Bollywood's big promotion tamasha

Ask any actor what is the one part of their job that they hate the most and they will tell you it is promoting the film. These days it is a part of the written contract.

Ask any producer what additional cost pinches him the most, and the answer most likely will be marketing budget. In the last decade the budget for a film’s publicity has gone up from 5-7 per cent of cost to almost 30 per cent! Crores are spent to create awareness about a film. That money can actually be used to make more films and support small films. In the South, there is a regulatory body that keeps a check on these spends.

B-Town producers agree that a regulator is required to keep a check on the sky-rocketing marketing budgets. In the South, films can be promoted in a fixed time span (a month prior to release) to give a fair chance to everyone, especially the small players who don’t have deep pockets. It is a model that has worked in the South and their industry is flourishing.
 
What B-Town needs
In the absence of such a regulating body here, every producer and studio is trying to out-do the other by pulling all the stops when it comes to grabbing eyeballs. Judging by the aggressive in-your-face strategies, it is only a matter of time before the stars will spend more time promoting the film than they do shooting for it. The marketing budget of the film exceeds that of a film (already happening in some cases). While a segment of the industry admits that the budget ratios upset the economies of film business, all filmmakers succumb to the pressure eventually.
 
Is it time to control the promotions?
Film promotions’ budgets are getting bigger. More cities and channels and print media are being added to the list of things-to-do. Spend money to make money seems to be the mantra. More and more moolah is being spent on paid edit (Rs40 lakhs per film going to just one publication), radio time, TV spots, and hoardings. Not to mention the spends on lavish events for trailer, music launch and sponsor events. A large chunk of money is kept aside to promote the film.

In case of a small budget film (read no big star), the marketing budget overshoots the actual filmmaking costs. Senior vice-president, AMPTPP, Vikas Mohan reveals that the marketing budgets of films like Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 and Raanjhanaa were as high as 30 per cent of the total films’ cost. “Studios come with deeper pockets. But a small-time producer despite having good content may not be able to promote it as well in comparison, and so suffers. In fact, many a times filmmakers feel under pressure to improve the promotions and upset budgets. If they are unable to recover the costs, they end up incurring huger losses,” he says.

Vikas adds, “So it’s definitely not fair for the small producers who are buckling under pressure of the studios when it comes to try and match up to the promotions and the film openings.”
 
Rs25 crore is justified
The otherwise media-shy and even the most reclusive stars become completely accessible a month before the release. Publicists offer the stars as guest editors and tangle an “office visit” as bait. Ahead of their film, actors put their best foot forward (or in Vidya Balan’s case hideous clothes from her film) and come out to woo the same media they otherwise give the middle finger to.

Ranbir Kapoor recently admitted to feeling like a salesman during the promotions of YJHD and confessed to not liking the process at all. Can’t blame him. An actor is expected to give 30-45 days to promote the film. Promoting a film can be time-consuming, monotonous and unimaginative. Then there are the same old questions by the tabloids, the RJ’s, the TV hosts. (Sample: Tell us about your role in the film.

Tell us about working X director or Y co-star). But that isn’t the worst part. What is: Not knowing if all those appearances on TV reality, daily shows, the visits to malls, attending sponsor events and the multi-city tours are actually translating to the box-office numbers. But still every actor in the country runs the length and breath of the city/country/map to talk about their film. Trade analyst Komal Nahta says the more you yell, the more you sell is the strategy. T-Series honcho Bhushan Kumar says, “There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to allocating marketing budgets. It  differs from film to film. For some films Rs10 crore suffice, and for some even Rs25 crore is justified.”

Going overboard?
Nandu Ahuja, Sr VP, India theatrical, Eros International, states, “There is no fixed percentage set aside for a film’s promotions. For Vicky Donor, the marketing cost was higher than the actual filmmaking cost, while for English Vinglish, it was nearly the same. For Cocktail, the budget was not high compared to the film’s cost.”

Tanuj Garg, CEO, Balaji Motion Pictures, says that it’s not always about the costs, “All media plans are formulated keeping in mind the target audience, the budget of the film and the actual recovery prospects. With marketing we can optimise the chances of that recovery, but the budgets for it cannot be impractical or disproportionate to the expected returns. You just have to do what’s right for the film and ensure a good opening.”

Marketing the menace!
A filmmaker on grounds of anonymity says, “We feel cornered into partnering or tying up with a studio because that’s the only way we are ensured that our film can match up to the high levels of marketing that’s the norm these days. There’s just no limit to how much these studios are willing to spend and it’s impossible for an independent filmmaker to match up to that hype that they create and so naturally our films suffer even if the content may be just as good if not better.”
 
Curb it South style!
Vikas Mohan insists that rules and regulations in this regard need to be implemented. “This is an issue that we have touched and deliberated upon very seriously earlier, and all unanimously agreed that there should be some control exercised when it comes to marketing. However, despite the positive response, it could never be implemented. What they don’t realize is that in the long run smaller producers will find it difficult to sustain themselves. For studios to shell out a few crores for a certain TV spot is easy, the amount is peanuts. But the same amount is a huge sum for a producer who is not backed by a studio. This is not a healthy sign for the industry that thrives as much on small-time producers as on biggies.”
 
The final word
Bhushan Kumar feels that a slab system of some sort should be brought in place, like it is in the South. “That’s a good system no doubt and will help everybody for the marketing budgets to be controlled by a association.”

Producer Ramesh Taurani too agrees that some sort of check like there is down South needs to be implemented here to stop the budget overkill and says, “A uniformity needs to be there when it comes to spending on marketing, and no it does not mean that one will have to compromise on the creativity for that. Most studios may not agree but they do go overboard and other filmmakers find it tough to match up to that level of marketing. Adopting the system like there is in the South will help to a great extent, but we also have to be self-regulatory and ensure that they are implemented if we ever do go their way.”