From Instagram and YouTube to Twitter, Roohi, Bollywood's first medium size offering in 2021, was grabbing eyeballs everywhere.
Lead actress of Roohi, Janhvi Kapoor, had come up with the Panghat challenge on Instagram where people had to recreate the hook step of the song Panghat, which features in the film – it would give winners the chance to meet the dazzling Kapoor virtually.
Along with this, the actress also grooved on some of the songs from the film with influencers like Ishpreet Dang who runs a channel on YouTube called Dancefit Live that has over five million subscribers.
On Instagram, Dang has 3,12,000 followers. The influencers had collaborated with Kapoor to make #ReelsWith Roohi on Instagram.
Along with dance content, Kapoor had also created a short video called 'Horror Act' on Instagram with creator Awez Darbar, who has 8.5 million followers on Instagram.
Then all the three lead actors of the film including Rajkumar Rao, Varun Sharma and Kapoor, came together with another YouTube creator Ashish Chanchlani, who is the second biggest individual Indian YouTuber with 24 million subscribers, for a video content called 'Chambdi Baba Bhagaye Bhoot'.
So, what did the actors or the makers of the film achieve after creating all this content? Obviously, a smash hit.
Roohi released on March 11, was able to notch up the highest opening day collections with over Rs three crore at the box office, even in these troubled COVID times.
While collections are key for any film, what is also interesting is the marketing technique used to promote Roohi. Around 80 percent of selling the film was done on digital with very few ground promotions - like Rajkumar Rao clicking selfies with fans at the INOX mall in Lucknow.
According to Harikrishnan Pillai, CEO and co-founder, TheSmallBigIdea, a digital and social media marketing agency, due to the impact of the pandemic, the entire marketing pivot has turned on its head and gone digital. He said that in the last one year, there have been zoom press conferences and fan-meets. The marketing narratives have been fueled by the actors and the social and digital strength of production houses.
While marketing budgets did see a drop last year due to COVID, spends to promote films are back to pre-COVID levels with a difference - most of the marketing spends are redirected to digital.
And Roohi is one example of this new trend. Like Roohi, down South too, producers and production houses are shifting their focus from traditional mediums to digital for promoting their films. Take the example of KGF 2.
Sahir Muneer, founder of Divo, a digital media and music company, which has content partners like film production houses, said that unlike the first sequel, producers of KGF 2 have taken the digital-first approach to market the film, which will be hitting theatres on July 16.
No city tours, less focus on TV, print
Be it Roohi or KGF 2, movie marketing across film industries is in the throes of a radical shift. Shibashish Sarkar, Reliance Entertainment Group CEO and producer of upcoming ventures like Akshay Kumar's Sooryavanshi and Ranveer Singh-starrer 83, agrees.
"In the last 12 months, there has been a dramatic shift in terms of how to communicate with the audience. In the pre-COVID period, the area we focused on for movie marketing was largely TV and full and half page ads in print. There would also be city visits and press conferences. For a few movies, there were outdoor campaigns and then digital. But for digital, the budget was limited and the focus would only be on platforms like BookMyShow or Paytm's of the world," he points out.
After what happened last year, Sarkar adds for good effect, a substantial number of conferences and events will go out of the window. "For example, taking actors to Delhi to do events in schools and colleges are not on the radar. TV's importance has also reduced. There will be dramatic reduction in spends on print," he predicts.
Digital is the deal
According to both Sarkar and Muneer, digital is becoming more important than ever for marketing movies.
"Digital spends will not be to specific outlets only. While money varies from movie to movie depending on its size, digital spends will double up in the current times, even more than what they were in the pre-COVID period," said Sarkar.
Adding, Muneer said that in the South, where digital was once a small part of the whole marketing mix, producers are now looking at influencer marketing or paid ads on social media platforms.Producers or production houses are connecting with influencers to promote films. For Roohi, the producers associated with at least five to six influencers. Top influencers charge anywhere between Rs four to five lakh for a campaign, which involves Instagram posts and videos, among other platforms.
"Production houses are also looking at meme marketing because it has become a strong way of communication in every language. Like in Tamil Nadu, meme content is very popular. From one or two activities on digital, producers are looking at more ways of engagement on the medium to promote a film," Muneer added.
Adding to this, TheSmallBigIdea’s Pillai said that in the films they marketed, including Ayushmann Khurrana- Amitabh Bachchan's starrer Gulabo Sitabo and Varun Dhawan's Coolie No 1, large part of the effort pivoted around digital.
"The digital spends almost doubled for the films that we have marketed in the last year. They have all been digital releases. But even in a back-to- theatre or a hybrid phase, the spends would significantly move up with TV and digital controlling over 80 percent of the marketing budgets," he points out.
Dr. Tapan Kumar Panda, Director- NMIMS Hyderabad Campus, an expert on marketing and branding, pointed out that in the pre-COVID era, marketing spends on ground activities was almost 55 percent, followed by broadcast media like FM radio, television channels at 25 percent, while the balance went on social media like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
"Currently, on-ground campaigns for promotion have gone down almost by 50 percent. There is an increase in digital media, specifically social media, for which the expenses have gone up to 45 percent of the total movie marketing budget," he added.
Digital here to stay
While some producers and production houses were looking at digital to promote films even before the COVID period, Akshaara Lalwani, CEO, Communicate India, a brand consultancy, said that the pandemic has acted as a catalyst and now digital has become the dominant axis in terms of spends of the marketing mix.
"There might be 10-15 percent deflection, but a large portion (of marketing spend for film promotion) will be retained by digital," she added. Clearly, the day of the digital has well and truly begun.