The Hindu Business Line : Reversing trend, Percept puts film into brand

REVERSING roles for brands looking at in-film and co-branded options with the film industry, P9 Integrated, the film and entertainment company belonging to the Percept Group of Companies, has decided to make a full-length commercial Hindi feature film based on a lifestyle brand.

Mr Navin Shah, COO, P9 Integrated, told Business Line, "We are working on a project whereby a film is being made exclusively for a brand. This would a full-fledged commercial Hindi film based on a lifestyle brand and would be released this year. It would be a lifestyle brand which needs to make attitudinal changes with respect to the Indian consumer and is not necessarily interested in gaining market share."

Without revealing the identity of the lifestyle brand, the entertainment marketing company hopes to become the pioneer in this space. It intends making more films based exclusively on brands and spinning them off as commercial ventures with the help of its associate, Percept Picture Company, which recently witnessed box-office hits such as Page 3 and Hanuman.

Apart from visibility, the company also hopes to gain revenues through satellite and screening rights and expects the returns on investment to be much higher than when compared to what the brand would have conventionally spent on mass media.

Even if the film does not fare well at the box office, "we feel the sheer visibility of the brand would be almost six times the amount of investment made in it," estimates Mr Shah. In future, there are plans to rope in more brands across categories and make feature films with a commercial proposition to give brands the `adequate visibility' they require.

Drawing resources from its group companies such as Percept Picture, the one-and-a-half-year old P9 Integrated hopes to create a new trend in brand marketing through its new project. "We believe in creating a new market by marrying the advertising and entertainment markets," states Mr Shah.

Meanwhile, P9 Integrated is also exploring more options of giving films and entertainments brands the `right' marketing edge. In the recent past, it has entered into agreements with MTV and its channel brands such as VH1 and Nickelodeon to market its entertainment products.

In fact, it has decided not to restrict itself to television and has decided to strike more deals with FM radio brands and other digital brands to market its offerings.

"We believe in using the more conventional wisdom of brand marketing to market our films and reach out to the 18-24 age group which has access to such avenues," adds Mr Shah, who intends taking the entertainment brands across multiple media including malls and coffee retail networks.