Bollywood Cinema *ing Product Placements

Back in the day, Bobby made the yellow Rajdoot famous. Later, Aamir Khan popularised the navy cap in Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin and geared cycles with Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander. And Manish Malhotra became a household name after he designed Urmila Matondkar’s outfits in Rangeela.

It was not difficult for marketers to put two and two together and realise the power of product placement in cinema. Now it’s become big business – where, more and more, it’s a standard part of the advertising mix and, from the other side of the screen, it’s a standard tool for producers looking to raise finances for a movie. From Tag Heuer in Don to Coke in Dhoom2 to Singapore Tourism Board in Krrish, product placements have a starring role in Bollywood.

Product placement works best when it is made inherent and important to a film’s plot – such as Verve, the fashion magazine of which Priyanka Chopra is the editor in Dostana. Working at Verve defines Chopra’s character and the office is the setting for some of her emotional high points. In Karthik Calling Karthik, when the Farhan Akhtar transforms from meek loser to dark go getter – his makeover happens at Shoppers Stop.

Shoppers Stop has wrung further benefit from this by plastering Shoppers Stop premises with posters of Farhan as he appears in the shopping scenes in the film. So you go to the movie and see the store. And you go to the store and see the movie.

But when brands make one off cameo appearances in movie scenes wherethey are just incidental props not crucial to the story line, themarketers may just be wasting their money. What is worse is that often in such situations, marketers demand that the film show zoom-ins and close-ups of their product and logo. These don’t fit into the visual narrative of the film and the result is an embarrassingly obvious and therefore counterproductive plug for the brand, putting the viewer off.

Consumer behaviourist Martin Lindstrom says you have to be clever in the way you place a product. It need not be plastered all over a movie. One telling shot is all it takes.

In Spielberg’s Minority Report, you find a passenger on a train reading an animated year 2054 edition of the newspaper USA Today which features a not-so-still photograph of Tom Cruise twisting his head from side to side, along with a headline that he is on the run from the law (which is the film plot). Lindstrom compares this super-hit use of placement by USA today with flop placements of the same brand in other movies like Maid in Manhattan and Black Hawk Dawn which were arbitrary and mundane and, therefore, totally forgettable.

(The author is Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy, South Asia)