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Tag: Advertising Club Bangalore

  • OTT release won’t disrupt cinema ecosystem, theatres to rebound

    OTT release won’t disrupt cinema ecosystem, theatres to rebound

    MUMBAI: The Advertising Club Bangalore recently organised a webinar ‘The Future of Cinema’ that delved into various aspects of the cinema business and how the industry will deal with this pandemic. The webinar had Friday Films founder producer actor Vijay Babu, MMTV COO PR Satheesh, Interactive Television founder Ajay Mehta, Qu be Cinema CEO Harsh Rohatgi as panellists and the discussion was moderated by Wavemaker South VP Kishan Kumar.

    Amidst this pandemic, Babu announced that his film Sufiyum Sujathayum, which has Jayasurya and Aditi Rao Hydari in lead roles, will premiere in Amazon Prime Video. Babu was praised and criticised for his decision.

    “The last few days have been the toughest period of my life. I had to answer questions from various parts of the industry. Because it is the first film that directly went to an OTT release. We make thousands of movies. Since the birth of the Indian film industry, this is the first time that we have been in lockdown. According to multiple reports, loss to the Indian film industry could be between Rs 1500 to 2500 crore,” Babu said.

    According to him, during this lockdown period, between various languages, there must be 400 to 500 movies that might have completed their shoot or are in some stages of production. This means the money has been invested already. 

    “In my case, the film was completed in January. I was expecting to release the movie during Ramzan. And also every movie has a shelf life. Even if the cinemas are open in September or October there will be a lot of issues that we will face. How to bring back audiences to the theatre is the biggest issue. Will a big-banner movie or a leading actor be able to bring back audiences to the cinemas? Most certainly the answer is no. There will be a wait-and-watch situation,” he added.

    Rohatgi said that India released 1700 to 1800 movies last year out of which 1600 were local productions. Roughly 40 to 50 movies are waiting for release once the lockdown is lifted, which will create a rush. There will also be limited inventories in theatres. These inventories will be taken by big-budget movies once the theatres are opened. Seats will be sold for a larger number of weeks. He points out that this will create challenges for small and big-budget producers. In this case, even if 10 to 15 movies are released on OTT platforms, it should not be a problem for the cinema ecosystem.

    How do you maintain balance between satellite and OTT? Is the acquisition strategy going to change and what are the inventory challenges? These questions were raised by Kumar.

    Satheesh adds, “Theatrical experience is not going to go away. As far as our strategy is concerned we have been looking at broadcast plus OTT and the opportunities are now rising. Vijay Babu’s point of releasing first on OTT doesn’t mean that he will not go to theatres again. There is always an audience for theatre, OTT and television. Also, challenges are always going to be there; some producers might take a different route but it is not necessary that all will do the same thing. Everyone will have a different strategy.”

    Mehta said that in India OOH entertainment options are very less. The role of cinema is very prominent. He mentioned that if you look at US’s data for the last ten years one of the top grossers are franchise films. It includes superhero films, animation movies; these movies need larger-than-life cinematic experience. OTT and television can be substitutes for some of the content, but larger-than-life movies need cinematic experience. He concluded by saying that franchise films will continue to thrive.

  • Advertising Club Bangalore spells out how to deal with COVID2019 and after

    Advertising Club Bangalore spells out how to deal with COVID2019 and after

    MUMBAI: Advertising agencies and brand marketers have been foxed by the continuing lockdown courtesy COVID-19.  What should they communicate during the pandemic which is a constant moving target without a clear end-date?

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    To get answers to some of the doubts that advertisers have in these uncertain times, the Advertising Club, Bangalore live-streamed a webinar earlier on 22 April which had ad agency Motivator India head strategy and integrated solutions (south) Sumant Bhattacharya and Motivator India strategy head Upali Nag Kumar sharing their insights.

    The duo stated that like every other event that has a wide impact, COVID2019 should be studied by breaking down it into three parts: outbreak, recovery and stabilisation.

    They insisted that advertisers should not be working with a short-term view but seek long-term benefits from their communication. The consumer, today, is looking for reassurance and it is the advertisers’ responsibility to do that without plugging in sales pitches for their products.

