Movie Marketing- The Telugu Cinema Way

I’m just back home after watching a recently released, successfully running Telugu movie called Nachchavule. On the way home I kept thinking again & again about the movie. Well yes the movie is certainly decent enough to be thinking about, but more than the movie I was thinking more from the angle of the movie’s marketing. As a keen follower of Telugu cinema that’s when I realized that while at large Telugu movies are still caught in the trap of the so called stars and the big producers & directors with some few small film makers trying to also keep themselves afloat, but in terms of movie marketing, Telugu cinema seems to be heading in the right track.
I would hereafter discuss the same with the help of two recent movies as examples. Let’s take the case of Vinayakudu. Released on 22nd Nov, the movie is still going strong in most centres. Starring Sonia & Krishnudu, the movie had the story appearing very clear to the public in all the publicity aids used. Everybody knew the movie was a love story between a fat guy (Krishnudu) and a good looking girl (Sonia). So much so that the movie in line with the distributor’s (Big Cinemas) name made a bold tagline as A Big Fat Love Story.
As it is the movie directed by Sai Kiran Adivi, was fairly risky due to the concept. The only other instance of a hero in Indian movies being played by a fat character ( and which is still in public memory ) is Mohanlal’s Uncle Bun in Malayalam ( Rajendra Prasad did the telugu version ) and no I wont even discuss Anil Kapoor’s silly fat man act briefly in Badhai Ho Badhai. But to actually flaunt the concept proudly in the sweet & simple hoardings and posters was a brave attempt by Sai Kiran, Big Cinemas and the producer-Prem Kumar and it seems to have worked in their favour.
The movie has appealed to the youth and the family audience and has reached across to all sections of viewers. Today as the movie nears 50 days of its run, Sai Kiran Adivi has announced that he’s planning a sequel to the movie with the same lead pair. Now that’s certainly reaping the success which can be strongly attributed to the marketing done for the movie. Coming to Nachchavule the movie I saw a few hours back, it’s produced by the well known Usha Kiron Movies and directed by Ravi Babu.
Before the movie released posters of the movie were splashed all over A.P. But surprisingly the posters did not feature the lead pair- debutants Tanish and Madhavi Latha. In fact the public were completely in the dark about the lead pair. The posters had depicted either a cute pair of monkeys with ear phones or a couple of puppies. The posters did raise the curiosity of the people and they did throng the theatres in the very first week. Once the movie was accepted by the people in the first week, Usha Kiron Movies then unleashed the lead pair in all subsequent publicity aids including posters and trailers.
Another interesting aspect about Nachchavule is that the movie has been released with limited prints unlike the trend of flooding the market with a large number of prints as is the norm in the telugu film industry these days. This strategy has also worked in the favour of the movie makers, as the curiosity levels have only been increasing. It is now expected that Usha Kiron Movies will be slowly increasing the number of prints.
What is common to Vinayakudu & Nachchavule apart from the fact that both are small movies? Given below is the response to the question-
A very good product- at heart both the movies are simple romantic flicks which has the appeal to reach out to all sections of viewers. So a good product can be helped further by good marketing but expecting marketing alone to do the trick is not right.Marketing focus- people associated with both the movies knew that their product was good but it was a small movie. Hence they needed to connect to the audience and believed in the benefits of marketing.Clear Communication- they either had a strong tagline or communication aid and used it to the hilt in communicating the essence of the movie.Respecting the boundary- while both the marketing teams knew they had to have a strong promotional campaign for the movie, they knew that they shouldn’t go overboard and stuck to the boundary very well. They knew what would work for a Ghajini in hindi would probably not work for them and hence they didn’t go overboard.
With these two movies in the recent few weeks showing what good marketing can do a good movie, I hope Telugu Cinema takes the cue and looks at utilizing marketing in the right way for their movies.

Published originally on PFC- Check it out here-
http://passionforcinema.com/movie-marketing-the-telugu-cinema-way/