Awe inspiring movie making…; Creativity at its best…; Technological innovation transforming into silver screen magic…; Intriguing way of unveiling the plot and storytelling…; Top notch technicians….; Celluloid beauties and Screen idols…; Personal touch moulding century old story lines into modern-day novelties… This is how I would think of most of the Hollywood Box office successes and their reasons for raking in the millions and made them Historical master pieces worth watching over and over.
The story in Bollywood is a tad different. They thrive on sensationalism, fantasy, demi god heroes, script and lyrics and music to create success and draw the crowd. For decades it has been the family values and tradition that they utilise to define the plot. Very few movies stand apart and have experimented and travelled the Road less travelled. There have been far more people taking these bold decisions off late.
Coming down further south and seeing how Box office success was and is created in Kollywood….
For several years it has always been Hero centric movies in the Kollywood. Right from MKT Bhagavathar, M.G.R, and Rajinikanth to the current crop of heroes, its been all about the hero worshipping the mother’s feet, speaking bold dialogues on the face of the camera, dancing around trees with gorgeous actresses (most of them totally alien to the Tamil language) and pouncing on the bad gang. Again the ones who take the other road are very less here too. But there has been a prominent rise of one particular force in one of the biggest film industries in the world.
That force is nothing but – “Marketing and TV media publicity”. This has been the reason behind several latest successes (in terms of box office collection). Even though most ofthese films might get only average rating from a traditional film critic, they all have managed to earn decent returns. Sun Pictures with with backing of Sun Network’s array of channels, FM stations, political muscle and marketing acumen has made a string of medium budget movie releases. All have been above average on earnings. The group buys distribution and marketing rights of many Minimum return-guarantee films and plans the release of all of them on a sequential manner. Targeted, well planned list of trailers get released day after day, building momentum gradually right up to the release day. This is followed by half an hour interactive programmes with the Movie team (Director, Actor, Actress, Producer and comedian) on each of their channels. Dont forget the Audio release, Movie preview, Movie Launch functions aired on a 3 hour time slot. This is what we call Fully Loaded 
This is one aspect of the force. the other aspect is that it has become a blessing in disguise for the movie production houses who find it difficult to market and bring in the needed RoI for their films. This has helped them to recover whatever they have invested with a decent margin and thus encouraging them to produce more movies. It has also helped a lot of new comers get chances to prove their mettle. Overall even though the movies run just because of the marketing genius, this new found success formula has extended the shelf life of medium budget movie makers.
Can the same tactic work out for other products genres too ??!!
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