dev d marketing report
TRANSCRIPT
Managerial Marketing-I
Assignment – 4
Analysis of Communication Campaign
PRODUCT: ‘DEV D’
SUBMITTED BY:
Ankit Chadha (91068)
Ankur Bhatia (91070)
Swati Gupta (91115)
Tanushree Jain (91117)
Vishal Soni (91120)
Executive Summary
Dev D was a movie, which was a marketed in a manner that was never seen before in
Indian film industry. The production house, UTV Motion Pictures understood the
proposition that they had to market their niche film in a manner that would attract the
maximum audience. The target audience was clearly identified as the urban youth. . UTV
was aware that the subject and treatment of the film was such that only a select audience
would be interested in watching the film. Therefore, UTV set out with a marketing plan
to capture bigger audience, which would normally not go for such a film based on sex,
drugs and alcohol.
The film was marketed aggressively on all mediums used by the youth. Trailers began to
air on television screens 3 months before its release. A great website was set up to bring
in more online users. A lustline was set up which raised many eyebrows but
simultaneously acted as a great publicity tool for the film. YouTube and Facebook were
also used to attract audience that was curious.
This was a low budget film that had no big stars to market it. So a campaign that was full
of colour and art was launched. This generated a lot of hype for the film, which made it
recover 2.5 times the cost invested in it in a short time.
This showed that it is possible to attract consumers based on hype surrounding a product.
A product that may be weak in features and content can be made powerful by marketing
it in a proper manner that maximizes profit.
Film Marketing
As more and more producers and investors enter Bollywood, the need to backup your
investment has increased a great deal. A film is considered a product or an experience
and a product with a huge investment. This past year has seen some of the most
expensive Hindi movies ever made. Kambakht Ishq made with a budget of 60 crore,
Jodha Akbar also about the same and Love Story 2050 made for a whopping 80 crore.
Surpassing all these will be Blue made from over 100 crore. Hence, marketing becomes
essential for producers looking to ensure profits on their investments.
It is true that big budget films are steadily on the rise. However, what is also true is the
fact that small budget films are turning out to be a great deal. Films like A Wednesday,
Aamir, Oye Lucky Oye, Dev D, and Mumbai Meri Jaan proved that high quality and
successful films can be made even with low budgets and without the presence of big
stars. Therefore, it is no surprise that UTV Motion Pictures has launched another motion
picture brand UTV Spotboy especially for such films. What these films bank on is great
marketing as usually there are no big stars in such films. They mostly cater to a select
audience so marketing helps in a huge way to lure those select audiences to the theatre.
Today marketing budgets for movies equals the budget for an entire film from a decade
ago. Film marketing companies like Percept, Studio 18, and UTV have come up in a big
way and shown what good marketing can do. Ghajini for example had great marketing
behind it, which made it the highest grossing film in Hindi Cinema with worldwide
collections touching Rs. 1 Billion. Marketing initiatives included a huge PR initiative and
multiplex (PVR) employees sporting Aamir‟s Ghajini style haircut for a week before its
release. Other films in recent times having great marketing were Bunty aur Bubly for
which Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee (both were cons in the film) became
news readers on NDTV India as a part of their conning act and also Dev D, whose
campaign we will discuss at length.
Dev D
Changing the way films are
marketed
Objectives
Dev D was not a typical Hindi film in any sense of the word. It took the age-old story of
Devdas (A man who loses his love and takes to alcohol) and blended it perfectly with the
21st century. Hence, it had many elements, which could be objectionable to the previous
generation. It received an „A‟ rating from the censor board and therefore, it was a film for
select audience and not for the masses.
The primary objective of the communication campaign was to increase the size of the
target audience. UTV Motion Pictures (UTV) the producers of the film were aware that
the subject and treatment of the film was such that only a select audience would be
interested in watching the film. Therefore, UTV set out with a marketing plan to capture
bigger audience, which would normally not go for such a film.
The marketing of Dev D was done through various tools, which are listed below
1. Advertising – UTV started advertising the film on its movie channels and other music
channels. What became the spearhead of their advertising campaign was the music of the
film, which was very fresh and different. The song emotional atyachaar became a super
hit in a few days of release and all publicity was done with this song at the centre. In
addition, most of the advertisements showed Abhay Deol (Dev) drinking, smoking which
was done to show exactly what the film offered, and essentially, how this new age
Devdas was so different from its predecessors.
2. Public Relations – This became a very strong tool in the communication campaign of
Dev D. The objective of PR was to act as the pivot for the campaign. This was achieved
by getting media to write about the new age Devdas and how the character has evolved
over the years. Another story pitch was the use of real life controversies in the film.