    Elaborating more on the outbreak phase of the situation, Bhattacharya said that brands need to be agile in their approach. “Even as you cut back on spends, you should continue to have enough communication to stay connected with customers. You should be contextual in your communication like if doubling of cases is happening, as in the case of the novel coronavirus, you should ride it.  You must rebuild assurance in the minds of consumers, be empathetic with them, and don’t sell the product to them.”

    He added that brands can collaborate with peers to make services easier to access by the consumers by citing examples of short film ‘Family’ starring biggies like Amitabh Bachchan, and Swiggy’s partnership with Big Basket and Venky’s.

    Taking congisance of what’s happening in the case of COVID-19 currently, Nag said that initially there was panic and fear, but a month into the lockdown, that has settled down.

     “People are moving to digital to find what to do, concerts, made at home ads by brands, stay safe, social distancing campaigns. The downside here is that most brands are delivering the same message. CSR is becoming hackneyed,” she said. “How does a brand differentiate, it becomes important to look at the next level of cultural nuances.  Some brands are doing it right, for example Mother Dairy ice creams, Himalayan Men, Kelloggs, Xiaomi. Remember your distribution has been hit; the physical availability of the product is not there.”

    The media that needs to be used during this phase is TV news channels, digital and OTT, owned media,  and gaming. “The idea is to sustain top of the mind recall and not to push sales,” revealed Bhattacharya.

     Moving on to the recovery phase, he said that the messaging that began in the outbreak phase should continue as it will be difficult to get a total fix on this phase. Said he: “Remember, continue with that coherent strategy. If earlier collaboration was about delivery then extend it to the shopping experience, towards entertainment, but don’t overdo the latter. Let the product and its messaging offer hope and optimism. Use influencers, if you can.”

    Nag elaborated that recuperation is staggered and essentials will become more important. The brands in the CPG category, like food, shampoos, baby care, will have to constantly keep reminding people of their existence or they might lose consumers as during the outbreak phase they might not have been available and been replaced by others.

    The media that can be used in this phase include: news and movie TV channels, some out of home could kick in, some cinema but in the context of social distancing, in-shop activation, mall activation, and of course continuing to use digital and influencers to evolve the brand story.

    In the  stabilisation phase, marketers have to understand what kind of new customer behaviours the event has brought in. “Continue with whatever you have started in the first two phases if you have got the traction,” said Bhattacharya. “Brands can start creating assets which are more product-centric. However, brand building needs to be continuous.”

    Nag stated that customers will most likely be looking for more value in this phase as some may have lost jobs or used up their money and they will also have developed new habits. She cited Netflix which learnt from the 2008 financial debacle and went from physical rental of video tapes to delivering a streaming service which is so successful currently.

    “The world of integrated media will become important as people will start going back to the physical world. This is going to trigger some long-lasting behaviour changes, in terms of choosing products. Understanding this is something that marketers should do and latch on to the findings.”

  • Bangalore Ad Club splits Big Bang Awards into two events

    Bangalore Ad Club splits Big Bang Awards into two events

    BENGALURU: The Advertising Club of Bangalore has decided to split its flagship event – The Big Bang Awards into two parts to ‘bring more focus and enable key takeaways for the fraternity at large’ according to a press release quoting Bangalore Ad Club President and co-founder & director of Origami Creative and Bloombox Brand Engineers Laeeq Ali.

    “This year we re-examined all the award categories to give the communication for specialised verticals like automotive, realty, consumer goods, social impact, their due. Digital communication is a part of every category. We have also rationalised the number of categories based on market trends. We have expert judges from all over the country and abroad and are very proud of the fact that for the last 7 years our entire process from entry submission to judging is online ensuring a fair, impartial process,” said Big Bang Awards committee chairperson and Saatchi & Saatchi Focus CEO Malavika Harita through the release.

    Part I or the Creative awards part will be held on 20 September 2019 while Part II or the Media and Wellness part will be held on 20 November 2019. Both the events will be held in Bangalore. Online acceptance of entries opened on 26 July and closes at Mid-night on 15 August 2019.