Friday, November 9, 2007

One of the big Diwali release this year, Om Shanti Om has been marketed very vigorously. Shah Rukh Khan the country's biggest brand ambassador has turned on the charm to promote his latest film and home production. The Rs 30 crore film that has a host of brand tie-ups releases on Friday.

It’s the dream debut in more ways than one and we are not talking about Deepika Padukone. The four brands associating with the film Om Shanti Om are first timers as well. From L’Oreal’s Maybelline brand of makeup, which is endorsed by Deepika to Sia Jewellery to Shoppers’ Stop collection inspired from the four main characters in the film. The association pegged that Rs 3 crore each hand an in film, on air and point of sales presence and the return on investment is already visible.

“Our product has been flying off the shelf; we targeted Rs 5 crore sale and already we have knocked off more than 20% of that sale in the last three week's time. The exposure that we got has been more than Rs 3 crore worth of bites that we have got on the ramp walk show itself and I believe the brand association is definitely going to help us” says Govind Shrikande, CEO of Shoppers’ Stop.

Darshana Bhalla, CEO of Mates says that today you have an person, who doesn’t mind wearing a T-shirt created by Shoppers’ Stop which is kind of emulation or inspired from Om Shanti Om and that’s where the differentiation is and that’s where the industry will go. So merchandising will become a platform of its own, this all will grow into individual businesses and subsequently contribute to the movie business or to the content business. I think that’s where the differentiating factor is today.

Nokia is entering branded film entertainment in the mobile space with these Om Shanti Om crazy mobisode, ring tones and wallpapers dubbed in Shah Rukh Khan’s voice. The strategy was to tap into the youth segment.

“Currently it’s estimated that the download industry and the content industry is worth Rs 1,000 crore and its expected to grow ten fold over the next five years. So what we are trying to do is take people beyond device and Om Shanti Om allows us to do that” says Bob McDougall, Director Sales at Nokia India.

While the audiences will decide which film got its marketing right this Diwali made switch handle the four brand associations with the film has let their main brand Shah Rukh Khan do all the talking.

Q: You are used to endorsing brands but for the first time you are endorsing your own brand something that you created which is, Om Shanti Om. How different is that?

Khan: It was high time actually because I tried to look for a bigger star then I couldn’t find anyone so I settled for me.

I always do, for years actually, if anybody is to ask me; my job as an actor doesn’t end after I finish my dialogues on the set, heard the cut and gone back home. I think an actor’s job is as a brand also and it’s stupid to deny the fact that in a certain sense for want of any better word lets call ourselves kind of brands.

It’s important that an actor stick to his film till the day it releases in the theaters because it’s my responsibility.

If you have been working for so many years at the same job and have had such good business in it, I think its my duty to stick to the film till the day it is released and do whatever I can to try and send the message across to people that “listen we worked hard, this is a good film, please try and see it and then move on and that what I have done for every film whether its mine or not”

It seems a lot more now with Om Shanti Om because the platforms have increased and I have given the same amount of interviews for Don or for Chake De, depending on the kind of films also, you try to create that kind of eyeballs for it. This is one of those blockbuster kinds of films, Batman so you need to get a lot of people in the time when holidays, Diwali and stuffs like that and I am thankful to all of you, taking it all over the place.

Q: Cut the HT Leadership Summit sometime back and you asked the media if they would help you because you were competing with a big internationals studio Sony Pictures, which was bringing its first production to India. Closer to the film release both the films seem on par or perhaps you are ahead in terms of marketing. How do you access the marketing of the film so far?

Khan: I told the media that my whole logic is that if I have a kind of competition from anyone with lot of positivity, I am not going to wake up in the morning and give up. I am going to go and say, you may have the money, you may have the clout, you may have the name but I have Shah Rukh Khan so I am not going to give up like that and as a producer, entity Red Chillies Entertainment, it will not bow down to any other production house; it could be Sony, Columbia TriStar, it can be XYZ so we will fight it out with positivity and on Friday we will see.

Q: So far we have seen lot of films go with the lessees more philosophy when it comes to marketing. They want to keep it quiet, they want to audience to discover the film. Chake De was relatively low-key but this is definitely more the blockbuster style as you said. Which one do you think is going to ultimately woo the audience?

Khan: Depends, like I said in the very beginning - its not what kind of marketing. The kind of marketing is dependent upon the kind of film it is. Chake De was not low-key that way, we still have the similar number of theaters maybe little less but what we also felt about Chake De was that because it was an intense underplayed performance. What we would have said about Chak De- ‘that come down and watch a Hockey match’

So the idea was to let people come and discover themselves because when we started talking about the film, I did get a lot of negative feedback like 'Oh! New girls, no heroine, no song, no dance, we are not going to see, we don’t like you like this' So the idea was ‘if you don’t like me like this, there is no point me trying to project that part and say listen please like me. So you leave it to the film to say what it has to. So the marketing was kept a little low-key.

Om Shanti Om on the other hand is a film, which is like regular summer, Christmas blockbuster where we do require people to come during the holiday and hoards and we make sure that there is availability of tickets for that kind of people and everyone wants to see a film like that. I don’t know which one will survive as it will always be a question of what product needs what kind of marketing. It will never be - lets do the marketing and let the product go to hell. It will always be dependent on the product.

Shah Rukh Khan has pulled out all the stops for Om Shanti Om. From interviews, to brand endorsements, to being sighted strategically at cricket matches, the SRK juggernaut was out in full glory. Next week, we will know if it has flattened everything in sight.

MoneyControl.com