BOOM time in Bollywood

The letter 'K' is supposed to be lucky for some filmmakers. Well, if it's raining hits in Bollywood right now, our movie moguls may have a 'K' — Kotler — to thank. Aka Philip Kotler, the mahaguru of marketing.

Never mind that Bollywood's hotshots may never have heard of him. In this summer of content, with the box-office booming like never before, the 'formula' that seems to be really working is the 4 Ps of marketing: product, placement, pricing and promotion. Here's how:

Product

Rang De Basanti, the first big hit of the year, is testimony to the fact that good content works. The film has had a huge influence on popular culture, with middle-class marches to protest the Jessica Lall murder case looking almost like stills from the movie. And when students took to the streets against Mandal-II, they did it to the beat of A R Rehman's anthemic soundtrack.

"This is certainly a great business atmosphere for good content," says Ronnie Screwvala of UTV. "Consumers are keenly looking forward to see a good film in a good theatre even if it means paying a good price."

Each of the big hits this year has a 'different' look and feel. While RDB had a thought-provoking storyline, Krrish showcased Bollywood's first superhero and Fanaa's hero was an unrepentant Kashmiri freedom fighter.

Tired old themes have been consigned to the dustbin, with even small-budget films like Being Cyrus, Mixed Doubles and Gangster winning critical acclaim while raking in profits. Clearly, it pays to tell a new story, and tell it differently, in these brave new times.

Placement

That's distribution in film trade parlance. And Bollywood seems to have perfected a rewarding arithmetic here. The Big O — for Opening — is a phenomenon engineered in the time of multiplexes and multiple screenings.

Gone are the days of Silver Jubilees and Golden Jubilees; a few weekends is all it takes now for a film to become a mega hit.

Fanaa collected a record Rs 32 crore worldwide in its first week (most of it on the first weekend). Phir Hera Pheri almost matched it and Krrish bettered it by several notches. All these films were released with a record number of prints, the number being as high as 1,050 in the case of Krrish.

"Lots of prints ensures quick recovery. It's the way films are distributed in Hollywood with a focus on weekend collections. And it's about sensing the demand correctly.