Anurag Kashyap used the DPS MMS case as well as the BMW hit and run case in the
film. This created a lot of controversy and the media wrote at length about this. All this
served the well in the promotion of the film. One more aspect of the great PR campaign
was the presence of Abhay Deol in many leading fashion magazine covers including M,
Man’s world, People and even Business Standard wrote at length about Abhay Deol and
his great choice of films, placing him even higher than Aamir Khan. This was done to
increase the hype around the film and to increase the brand value of the hero of the film.
3. Word Of Mouth – Viral marketing went a long way in promoting Dev D. As already
stated, the film was for the urban audience and specially the youth as they are the repeat
audience of a film. Hence, UTV used Facebook as the primary tool for viral marketing as
it gave them a window to reach the target audience. Today there are over 2000 members
with close to 300 posts. It also highlighted contests like “Win a Dev D T-Shirt” to attract
people to visit the group or the website. Blogs were also used actively to promote the film
over the internet. Abhay Deol, Anurag Kashyap and even other bloggers helped in
promoting the film through their blogs.
4. Promotional Campaign – UTV and Anurag Kashyap had no inhibitions about the fact
that the film was an „A‟ rated film and so they promoted it in that manner. The highlight
was „Lustline’, which was a 24x7 caller line where anyone can call 022 -61424800 and
talk to Chanda (who plays a sex worker in the film) as she talks to you in a husky
naughty voice. This suited the mood of the film and highlighted one of the characters
from the film. This campaign also helped UTV generate a lot of PR as well because it
was a very novel idea and so Financial Express to Screen, everyone wrote about it.
Target Audience
Dev D was a film aimed at the new educated class of India which appreciates niche films
which are closer to reality and made on the lines of Hollywood style of direction. This is
the audience which grew up watching these types of films on English movie channels.
UTV felt the need of demand of such realistic cinema and invested money to create a
product, which catered to the need of the respective audience. UTV invested Rs 60
million, but got a return of Rs 150 million in the first four weeks only in a low budget
film.
UTV had certainly hit the nail on its head by studying the audience carefully and then
choosing a marketing campaign, which was immensely different from its competitors.
The audience can be classified as follows:
1. Primary Audience- The primary market can be identified as urban India. This
encompasses metros like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore which have a sizeable amount of
population with disposable income. The targeted audience in these cities are the youth
which come in 18-35 years age bracket. This is the population which has grown up
watching realistic cinema on English movie channels and now demands similar quality
products from Indian film Industry. This is the segment of population which is
surrounded by the booming multiplex industry. It has become a style statement in metros
to watch movies only in multiplexes. This allows producers of such low budget films to
target their audience effectively by tying up with multiplex owners so that they can begin
their campaign early.
2. Secondary Audience- The secondary market can be identified as Indian Diasporas in
western countries. There is no age group for this audience. They include Indians who
have been settled abroad and still love their culture. An important observation is that a
large percentage of revenue comes from this secondary audience. The average movie
ticket costs $ 7.14 in USA and UK, whereas the same movie ticket in Indian multiplexes
is priced at maximum $4 or Rs 200.This price further falls if we move away from
multiplexes. The average price of a movie ticket in India is a mere 20 cents. This leads to
a situation in which the audience may be less in number in Western markets but the sheer
price of tickets put them at par with the revenue generated from Indian audience.
3. Tertiary Audience- The tertiary market can be identified as countries in which Indian
films are dubbed or sub-titled. These include Pakistan whose 8% of population is Urdu
speaking, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji, UAE, etc. The languages
include Russian, French, Arabic Spanish etc.
Audiences would tend to see these films in the theatrical release “window” more in the
primary market than in the secondary market (relative to the primary market) and least in
the tertiary markets (consisting mainly of satellite, cable and DVD/ video viewing.
Message Strategy
In Hindi films, teasers and trailers play a very important role. People make their first
perception about a film based on these teasers. Hence, it is very important to convey the
right message just like any other advertisements. Dev D was a creative masterpiece
because even though it was soft at heart, there was a lot of darkness in the film shown
through the different characters. They reflect the sensibilities, aggression, conflicts and
recklessness of today‟s youth.
The teaser of Dev D was totally inline with the primary objective of UTV. It had
glimpses of Dev drinking and consuming drugs to battle depression. It also had scenes
where there was use of explicit language very common among today‟s youth and the
urban crowd. Moreover, it depicted Dev as someone who had everything but love, in turn
conveying the soft heart of the film. The music playing in the background was the pilot
song „Emotional Atyachaar‟, which was the first song, released on T.V.
The print ads/posters were very different from what was usually seen in Hindi films.
