr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Mukta Arts Ltd.

"The Veer Zaara e-cards featuring Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji were extremely successful. Activities like these garnered them hits of 28.48 million in November 2004," said Mr Anand Gurnani, Head - Internet Operations, Yash Raj Films.

According to Mr Pranav Anthwal, Media Director, Starcom IP & Entertainment, a media buying agency servicing the entertainment sector, "Significant revenues through mobile downloads have suddenly got the film production houses very excited, and we expect Internet-cum-mobile spends to increase to around 5-6 per cent of the total film promotion expenses in 2005."

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