There was a time when movie trailers were something you suffered through only if you arrived too early at a film screening. Besides the joy of catching glimpses of movie greats like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, audiences didn’t care much for trailers and teasers, much less first-look posters and song teasers.
Over the past couple of years though, everything has changed.
Words like ‘teaser’, ‘song teaser’, and ‘lyric video’ have all become the buzz words in the film promotions game. To put things into perspective, long before YouTube and social media sites, producers like Kalaipuli S Thanu made do with movie stills in posters, circulated perhaps a week or two before the film’s release.
“Now, it’s a different world altogether,” Thanu laughs.
“There is a separate publicity budget now. Earlier, we used to make do with money leftover from actual production. But these days, a star asks, ‘neenga publicityku enna pannuveenga,’ like a prospective groom. It has become an inseparable part of the movie business.”
And so, when a film made on the scale of Vijay’s Mersal releases, a lot of thought and effort goes into marketing it. The project has Vijay in a triple role, with Nithya Menon, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Kajal Aggarwal as the female leads. AR Rahman is the music composer. With such names attached to the project, and no expense spared for its execution, it becomes even more important to publicise it well.
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It all begins with a guessing game, in which leading social media luminaries speculate on the cast and crew. In case of a big star’s film, this usually begins as soon his current film nears completion. In Vijay’s case, just as Bairavaa geared up for release, rumours about his next with Atlee began to float. After this, there’s the official confirmation from the production house.
Then comes another long wait for the title.
Such games thrive on the anticipation they set off among a star’s rabid fan base. As soon as an announcement is made, these fans pounce on it.
Inevitably, the story begins to trend.
While social media trends and popularity might not necessarily convert into major financial success for the film, it does make sure that the film (product) reaches the audience (consumer).
“A social media trend is a great thing for a movie to achieve. It spreads the film’s message to the audience, and also helps people identify it as a unique product,” Thanu says.
Social media popularity is also easy to manufacture. Kollywood is rife with rumours of publicity managers recruiting armies of social media savvy fans to help create a trending status.
“Even a couple of years ago, a million views on YouTube for a trailer used to mean something. It was a mark only few could achieve. Now it is not so. Every other film and music video crosses this landmark easily. It’s over-saturated,” says Thanu.
Social media is a new arena for publicity consultants. Five years ago, they depended on television and radio advertisements and hoardings. Now, they all run dedicated social media accounts.
To extract the maximum from the social media gold mine that a big star’s film is, the publicity game is split into several parts.
There’s the title announcement, followed by the first-look poster. These days, there’s also an announcement for all the singles in the film’s music album, followed by a song teaser, a movie teaser, and then an official trailer. In some cases, the producer might even decide to make three different trailers – each one uniquely and professionally edited to reflect various aspects of the film.
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For Vijay’s Mersal, the team decided to include a poster for the song’s teaser launch. This was followed by the song teaser and the actual song itself.
Every announcement hit top spots on Google as well as on social media trending lists.
From an actual PR dedicated to the film, filmmakers feel more comfortable hiring a social media manager on a contract basis. That’s where promoters come in.
At present, the standing directive on film promotion is that producers cannot spend more than Rs 25 lakhs on TV promotions and no more than Rs 10 lakhs for radio ads.
“There’s no such cap for social media,” Thanu says pointedly.
At the time this article was written, an official song teaser for “Neethaanae” from Mersal had been viewed over 4.6 lakh times in just four hours.
Atlee’s “melody announcement” tweet had received 13,ooo retweets.
#Mersal It's time for a Melody announcement 4pm
— atlee (@Atlee_dir) August 16, 2017
#Neethanae single from tomorrow 6pm pic.twitter.com/CFfzzsMpP4
— atlee (@Atlee_dir) August 16, 2017
Thanu says that the game is changing even more now. “Bollywood operates on a slightly more accelerated level than us. They have song launches at different locations, and they have stars going to different cities to promote their films.”
24 AM Studios did that with Sivakarthikeyan’s Remo. With big names like PC Sreeram, Resul Pookutty, and Weta attached to the project, the challenge was to make any and all publicity strategies bigger and better. There was an official motion poster launch for the film, attended by Shankar and Atlee.
“It definitely helped put Remo on the map,” a spokesperson tells Silverscreen.
A popular PR consultant for films said on the condition of anonymity that bigger stars like Rajinikanth, Vijay, and Ajith, are less willing to attend events that promote their films. “SRK, even at his age, travels all over Gujarat to promote Raees. This is not so with Ajith or Vijay, who very rarely come out for promotions.”
And so, producers are forced to double their social media propelled promotional efforts. “The younger generation, though, is more willing to experiment, and willing to travel to make sure their film sells.”
In South India, the existing philosophy among bigger stars is that the more they stay away from in-person promotional events like press meets and audio launches, the greater will be their star power.
“Anybody else is dismissed as too eager. It is a sin to be approachable here,” the PR consultant says.
Till this situation changes, producers and consultants will only try and seek more avenues for publicity. “There is no end to the things a producer can come up with. Films are risky business,” says Thanu.
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