Is bollywood re-inventing its marketing mix?

Innovation in promotions have taken an all new road in bollywood and a damn good one at that. Classic example on that front has to be of Aamir Khan, bollywood's new found marketeer par excellence. Apart from being a phenomenal actor, he's a producer, director and most importantly, he's a pro-active thinker. From the foreign actors in lagaan / rdb (he's been an advocate of bollywood having a potent market outside India) to the hair-do promotion at the premiere of Ghajjini or moving it to the extremely innovative and 'viral' catch-me-if-you-can promo across the country for 3 idiots, he is one bloke who deserves the respect he's earned, not just for his acting talent.

While there are enough and more people who do not believe in Zero Budget Marketing, I think a combination of no money / paid promotions works wonders. It works best when you have people like Aamir driving them. Look at the media buzz the 3 Idiots campaign has created. I dont remember a single day in the last month or more where I havent faced some update about 3 Idiots, be it a newspaper article, tv news piece, facebook messages from friends about how good the movie is, twitter updates, rss feeds and now the latest controversy with Chetan Bhagat. The amount of media coverage the movie has got for the right and wrong reasons is worth millions. Try doing a google search for "Aamir Khan 3 Idiots" and see the number of results it throws up and yes, its all free publicity.

We all say 'any publicity is good publicity' and this time i see the limits being pushed with 3 Idiots and Chetan Bhagat but i think the line of logic has to be drawn somewhere so not to irk people. Thank God for a short memory. :)

This is testimony to how dynamic the demands of the market change. Great star cast and good music are no longer enough to bring in the crowds. The movie business is like any other 'business' with products that need a concentrated effort to be marketed. Right from the concept / theme / story line - getting a mainline author like Chetan Bhagat to write a script / Social cause as in Taare Zameen Par / Social message as in RDB (4Ps - Product component); Countries the movies now reach and launch simultaneously -40 countries for 3 Idiots (4Ps - Place component); All the buzz created by the movie and the controversies around it. Not to forget the cross promotions, like the clothing tie-up with a brand and calling it the Ghajini line and the fashion shows to luanch these or the 3 Idiots collection with Pantaloons (4Ps - Promotion component); The tickets now are being priced higher - it seems based on the excitement generated by the promos, also interesting to note 'skimming' strategies by multiplexes with a premium for the first day and higher prices for the first couple of weeks.

Moral of the story: If something as standardized as bollywood movies are reinventing themselves and how they do business, should we wait to lose customers before we realize that is no standardized success formula'?