Dev D Marketing Report

Managerial Marketing-I Assignment – 4 Analysis of Communication Campaign

PRODUCT: ‘DEV D’

SUBMITTED BY: Ankit Chadha (91068) Ankur Bhatia (91070) Swati Gupta (91115) Tanushree Jain (91117) Vishal Soni (91120)

Executive Summary Dev D was a movie, which was a marketed in a manner that was never seen before in Indian film industry. The production house, UTV Motion Pictures understood the proposition that they had to market their niche film in a manner that would attract the maximum audience. The target audience was clearly identified as the urban youth. . UTV was aware that the subject and treatment of the film was such that only a select audience would be interested in watching the film. Therefore, UTV set out with a marketing plan to capture bigger audience, which would normally not go for such a film based on sex, drugs and alcohol.

The film was marketed aggressively on all mediums used by the youth. Trailers began to air on television screens 3 months before its release. A great website was set up to bring in more online users. A lustline was set up which raised many eyebrows but simultaneously acted as a great publicity tool for the film. YouTube and Facebook were also used to attract audience that was curious.

This was a low budget film that had no big stars to market it. So a campaign that was full of colour and art was launched. This generated a lot of hype for the film, which made it recover 2.5 times the cost invested in it in a short time.

This showed that it is possible to attract consumers based on hype surrounding a product. A product that may be weak in features and content can be made powerful by marketing it in a proper manner that maximizes profit.

Film Marketing As more and more producers and investors enter Bollywood, the need to backup your investment has increased a great deal. A film is considered a product or an experience and a product with a huge investment. This past year has seen some of the most expensive Hindi movies ever made. Kambakht Ishq made with a budget of 60 crore, Jodha Akbar also about the same and Love Story 2050 made for a whopping 80 crore. Surpassing all these will be Blue made from over 100 crore. Hence, marketing becomes essential for producers looking to ensure profits on their investments.

It is true that big budget films are steadily on the rise. However, what is also true is the fact that small budget films are turning out to be a great deal. Films like A Wednesday, Aamir, Oye Lucky Oye, Dev D, and Mumbai Meri Jaan proved that high quality and successful films can be made even with low budgets and without the presence of big stars. Therefore, it is no surprise that UTV Motion Pictures has launched another motion picture brand UTV Spotboy especially for such films. What these films bank on is great marketing as usually there are no big stars in such films. They mostly cater to a select audience so marketing helps in a huge way to lure those select audiences to the theatre.

Today marketing budgets for movies equals the budget for an entire film from a decade ago. Film marketing companies like Percept, Studio 18, and UTV have come up in a big way and shown what good marketing can do. Ghajini for example had great marketing behind it, which made it the highest grossing film in Hindi Cinema with worldwide collections touching Rs. 1 Billion. Marketing initiatives included a huge PR initiative and multiplex (PVR) employees sporting Aamir‟s Ghajini style haircut for a week before its release. Other films in recent times having great marketing were Bunty aur Bubly for which Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee (both were cons in the film) became news readers on NDTV India as a part of their conning act and also Dev D, whose campaign we will discuss at length.

Dev D Changing the way films are marketed Objectives Dev D was not a typical Hindi film in any sense of the word. It took the age-old story of Devdas (A man who loses his love and takes to alcohol) and blended it perfectly with the 21st century. Hence, it had many elements, which could be objectionable to the previous generation. It received an „A‟ rating from the censor board and therefore, it was a film for select audience and not for the masses.

The primary objective of the communication campaign was to increase the size of the target audience. UTV Motion Pictures (UTV) the producers of the film were aware that the subject and treatment of the film was such that only a select audience would be interested in watching the film. Therefore, UTV set out with a marketing plan to capture bigger audience, which would normally not go for such a film.

