Ittefaq follows 'less is more' mantra for promotion; is it time Bollywood cuts down on aggressive marketing?

Ahead of its release on 3 November, the Sidharth Malhotra-Sonakshi Sinha-Akshaye Khanna starrer crime thriller, Ittefaq has rather maintained a low profile. On Monday, the stars of the film, along with the co-producers — Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar — and the film’s director Abhay Chopra marked their presence for a low-key promotion event . Point to be noted: That is the first and, as a matter of fact, the only time when the film’s stars and makers have interacted with the media regarding the film. Intriguing, right? At a time when production houses spend a major share of their film’s budget on promotional events, Ittefaq takes a detour from the convention. Earlier this month, Karan Johar, speaking about the film, said, “With this film, we are not going to do any promotions, we will not go to any reality TV show to promote the film and we will not have media interviews and media presence either. We respect media but it’s our new strategy that we want to protect the content of the film because, with this film, I feel less is more,” reports Koimoi.com. [caption id=“attachment_4111805” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Akshaye Khanna, Sonakshi Sinha and Sidharth Malhotra in the upcoming film, Ittefaq. Image courtesy: Facebook[/caption] Bollywood, over the years, has evolved into this huge movie-making industry where, with every passing day, the stakes keep getting higher. Therefore, the producers choose to make their projects as commercially viable as possible in order to keep the business rolling. Setting appropriate promotional strategies for a film has become one of the quintessential to-be-done tasks before the release of a film. It is a gradual process; starts with the release of the first look, teaser of the trailer, trailer(s), song launches, TV appearances, radio station visits, press shows and a plethora of other stuff. Along with this, the social media promotion — Facebook Live, Twitter and Instagram feeds etc — is altogether a different ball game. In the last few years, much of a film’s box-office thunder has relied upon its promotional strategies. Many films in the past have had a major opening just on the basis of their fabulous promotional strategies. While some could maintain the footfalls in the following days, some fizzled with time. Can the opening of a film be then attributed to the film’s promotions? Certainly yes. And if that adds to the overall business, it’s a complete win-win scenario. Let’s have a look at some films which benefitted a lot using some unconventional yet relevant film-promotion techniques: The 2005’s blockbuster Bunty Aur Babli had its lead stars — Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukerji — appear on a news channel and read the live news. The very title of 2007’s hit flick Jab We Met was an outcome of a pre-release contest that required audiences to choose a name for the film out of three options; the majority voted for ‘Jab We Met’. For Ghajini, Aamir Khan roped in Big Cinemas and devised a unique strategy which saw all the staff of the multiplex-theatre chain sporting the same hairdo as that of Khan in the film. Khan also displayed his promotional acumen with 3 Idiots when he openly challenged people to spot him while he sported different looks and traveled around Indian cities. [caption id=“attachment_4186747” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Posters of (clockwise): Ghajini, Ra-One, Jab We Met and 3 Idiots. Images via Facebook[/caption] There has been a fair share of outrageous promotional strategies too. During the promotions of Raaz 3, Bipasha Basu had reportedly distributed nimbu-mirchi to auto-rickshaw drivers in Mumbai to ward off evil spirits. Upping the ante was Jism 2 where Sunny Leone’s innerwear was auctioned online. Incidentally, both the films presumably gained from these tactics and did a decent business at the box-office. On the contrary, a film like Ra-One which was a mammoth project in terms of budget and scale, with a much-hyped promotional strategy, didn’t fare well at the box-office. Shah Rukh Khan released a PS2/PS3 compatible game based on the film. Not just that, there was custom merchandise (toys, stationery and figurines to name a few) made exclusively for the film. All this definitely gave the film a staggering opening, but alas, it was not enough for the film to sail through its fate. Thus, it does prove that openings largely depend on the promotions but the fate of the film is strongly dependent on the content. But then, another question arises, how much is enough? In an industry that churns out nearly 1,602 films a year (as per a survey conducted by Forbes magazine in 2014), not every film tastes success. While some achieve that with star power, content and good promotion, some lose it because of low budget (in spite of fabulous content). Is that justified if we just take cinema as an artistic endeavour and not a multi-million business? What about the notion of come one, come all? Many independent filmmakers do not stand a chance in front of the high budget films — A. They can’t afford stars in their film; B. Budget is too tight; C. There is no scope of interaction with media, hence the whole promotion factor gets eliminated. But in the last five years, there has been a gradual shift in the audience’s mindset. As is said, ‘public hai sab jaanti hai’ (the audience knows it all). There have been many films in the past which have tasted success without any major promotions. Films like Tanu Weds Manu, Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Queen, Drishyam, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Kahaani, English Vinglish, Vicky Donor and Gangs of Wasseypur among others have proven that content does sell after all. 2017, in particular, stands a testimony to the fact that the film’s plot has taken precedence and star power has been pushed to the second spot. Otherwise, why would massive films like _Tubelight, Jab Harry Met Sejal, Jagga Jasoos, Rangoo_n — embellished with India’s biggest stars — fail dismally at the box-office? They had everything going for them but lacked good content (open to debate). Nonetheless, 2017 will also be significant for introducing or rather setting a trend in promotional strategies. With films like Meri Pyaari Bindu and Jab Harry Met Sejal introducing the concept of short trailers with chapters and mini-trails respectively, the domain of film promotions went even wider. Though it started with Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi last year, the two films this year took the concept several notches higher. Phillauri had a meme campaign which featured Anushka Sharma’s ghost character Shashi embedded in iconic places, scenes and situations with the hashtag - #ShashiWasThere. Similarly, Bank Chor had memes of Riteish Deshmukh’s face cropped on major Hindi film posters as a promotional tool. For Raees, Shah Rukh Khan decided to travel from Mumbai to Delhi via train promoting his film at few stoppages. But this strategy backfired after the mob went crazy to meet the megastar leading to police intervention. Also read: Jab Harry Met Sejal: Mini-trails to chapters, how short is Indian audiences’ attention span? But, did all these films work at the box-office? Obviously not; the content card again trumped and triumphed. Barring Raees and Phillauri , all the above-mentioned films of 2017 fell flat on the face. No doubt, with the buzz around these films, the audiences were thrilled and the inquisitiveness quotient did rise, but the final outcome was not as expected. [caption id=“attachment_3496887” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Dangal and Baahubali 2: The Conclusion changed the Indian film box office. File Photo[/caption] The recent two biggest blockbusters of all time — Dangal and Baahubali — had surprisingly profited by solely focusing on digital marketing. The stars of the films were not seen making a lot of public appearances before the media prior to the release and yet drove people in (and how!) after the films hit the cinema theatres. Both these films stand as examples of smart-promotions-huge-returns strategy. Also read: Baahubali 2: The Conclusion — How relentless marketing kept the buzz alive for four years With all this history and learning from the past films, Ittefaq seems to be on the right track. If the makers can cash on this ’no-promotion’ buzz followed with the ‘Say No To Spoilers’ campaign, this modern remake will definitely start a trend that will not be ‘Ittefaq Se’ (a mere coincidence).