Branding in films
Bollywood has harnessed only a tiny part of the immense power of in-film branding.
I am beginning to think that being part of the movie industry does not really provide you with a free mind when you watch a film — like any normal person would enjoy when he goes out to watch a movie. Every time I watch a movie, critically examining every frame that has even a semblance of branding has become a habit with me. It may be good for my understanding of branding but surely I am becoming very unpopular with family and friends when it comes to our movie outings.
Today’s concepts of marketing have undergone a huge change — it’s no longer plain vanilla usage of mass communication tools. It’s no longer just about catching your audience when they are reading a newspaper or a magazine, or watching a cricket match on TV, or listening to the radio. It’s about engaging with your customers, and being able to make the brand relatable, given a certain apt situation.
Brands have realised that movies are a great way to reach out to an audience which is captive for a few hours. However, this is not a new occurrence. Hollywood started the trend of product placement much earlier than Bollywood. The earliest entry to tread this path was Wings, a silent feature film released in 1927. It featured a product placement for Hershey’s chocolate and later went on to win the Oscar for best picture. With the passage of time, in-film branding has gained massively and now we have scenes where brands speak louder than the film.
Though in-film branding is not the chief medium for marketing, it definitely is a very cost-effective medium. There are instances where it may reach around 4 to 5 per cent of the total advertising budget of the big brands. Brand managers today realise that a movie finds traction across different platforms apart from cinema theatres, such as DTH, entertainment channels on TV and home video. So the brand continues to gain exposure even after a movie is released in the theatres.
Brands have their own unique situations and personality. And today I see producers, directors and scriptwriters too take cognisance of this fact. To promote a brand personality you need to first understand it and then adapt your communication according to its requisites. Scriptwriters today are willing to position the brand personality innovatively and subtly marry it with the script.
Proper positioning
A brand at any time of its product life cycle needs familiarity, esteem, relatability and differentiation (the FERD model). Applied to in-film branding the FERD model enables us to understand how a particular film branding instance meets the requirements of the brand and thereby creates return on investment.
Familiarity essentially translates
into basic awareness for any brand. A brand needs to build familiarity among a general or specific audience when it is not within the consideration or awareness set of that audience. Brands that are newly entering a category, or are moving towards a new audience, or entering a new geographic space are the ones that need to muscle up on familiarity. An example of such branding in films is the Pass Pass appearance in Yaadein. Also, some brands bank on familiarity just to maintain a share of voice — for example, the FedEx packet branding in Swades. The trick here is not to gain maximum screen space by coming up in every shot (this will not leave a happy feeling with the audience) but to feature your brand prominently.
Esteem is when a brand needs sheen and who better than our Bollywood Gods to do the needful? Given that cinema provides the ultimate glam quotient and is the largest universal source of vitality across India (besides cricket), brands can use this to enlarge their world and give themselves a shortcut to a huge slice of esteem. The Mahindra Flyte branding in 3 Idiots is an example of this.
Relatability is required when a brand has awareness and vitality but needs to make itself uniquely relevant to its audience. Movies can enable brands to engage with different audiences and let consumers shake hands with the product. Given that cinema holds its audience captive, it is possible to make a product’s relatability quotient even more relevant and meaningful to the audience. Such a proposition when embedded in a storyline delivers unrivalled relatability. Further, an audience can be almost forced to sit up and take notice of a particular product attribute and see it in a new light. The recently-released, Aisha had a tie-up with Dior — the need being the lead heroine was portrayed as an elite damsel. It was a clever and convincing depiction to etch out the heroine’s character. Again if a gold finance company was to take up film branding it could very well gel with the script where the need for a loan is shown, that is, easily avail a loan against gold. This is a proposition that most families would relate to.
Differentiation matters
Differentiation is when a brand needs to be seen as unique and different from its competition in a way that the audience finds relevant. Brands need to establish differentiation either through uniqueness and genuine relevant differentiation of the product or through the unique presentation devices used to communicate the relevance of the product. Mass media only enables these to be communicated in a certain way, whereas cinema makes all this much more particular to the presentation of the brand attribute in a more focused manner. Take, for example, the Western Union branding in Namastey London, which showcased that money can actually be transferred in a matter of minutes. The differentiation of the brand Western Union — transfer money in a matter of minutes — was evident here. Also, recent mobile models with long battery backups which are apt for rural areas suffering from power failures can easily be integrated in a film scene to highlight differentiation.
Amidst all our focus on brand position in in-film branding, I would also like to highlight the necessity of the integration of the brand with the film’s script. The brand has to merge with the script beautifully — it has to be a subtle and seamless integration. The recent blockbuster Munni song of Dabangg is a case in point. I would not be surprised if the sale of Zandu Balm had increased post the song. On the contrary, there are also cases where the integration is not smooth and in fact might not add any value to the brand. It is important that the relevance of the brand is maintained. So brand managers need to choose stories with the right storyline wherein their brands can liven up the screen in the right and relevant context. All screenplay which portrays a brand in a different light as against its personality should be avoided. Creativity should not play foul with the credibility of your brand.
I am a big fan of in-film branding; in my opinion it is definitely here to stay and will open many more avenues that will add value for both filmmakers and brand managers. The future of film branding is clearly on innovation. Watch out for campaigns that will cross-leverage different media and include in-film branding as a big slice. Frankly, there is no end to innovations as far as films and brands are concerned, and today we are just at the beginning of a wonderful journey. Enjoy!
Gautam Dutta is CEO of Cinemedia, PVR Ltd