The marketing of Dev D was done through various tools, which are listed below 1. Advertising – UTV started advertising the film on its movie channels and other music channels. What became the spearhead of their advertising campaign was the music of the film, which was very fresh and different. The song emotional atyachaar became a super hit in a few days of release and all publicity was done with this song at the centre. In addition, most of the advertisements showed Abhay Deol (Dev) drinking, smoking which

was done to show exactly what the film offered, and essentially, how this new age Devdas was so different from its predecessors. 2. Public Relations – This became a very strong tool in the communication campaign of Dev D. The objective of PR was to act as the pivot for the campaign. This was achieved by getting media to write about the new age Devdas and how the character has evolved over the years. Another story pitch was the use of real life controversies in the film. Anurag Kashyap used the DPS MMS case as well as the BMW hit and run case in the film. This created a lot of controversy and the media wrote at length about this. All this served the well in the promotion of the film. One more aspect of the great PR campaign was the presence of Abhay Deol in many leading fashion magazine covers including M, Man’s world, People and even Business Standard wrote at length about Abhay Deol and his great choice of films, placing him even higher than Aamir Khan. This was done to increase the hype around the film and to increase the brand value of the hero of the film. 3. Word Of Mouth – Viral marketing went a long way in promoting Dev D. As already stated, the film was for the urban audience and specially the youth as they are the repeat audience of a film. Hence, UTV used Facebook as the primary tool for viral marketing as it gave them a window to reach the target audience. Today there are over 2000 members with close to 300 posts. It also highlighted contests like “Win a Dev D T-Shirt” to attract people to visit the group or the website. Blogs were also used actively to promote the film over the internet. Abhay Deol, Anurag Kashyap and even other bloggers helped in promoting the film through their blogs. 4. Promotional Campaign – UTV and Anurag Kashyap had no inhibitions about the fact that the film was an „A‟ rated film and so they promoted it in that manner. The highlight was „Lustline’, which was a 24x7 caller line where anyone can call 022 -61424800 and talk to Chanda (who plays a sex worker in the film) as she talks to you in a husky naughty voice. This suited the mood of the film and highlighted one of the characters from the film. This campaign also helped UTV generate a lot of PR as well because it was a very novel idea and so Financial Express to Screen, everyone wrote about it.

Target Audience Dev D was a film aimed at the new educated class of India which appreciates niche films which are closer to reality and made on the lines of Hollywood style of direction. This is the audience which grew up watching these types of films on English movie channels. UTV felt the need of demand of such realistic cinema and invested money to create a product, which catered to the need of the respective audience. UTV invested Rs 60 million, but got a return of Rs 150 million in the first four weeks only in a low budget film. UTV had certainly hit the nail on its head by studying the audience carefully and then choosing a marketing campaign, which was immensely different from its competitors. The audience can be classified as follows:

1. Primary Audience- The primary market can be identified as urban India. This encompasses metros like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore which have a sizeable amount of population with disposable income. The targeted audience in these cities are the youth which come in 18-35 years age bracket. This is the population which has grown up watching realistic cinema on English movie channels and now demands similar quality products from Indian film Industry. This is the segment of population which is surrounded by the booming multiplex industry. It has become a style statement in metros to watch movies only in multiplexes. This allows producers of such low budget films to target their audience effectively by tying up with multiplex owners so that they can begin their campaign early. 2. Secondary Audience- The secondary market can be identified as Indian Diasporas in western countries. There is no age group for this audience. They include Indians who have been settled abroad and still love their culture. An important observation is that a large percentage of revenue comes from this secondary audience. The average movie ticket costs $ 7.14 in USA and UK, whereas the same movie ticket in Indian multiplexes is priced at maximum $4 or Rs 200.This price further falls if we move away from multiplexes. The average price of a movie ticket in India is a mere 20 cents. This leads to

a situation in which the audience may be less in number in Western markets but the sheer price of tickets put them at par with the revenue generated from Indian audience. 3. Tertiary Audience- The tertiary market can be identified as countries in which Indian films are dubbed or sub-titled. These include Pakistan whose 8% of population is Urdu speaking, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji, UAE, etc. The languages include Russian, French, Arabic Spanish etc. Audiences would tend to see these films in the theatrical release “window” more in the primary market than in the secondary market (relative to the primary market) and least in the tertiary markets (consisting mainly of satellite, cable and DVD/ video viewing.

Message Strategy In Hindi films, teasers and trailers play a very important role. People make their first perception about a film based on these teasers. Hence, it is very important to convey the right message just like any other advertisements. Dev D was a creative masterpiece because even though it was soft at heart, there was a lot of darkness in the film shown through the different characters. They reflect the sensibilities, aggression, conflicts and recklessness of today‟s youth.

