New media marketing of Bollywood movies : making a difference

Abstract

In today’s dynamic entertainment environment, hundreds of movies release each year in Bollywood and find it difficult to stay afloat amidst the tough competition. The audience is barraged with ever rising entertainment options. The marketers behind these projects are forced to search for innovative ways to draw this audience towards the theatres. With a change in growing trends, the marketing approach in Bollywood is changing too. New media is the latest platform to market movies. Movie websites, Social Networking Sites (SNSs), blogs, mobile phones and games are the recent new media tools being used for revenue generation. Though, unlike Hollywood, the usage of new media in Bollywood is at a very nascent, ‘albeit intriguing’ stage. The purpose of this study was to understand the new media usage habits of the movie going audience in India, to determine which method of movie advertising is the most pursuable in driving them to theatres, and alternatively, ‘and how effective, if at all, is this recent trend of using new media to market movies). The study used three case studies of Bollywood movies’ high usage of new media in their marketing strategy and a survey carried out across four cities in India to understand the movie going audience. The results reveal that the movie goers spend more time with new media than traditional media and these newest tools of marketing, despite being naive, are already making a relevant difference to the box office performance.