'Adipurush' To 'Pihu' – When Film Promotions Went Slightly Bizarre In The Name Of Innovation

Film promotions are going a notch higher with every passing film. The latest to join the bandwagon is ‘Adipurush’ where director Om Raut requested all theatres to spare one seat in every show in respect of Lord Hanuman. Well, it might sound outlandish and bizarre at the outset, but it does pique your interest.

For the younger generation, it begs the question as to why a seat was asked to be left empty. For the elder generation, it’s a means to narrate the age-old story of Hanuman ji being immortal. In either case, it helps begin a conversation about the film, which in turn pushes people to leave the comforts of their homes and head out to a theatre and watch whether or not theatres are keeping a seat empty in honour of Lord Hanuman, thereby selling the tickets of the movie. Curiosity about a film (or in this case, its promotional aspect) helps increase ticket sales and therefore the returns at the box-office.

Director Om Raut thanked audiences after theatres all over India followed the one-seat rule for Hanuman ji.

This is not just a standalone instance of such innovative marketing gimmicks sounding bizarre in the face of it, but eventually doing their job or creating curiosity about the film in the minds of the audiences.

Sample this - a young, promising actor got a time slot on a real news channel to host a segment. A national news channel, where people still tune in to get information about happenings of all kinds, from around the world, had an actor pretend to play his character from the film to convince viewers of his acting chops as a news anchor. Well, it’s none other than Kartik Aaryan turning a news anchor for his film ‘Dhamaka’. The gimmick worked wonders and people actually were stunned to see him anchoring, and soon afterwards he went on to promote his film where he was playing a news anchor.

Films and their promotions have always shared a hand-in-glove deal. Actors and directors have always given interviews and interacted with fans to generate curiosity about the subject of their films. Then came film events, where sometimes actors would shake a leg to their movie’s songs to give a glimpse of the music the film has to offer. Cut forward to full-fledged city tours, with activities synced with the film’s theme. All of this felt like creative minds at work in the PR teams of the film and now the innovative ideas have gone to a level where there’s too much exposure for the actors and their films, and every time there’s something or the other that’s new.

To be fair, this is just in the case of big-budget films or at least films that have a big producer backing the project. As the budgets increased, ideas became grand and film promotions soon were about having a 'pre-release buzz'.

In 2017, when Shah Rukh Khan decided to take a train journey to promote his film ‘Raees’, it was loved by all and sundry. People lined up days before trying to figure out on which train is he actually going to travel. The ticket sales of that train hit through the roof. However, it also ended up with a stampede on Vadodara railway station, so much so, that one person unfortunately even lost his life.

In 2012, Mumbaikars saw missing posters of a man called Arnab Bagchi pasted all over the town. It was everywhere from noticeboards to outside police stations, hospitals and colleges. People were indeed left curious as to what was it all about. However, in very small at the bottom of those missing posters was mentioned that if any information was to be given about Arnab Bagchi, then people should go to a Facebook link mentioned. As the movie’s name was still not out in the open, when you went on your phone or laptop and opened that link, it would invariably take you to the movie’s page, thereby indicating that it was a movie starring Vidya Balan that was about to be released in a few weeks.

Promoting a film through various marketing techniques has become such an integral part of the promotions that it has now become almost difficult to really say what is too much. One can never really say how much 'buzz' is required and whether promotional tactics are even translating into footfalls or not. Yet, one has to keep trying to be more and more innovative so as to catch the eye of the viewer.

From actors giving haircuts to regular people, the team of the film travelling with media on a train, to relationship reports of the lead cast to the lead cast ‘breaking up’ right before the release of the film – everything is part and parcel of the innovative strand of marketing used by film publicists.

Ok, so, has the following happened to you?

You switch on the television and watch a celebrity talking about his/her film in an interview. You watch, get updated and then look for something else. You flip the channel to watch a fun dance reality show and see the same actor in the judge's seat, taking chances to talk about his film. You think to yourself ‘Oh yeah! I know what this film is about’. So, you move on to watch something different, maybe your favourite daily fiction show. But wait, here is the same actor again making a cameo in the show, as part of the show's story, eventually plugging his film and its release in the show.

Well, it’s not a fictional scenario. Often a film’s marketing team and PR team go overboard with 'spreading the word' about their film, doing an overkill. While the trailer and poster of the film are a good, old and trusted way to give a glimpse to a viewer about the film, audiences were bored of situations like the aforementioned scenario. That’s when came in these innovative promotional tactics. Even though these innovative tactics cost money and add to the publicity budget of the movie, it’s something that sticks in the minds of the audiences.

These innovative tactics are time and again labelled as out-of-the-box, but honestly, most of them are simply smart marketing. For example, Akshay Kumar legit sat on a commode on the stage during one of the promotional events for his 2017 film ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’. Well, it got the attention of the audiences and people spoke about the pics of Akshay Kumar sitting on the commode for months before the film’s release thereby helping in spreading the message of the film.

However, sometimes even these innovative marketing techniques go overboard and outright bizarre and get etched in your mind for all the wrong reasons. In 2018, the makers of the psychological thriller film ‘Pihu’, decided to do telemarketing for the film in a rather distressing manner. The film revolved around a two-year-old girl stuck alone in the house after her mother dies in unexpected circumstances. Many people complained of getting a call from a child crying and asking for her parents and before the receiver could respond, the call gets disconnected. When the receiver frantically dials back on the same number, they were provided with a link to the film's trailer!

It did end up violating the peace of mind of the people who received the calls, but it did the trick. The film ended up getting numerous awards at various film festivals and became one of the most-watched films of that month when it was later released on OTT.

At least these innovative techniques of marketing are way better than actors going into a public spat on social media right before the release of their projects.

Spreading the word about the film is an obvious, genuine attempt from a film’s team to get months and even years of hard work to the audience but rather than using boring and mundane techniques, it’s always a welcome change to see some innovative marketing strategies create the necessary buzz for the movie.

Coming back to ‘Adipurush’, the film may have received some backlash for its dialogues, but all of that will be forgotten soon, and what will remain in the makers of the movie walking to the bank with bags full of cash. The film is already around Rs 410 crore at the worldwide box-office, and by the time you read this article, it would have easily crossed the Rs 450 crore mark.

This just goes on to prove the age-old adage used in the film industry – No publicity is bad publicity. We saw it with ‘Pathaan’ earlier this year, which had to go through the boycott gang on social media, and that itself created so much buzz that it ended up becoming one of the topmost-grossing films of all time in Hindi cinema. The same got repeated with ‘The Kerala Story’ last month. Now, it’s ‘Adipurush’.