The teaser of Dev D was totally inline with the primary objective of UTV. It had glimpses of Dev drinking and consuming drugs to battle depression. It also had scenes where there was use of explicit language very common among today‟s youth and the urban crowd. Moreover, it depicted Dev as someone who had everything but love, in turn conveying the soft heart of the film. The music playing in the background was the pilot song „Emotional Atyachaar‟, which was the first song, released on T.V.

The print ads/posters were very different from what was usually seen in Hindi films. They exhibited cult status in every inch of the poster. UTV released three different posters each depicting the relationship of Dev with things he loved the most namely,

Paro, Chanda, and Alcohol. The posters were very colorful and were very true to the style of the film. These ads also ensured that curiosity is built around the movie and more and more people are tempted to watch the film.

Paro

Chanda

Alcohol

Creative Execution Dev D was a path breaking film in terms of the communication tools which were used to promote the film. It used certain techniques, which were unheard in India before. This was primarily done to increase the niche audience numbers who otherwise would have ignored such a kind of film, which was based on drugs and alcohol. This called for innovativeness to be displayed while marketing such a product. The following communication tools were broadly used:

1. Advertising - This was the most used medium of communication for Dev D. The average promotion campaign for an Indian movie is 3 weeks, but in the case of Dev D the trailers began to hit the television screen 3 months before the actual release of movie. UTV understood the proposition that a low budget film that does not have a big star attached to it needs more marketing spend than a big budget multi starrer film.

Pervasiveness - The colourful trailers which were unparallel in the level of creativity, print, sound and colour, blanketed most of the news and music channels in the last week before release. The message was clear from the promoters that there was no escaping from their product. The heavily advertised product led to consumers believing that it is a good quality product and hence must buy. Strengths - The repeated telecasts created a buzz among audience. It achieved the objective of labelling the product as a cult film. It presented the product in an acceptable form which was needed since the product touched the tabooed subjects of sex and drugs in India. Weakness - Some audience might be annoyed by the repeated trailers everywhere on television. It was an adult film, so children might unnecessarily be inquisitive about the film. Advertising not only drives the behaviour of audiences, but also that of exhibitors.

2. Sales Promotion - UTV used a variety of promotional tools to create the buzz around the film. This was primarily done to generate a quicker response from the audience during the first week collections of the film.

Communication-This was the most important tool used by UTV to influence the audience. 

A lust line was set up in Mumbai in which users could dial the number and get a feel of the character being played by one of the female stars in the film. This gimmick had never been done before in Indian cinema. This led to a lot of reporters writing about the lust line, thus promoting the film.

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A game was launched in lieu with the film‟s release. Bollywood games have been a hit among mobile gamers. This gave UTV an opportunity to extend the film‟s experience to the mobile screen. Strengths- It was successful in creating the buzz and inquisitiveness about the product even before its release. Mobile games provided an additional revenue stream for the product while simultaneously promoting the film. Weakness-It is sometimes hard to measure the effect of the money being spent on sales promotion. There is a fear of wasting the money on the wrong demographic, as consumers may not like the idea of lust line.

3. Direct And Interactive Marketing - Viral marketing played an important role in pushing Dev D as a cult film. UTV did not leave any stone unturned in order to use all possible mediums of interactive marketing. The following methods were incorporated 

Website - The website of the movie was very engaging in nature. It had links to other websites and also the music preview was available on the site.

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Youtube - UTV launched the new trailers on youtube. They regularly uploaded minute long videos every 7-10 days. The official trailer had 60,000 views in just 2 months which is very good for a hindi movie.

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MTV - MTV was running ticker with Dev D jokes for 24 hrs. This was just a week before the movie‟s release.

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Facebook - An active official group was created which had 700 fans while its page had 14000 fans. The group was regularly updated and UTV nicely used this online medium to create buzz about offline activities like contests and events.

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Blog - The director of the film ,Anurag Kashyap, maintained a blog on passionforcinema.com in which he described his experience of making the film. His blog was a hit among the blogging fraternity of India which enabled the film to generate a lot of online buzz. Strength- Consumer feels a part of the promotional campaign. It is a relatively inexpensive way of generating publicity. Weakness- Since it was mainly concentrated on the „online‟ generation ,people who are not tech savvy may be left out.

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