The Hindu Business Line : Saying it on film

Every frame in a movie has an opportunity for branding. With that intent, a clutch of savvy producers and specialist agencies look to weave brand presence in a variety of ways with the movie's story line.

FILM producers of yesteryear might rue forgoing their megabucks through in-film promotions unlike the current lot who would love to imagine that every frame of their movie is a marketing opportunity.

Like the famous dialogue from the hit movie Deewar (1975) where Amitabh Bachhan asks Shashi Kapoor: "Mere paas gaadi hain, bangla hain, bank balance hain, tere pass kya hain?" (I own a car, a bungalow, and bank balance, what do you own?) Producer Gulshan Rai may well wish today that he could have planted names like Impala, Spencer's, and American Express in that line then and laughed all the way to the bank.

Those were the days when the film industry had no saucy tags and operated on plain instincts. Bollywood today is an assembly line of sorts. Producers are doubling-up as marketing solution providers, and scriptwriters as creative consultants in response to dying revenue streams.

"The revenue pie has shrunk over the years. Earlier, India used to have five-six distribution territories, now we have just four territories. North East as a territory is a washout owing to insurgency problems. So we need to look for newer areas, and in-film promotions are emerging as a promising avenue," says Ravi Chopra, Managing Director, BR Films.

Though there aren't any syndicated figures on in-film promotions, this business is estimated to be around Rs 50-60 crore, industry sources point out. It is growing at the rate of 50 per cent annually and is all poised to become a Rs 500 crore industry by 2010, they claim.

"Today, every frame has an opportunity for branding. It is how intelligibly one crafts the art of in-film product placement," claims Sanjay Bhutiani, CEO, P9 Integrated Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based integrated movie marketing firm, who has marketed prominent brands in some noteworthy films.

Leo Entertainment, a division of Leo Burnett, was the first to step into this space close to four years ago. Incidentally, Bhutiani was one of the founder members of Leo Entertainment. This was followed by the likes of Lintas, Starcom, Group M and JWT setting up units and offering a bouquet of services to film production houses; one of them being `brand associations'.

"In-film promotion is one aspect of brand associations. There can be associations which are outside of the film as well. The product doesn't necessarily have to be integrated in the script," explains Alpana Mishra, Business Head, Leo Entertainment.

For instance, 2004 had quite a few visible brand associations outside of the film. These were largely print and TV-led associations and were not part of the film script. Namely Mujhse Shadi Karoge with Britannia 50/50; Kyon Ho Gaya Na with Close Up; Hum Tum with Tata Indicom, Hulchul with 50/50, Lakshya and Airtel, Plan with 8 pm whisky, to name a few.

Year 2003, on the other hand, had a lot of in-film placements, namely Baghban, which had multiple brands in the film; Plan with 8 pm; Jism and Zingaro; Koi Mil Gaya, which too had multiple brands in the film.

Unfortunately, with the ratio of flops to hits always on the rise; brands want to play it safe. "An out-of-the-film association allows them to do that. An in-film association is purely dependant on the number of audiences viewing the film. It dies a natural death if the film doesn't take off," says Mishra.

There are other aspects which strike advertisers' fancy. Unlike most mediums, films have their way with fashion and style. From the head buns of the evergreen actor Dev Anand to the clean mean look of Aamir Khan and Akshaye Khanna in Dil Chahtha Hai, styles have evolved sizes and shapes over the years.

"Much of fashion and style actually starts here. The audience tries to imitate their favourite stars, and this is where the opportunity clearly emerges for brand associations," says P9's Bhutiani.

Over the last couple of years some production houses have been consistently innovating. The key ones were White Feather Films (Sanjay Gupta) for Plan and Kaante, Yash Raj Films for Hum Tum, Film Kraft (Rakesh Roshan) for Koi Mil Gaya and Kaho Naa Pyar Hai, Varma Corp (Ram Gopal Varma) for Road and Gaaya, Dreamz Unlimited (Shah Rukh Khan) for Chalte Chalte and Main Hoon Na.

One of the clear cases of effective placement in recent times was BR Films' family drama Baghban, which addressed issues of Indian middle class families — the demographic segment most brand custodians revere.

The movie creatively integrated five brands in the movie. The brands included were ICICI Bank, Tata Tea, Archies, Ford and Tide. The movie showed actor Amitabh Bachhan as a retired bank employee of ICICI Bank and Salman Khan owning a Ford showroom.

Employing Archies Cards' proposition of social expression and Valentine's Day revelry, Baghban also effectively depicted the craft of product placement. The script also had enough ammo to accommodate household brands like Tide and Tata Tea.