They exhibited cult status in every inch of the poster. UTV released three different
posters each depicting the relationship of Dev with things he loved the most namely,
Paro, Chanda, and Alcohol. The posters were very colorful and were very true to the style
of the film. These ads also ensured that curiosity is built around the movie and more and
more people are tempted to watch the film.
Paro Chanda Alcohol
Creative Execution
Dev D was a path breaking film in terms of the communication tools which were used to
promote the film. It used certain techniques, which were unheard in India before. This
was primarily done to increase the niche audience numbers who otherwise would have
ignored such a kind of film, which was based on drugs and alcohol. This called for
innovativeness to be displayed while marketing such a product.
The following communication tools were broadly used:
1. Advertising - This was the most used medium of communication for Dev D. The
average promotion campaign for an Indian movie is 3 weeks, but in the case of Dev D the
trailers began to hit the television screen 3 months before the actual release of movie.
UTV understood the proposition that a low budget film that does not have a big star
attached to it needs more marketing spend than a big budget multi starrer film.
Pervasiveness - The colourful trailers which were unparallel in the level of creativity,
print, sound and colour, blanketed most of the news and music channels in the last week
before release. The message was clear from the promoters that there was no escaping
from their product. The heavily advertised product led to consumers believing that it is a
good quality product and hence must buy.
Strengths - The repeated telecasts created a buzz among audience.
It achieved the objective of labelling the product as a cult film.
It presented the product in an acceptable form which was needed since
the product touched the tabooed subjects of sex and drugs in India.
Weakness - Some audience might be annoyed by the repeated trailers everywhere
on television.
It was an adult film, so children might unnecessarily be inquisitive
about the film.
Advertising not only drives the behaviour of audiences, but also that of exhibitors.
2. Sales Promotion - UTV used a variety of promotional tools to create the buzz around
the film. This was primarily done to generate a quicker response from the audience
during the first week collections of the film.
Communication-This was the most important tool used by UTV to influence the
audience.
A lust line was set up in Mumbai in which users could dial the number and get a feel of
the character being played by one of the female stars in the film. This gimmick had never
been done before in Indian cinema. This led to a lot of reporters writing about the lust
line, thus promoting the film.
A game was launched in lieu with the film‟s release. Bollywood games have been a hit
among mobile gamers. This gave UTV an opportunity to extend the film‟s experience to
the mobile screen.
Strengths- It was successful in creating the buzz and inquisitiveness about the
product even before its release.
Mobile games provided an additional revenue stream for the product
while simultaneously promoting the film.
Weakness-It is sometimes hard to measure the effect of the money being spent on
sales promotion.
There is a fear of wasting the money on the wrong demographic, as
consumers may not like the idea of lust line.
3. Direct And Interactive Marketing - Viral marketing played an important role in
pushing Dev D as a cult film. UTV did not leave any stone unturned in order to use all
possible mediums of interactive marketing. The following methods were incorporated
Website - The website of the movie was very engaging in nature. It had links to other
websites and also the music preview was available on the site.
Youtube - UTV launched the new trailers on youtube. They regularly uploaded minute
long videos every 7-10 days. The official trailer had 60,000 views in just 2 months which
is very good for a hindi movie.
MTV - MTV was running ticker with Dev D jokes for 24 hrs. This was just a week before
the movie‟s release.
Facebook - An active official group was created which had 700 fans while its page had
14000 fans. The group was regularly updated and UTV nicely used this online medium to
create buzz about offline activities like contests and events.
Blog - The director of the film ,Anurag Kashyap, maintained a blog on
passionforcinema.com in which he described his experience of making the film. His blog
was a hit among the blogging fraternity of India which enabled the film to generate a lot
of online buzz.
Strength- Consumer feels a part of the promotional campaign.
It is a relatively inexpensive way of generating publicity.
Weakness- Since it was mainly concentrated on the „online‟ generation ,people who are
not tech savvy may be left out.
References
1. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-
Industry/Media-Entertainment-/Entertainment/Corporatisation-of-
Hindi-film-industry-may-usher-in-age-of-script-
writing/articleshow/2768244.cms?curpg=2
2. http://www.screenindia.com/news/corporatisation-boosts-
bollywood/304080/
3. http://www.pwc.com/in/en/press-releases/pwc-forecast-indian-
entertainment.jhtml
4. http://isongz.com/articles/hindi-movies-films
5. http://www.indianetzone.com/2/commercial_cinema.htm
6. http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/24spec.htm
7. http://www.screenindia.com/old/fullstory.php?content_id=18233
8. http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/scripts/top_grossers.php?to_y
ear=2008
9. http://buzz.com