Features

Online Movie Marketing Picks Up in India

By Sophia Mayengbam

Movie marketers are increasingly looking at the Internet and mobile mediums to promote their offerings. An online survey of 6,200 Internet users and their media habits found that 90 percent of surfers used the Internet to get information about movies. And 42 percent said they trawled for film info more than once a week, said the study conducted by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Marketing movies over the Internet offers advertisers a wide range of choices such as web sites design for movies, online reviews, video trailers, bulletin boards, email, etc. And today’s young audience is very receptive to this medium of marketing.

According to Savio Fernandes, Vice-President Media Sales at Rediff.com, movie marketing online is huge globally, and is picking up in India as well. He quotes a study by Jupiter Media Matrix to say that 68 percent of all Americans do not watch a movie unless they've seen a trailer. "And over 80 percent of them end up seeing movie trailers online as they're released three months prior to release, thereby enhancing salience levels of the film in the consumer's mind. Film companies have realised that there's an opportunity and are promoting their movies not only with the tried and tested outdoor, print and TV campaigns, but are also online," he says.

The IAMAI survey found that 55 percent of respondents considered reviews important, while another 11 percent thought it was very important. In fact, 31 percent of the respondents decided to watch a movie after reading an online review. Then comes trailers, with 13 per cent choosing to catch a movie after viewing an online trailer.

Krishna Prasad, Head of Programming at MSN Media, says movie companies have started looking at online as a big influencer and have begun going beyond setting up official web sites to offer competitive and interactive offerings such as blogs, MMS.

According to Fernandes online movie promos are receptive because it creates a virtual, interactive world and provide information to consumers through reviews, movie trivia, downloads, movie trailers, wallpapers, celebrity chats and cool contests.

The IAMAI survey also found that 60 percent of respondents preferred downloads of images/ wallpaper/ screensavers, 52 percent liked contests, 37 percent wanted reviews by professional critics, 35 percent opted for online movie trailers, 30 percent preferred reviews by online viewers and 27 percent liked games.

As an example of the growing popularity among movie marketers, Prasad cited the example of the Mangal Pandey campaign, which he felt was a well-organised one, with a movie web site and a blog by its hero Aamir Khan. "Aamir constantly updated the blog with his thoughts and also responded to a lot of users. And just because of his involvement, the message got around through word of mouth and the Mangal Pandey MSN Blog ended up with a lot of new users," he says.

Not only it has become a platform to market movies, the Internet also offers an opportunity for movie theatre owners to push ticket sales. Fernandes says buying movie tickets online is becoming commonplace in the metros, especially since 75 percent of those who visit multiplex cinemas are already regular Internet users. "Just for the record, Fandango.com (a leading US online ticketing site) sold 8% of tickets for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003! Unbelievable, but true!!" he exclaims.

Further research conducted by the IAMAI shows that it is possible to sell Rs 100 crores worth of movie tickets through online sales.