Moreover, brand association through film productions is more economical compared to getting a film celebrity to endorse that particular brand. Like, for instance, it becomes cost effective for TI Cycles to depict Shilpa Shetty as a creative ad executive working on the BSA account in a sensitive movie like Phir Milenge than making her the brand ambassadress in real life.

The company on an average uses three movies a year to revive the sagging cycle market. "The intention behind such product placements is to popularise the product, and extend it beyond kids," said Mohit Khattar, Vice-President (Sales and Marketing), TI Cycles of India, in an earlier interview.

Interestingly, quite a few categories have started putting their media monies into movie-related promotions. Lubes is a new category spending on films, besides jewellery. The telecom brands are also heavily partnering films, each with their own models of doing so. Reliance Infocomm, Tata Indicomm and Airtel, to name the key ones.

Castrol post-Chalte Chalte has also been visible in Kyon Ho Gaya Na. Besides, Speed from Bharat Petroleum and Power from Hindustan Petroleum are developing their own models of brand associations with films, points out Leo Burnett's Mishra.

Biscuits and confectionery is also a new entrant (Britannia's 50-50 biscuits) and has been very visible this year. The company also has evolved its model of partnering the film and running a contest along with it. Jewellery brands like Asmi and De Beers, owing to the increasing competition in the branded jewellery category, are also becoming active players. With competition and fatigue heightening in various categories, corporates will look to place their brands subtly in movies to try and break through the clutter.

The rub-off effect

The various ways in which a brand appears in a movie can be classified into:

Implicit mode: In this the star appears in a situation and is seen openly stating that he is using the product/brand. For example, in the movie Chalte Chalte, Shah Rukh Khan is seen asking his worker to fill Castrol in his truck.

Imperative mode: In this the star would ask his friend /co-worker/peer to use the product. In the movie Yaadein, Hritik Roshan is seen recommending `Pass-Pass' to Karina Kapoor.

Co-present mode: In this, the star appears in some kind of setting with the product or he or she could be seen consuming or using the product. In the movie Baghban, love is the ulterior theme, which revolves around the `social expression' feel of Archies. Paresh Rawal also informs Amitabh Bachhan about the significance of Valentine's Day.

THE implicit mode has the central character using the brand, while the imperative mode has the protagonist recommending the brand. However, in case of co-present mode, the movie carries the `feel' of the brand throughout the film.

However, this is a risky business. Producers and advertisers have still to reach a common ground in terms of understanding each other's strength. Producers often complain that corporates usually try to impose themselves into the script, and in a worst-case scenario do not pay up at all.

BR Films' Chopra, sharing his experience during the making of Baghban, says that a car and bank brand, which were associated with the movie, backed out at the last moment after the movie was made. As against the earmarked Rs 1.1 crore revenue through in-film promotions in Baghban, BR Films could garner only Rs 70 lakh from the other brands.

Moreover, the return on investment on this medium is again qualitative. How do you quantify imagery? How do you quantify star power rub off? How can you directly relate sales to a product placement exposure in the film?

It's all about leaving you with a desire to purchase or increase the imagery of the brand in your eyes, says Leo Entertainment's Alpana Mishra. In order to quantify in-product placement one has to take theatre capacity and seat occupancy per hall into the number of days the film runs and multiply the same by the number of halls the film is showing.

However, the VCD and DVD boom and most cable operators airing these movies, the number of eyeballs garnered has exponentially increased, though there is no estimate of this sea change.

"Today, DVDs release as early as three weeks post-movie launch. Earlier, the DVDs of Yash Raj Films' Dilwale Dulaniya Le Jayenge, for instance, were released after five-six years of the movie launch," says P9's Bhutiani.

This year, almost all agencies have their hands full. While Percept Group Company P9 Integrated is working on the next project of BR Films, Leo Entertainment is working on a film produced by Ram Gopal Varma titled James and Vivek Agnihotri's Chocolate.

BR Films is also scouting for brand associations for its next project titled Babul. This time, however, Chopra prefers to deal in paper as against the film industry practise of verbal agreements.

Babul will have a lot of scope in terms of in-film promotions. BR Films is likely to continue its earlier association with Tata Tea, following the successful alliance in Baghban.

"There is a car sequence in the movie, which is open for interested parties from automobile companies. The movie will depict Amitabh Bachhan as CEO of a company. So this also opens a new avenue for corporate branding through films," says Chopra.

The business model of in-film promotions is similar to mainstream advertising. Besides cash payouts for product placement, the industry is also witnessing barter deals, where brands will commit spends towards promoting the film as part of its media plan — a sure way of riding through the silver screen and retaining the sheen.

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