Digital Marketing : An Effective Marketing Tool in the Film Business

Filmein sirf teen cheezon ki wajah se chalti hain.. 

Entertainment, Entertainment aur Digital Marketing….!!

With the increasing rise of Over the top (OTT) platforms and a multitude of activities for the youth to participate in on a weekend, ensuring that people come to watch a box-office release has become a challenge. With an average time of 3-4 weeks a film screens(gaining particularly on weekends) in the theatres, reaching the right set of audience and making them turn up and make it a box-office success requires keeping them excited and involved in the film right from the days of the making to post-launch. And this is where Digital Marketing can play a pivotal role. 

Digital Marketing comprises a plethora of activities like live streaming of music launches, hang out with the crew, film-based games, social media contests, YouTube Videos, Live chats, and digital interviews and a lot more. All this does not only help in keeping the audience engaged but it also develops an emotional bond. But, the best advantage of Digital marketing is that it’s ROI(return on investment) can be effectively measured and the strategy can be dynamically adjusted.

Different platforms can be leveraged in different ways. YouTube is the biggest platform that can be used for film promotions. It reaches to millions of video watching audience every day. It is a cost-effective way to reach to a specified target audience. Teasers & Trailers are just the tip of the iceberg. Actors sharing their views in press conferences and giving interviews to a multitude of Bollywood channels can hold the attention of the audience. Film based games can only add to the fun and let people experience the characters.

With the highest number of active users just from India, Facebook (313 Million) and YouTube(281 Million) are the most popular active digital platforms to market your product. It is one of the best ways to create awareness and reach to an audience before the release of a film. Following are some things that the marketing team of a film does :

1) Pre-release Video Advertising - Teasers and song videos play a huge role. Teasers are small glimpse and snapshots of a film which keeps the audience excited, usually launched months before the release. Songs play an immense role in gaining popularity for a film and also subconsciously keeps the audience aware of the film through radio and audio streaming platforms.

2) Engaging Audience during the making of the film - posting photos and videos of shooting locations , actor' outfits, making-of videos, and other content through popular platforms like Instagram and Snapchat .They are not only entertaining but keeps the audience hooked.

3) Let audience experience the film - posting stills of many scenes or actors with captions. This makes people play the guessing game and they started to predict the film’s plot.

4) Fun Activities - Challenge videos, Tik-Tok competitions and selfie dare’s are some example. This can help keep people engaged post the film’s  release as well. A recent example being Gully Boy promoting the film by asking people to rap on the film’s soundtracks which gained huge popularity.

5) Contests and Quiz - contests like meet the star casts of the film and social media quizzes are all part of digital marketing engaging more and more people.

6) Endorsements by other actors - every actor has their own fan following on social media platforms. Any positive word by them always garners a positive response. These platforms can especially be leveraged to extend the life of a film beyond the 70mm screens.

So, we see that digital marketing is not limited in scope to products and services. It has started seeping into different domains – any domain where a reach to the audience or consumer is required. Traditional marketing is not enough for the promotion to be complete. To reach your target segment effectively you need to follow a 360⁰ approach, one which is incomplete without the ambit of digital marketing and especially social media.