Perhaps the most awaited session in the Animated Feature Forum was the session on 'Marketing and Distribution,' which discussed ways in which filmmakers could have innovations in their strategies and distribute the product in such a way to ensure ROI on their film.

L to R: Sameer Chopra of Studio 18, Priyanka Sinha of Screen; Saurabh Verma of BIG Pictures; Devang Sampat of Cinemax; Utpal Acharya of Inox; Abhishek Nayyar of Percept; Dale Bhagwagar of DBMG and Smita Maroo of Shemaroo

The session was about the most crucial aspect of the success of an animated film- reaching out to the people. A point that disturbs all involved in the animation industry is how to make a market for an animated film when till today, animated films are considered as 'cartoon' films, just for kids.

ADVERTISEMENT "Program from the Industry" in "GAME ART" AAG has a tie up with Lakshya Digital, Which makes Students eligible for consideration for employment in Lakshya Digital Contact Us: 0120-4231 611, +91 9999031107 www.aag.co.in

ADVERTISEMENT Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC) are Leaders in Animation and VFX Training having the highest number of Autodesk Certified Instructors and their Students work is assessed & Certified by the University of Cambridge International Examinations. Tel:-91-22-26731145-8, Fax: 91-22-6730961 Website: www.maacindia.com email: info@maacmail.com

The speaker panel for this session consisted of varied personalities from the field of marketing, distribution and PR, including Sameer Chopra of Studio 18; Priyanka Sinha of Screen; Saurabh Verma of BIG Pictures; Devang Sampat of Cinemax; Utpal Acharya of Inox; Abhishek Nair of Percept; Dale Bhagwagar of DBMG and Smita Maroo of Shemaroo.

Saurabh Verma

Saurabh Varma, CMO of Big Pictures (Reliance Entertainment) began with the example of the recently released Ram Gopal Varma film, Phoonk. Phoonk does not have any stars as actors; in fact the main role played in the film is by a crow. Yet, being released with films such as Singh is Kinng, which have stars, this film had all house full shows. This shows that the public is interested in the content, not the star value alone.

Thus, Saurabh opined, the public does not differentiate between animated and live action films, they are interested in quality content.

The same marketing strategies used for Bollywood films can be applied to animated films. The only question was, is a marketing strategy a routine or a rocket science?

When a film is being made, a lot of issues need to be sorted out at every stage from the contract, division of roles, target audience, exploitation plan, budget, to release schedule, etc.

The three mantras of marketing a film, according to Saurabh, are:

• A Thought- which can be any strategy or idea for example, using animated characters to in a film like Hum Tum and marketing it through cartoon strips
• Pre planning- which he felt was greatly lacking in India and
• Exploitation (of the plan) - which is the most critical stage.

During exploitation, one needs to focus on many things such as how to release the film in India, whether to consider a worldwide release, should the marketing be through digital downloads, the licensing and merchandising aspects, etc.

To be able to exploit the thought or strategy, there needs to be pre planning. However, sometimes, the passion for making the film takes over pre planning.

He also pointed out that the first look of the film, may it be through a trailer or advertisement or a standee, is very important because that is what makes the audience decide whether they would be interested in watching the film. Taking the case study of Cars, X Men and The Simpsons, he showed the different ways in which, through games, comic books, merchandise, partnerships with marts and eateries, the films created a positive response from not only children but families and adults alike.

In this way, encouraging the film makers and businessmen in the audience to think of innovative ways of marketing their films, Saurabh concluded by saying "In India, I think animated films are not working well today because there is no proper pre planning and somewhere I feel, the execution is going wrong."

Abhishek Nayyar

Abhishek Nayyar, Head of Marketing and Merchandising at Percept Picture Company, shared his insights on PR and merchandising with a case study of Hanuman and talked about how one can create an appetite for a film among the audience by keeping the character alive in their minds.

Understand the market
Animation is an emerging market but one needs to understand the country and the changing times. The consumer is smart and understands content and packaging. "We will have Bollywood masala in our films but the benchmark would be Kung Fu Panda, Tom and Jerry, etc. However it will take time." Yet it does not mean that it is a virgin market for animation. Many families and school groups go for films like Hanuman. But the question is, what will the consumer buy?

Educating the customer
Through merchandising, you try to find out how to make a Shahrukh Khan or Aamir Khan out of your character. Merchandising is the tool you use to keep the character alive in all people's minds.

Percept tried to keep Hanuman alive for 10 to 15 months during the release of the film. It was not about Hanuman but about 'Hanumania'. The character was spread all over in the form of mobile games, comics, weapons, alphabet books for children and so on. They had kept this as the long term goal before even starting with the film.

The film became a success and they decided to make a sequel, Return of Hanuman.

360 degree approach
Merchandising plays a very vital role and Percept only tried to do everything possible to market the film. It was no great strategy, but just a small way of trying to figure out how to take it forward from there. This was done through extensive PR in newspapers by giving write ups such as Kyo ki Salmaan se badaa Hanuman. Also they kept the write ups very topical. Once it was the 'monkey' episode between Australia and Harbhajan Singh, after which there was one about Obama, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti.

Omnipresent
Keep the character on as many products as possible. This was done with Hanuman where products were chosen randomly, but when you look back at it, it became a great strategy.

In Film
Some in-film images were also released to the public, along with some branding through out door advertisements at Spencers, partnerships with multiplexes and tried to relate to children by finding out the kind of places they liked to go to.

Visual merchandising
Through extensive merchandising, people were bombarded with Hanuman everywhere. In fact the products are available even today. There were freebies at multiplexes, through T-Shirts, keeping in touch with mythology which was the base of the whole film, without compromising on the new looks.

This was the secret behind the success of Hanuman. "They were small ideas but important ideas." One should try to exploit all possible means to keep the character of the film in the limelight of the target audience.

Smita Maroo

Smita Maroo, Shemaroo VP for Animation, gave the examples of Bal Ganesh and Ghatothkach, to introduce the key attributes for marketing an animated film.

1. USP- First one must try and find what it is they want to tell the target audience. Bal Ganesh is a known story to all. However, no one talks about him being a child before he became a god. This message was brought out to the kids who were the target audience and they could identify with the idea. With Ghatothkach, the kids were inquisitive about the lesser known character as well as his ability to do magic.

2. Brand Building- Since animated films do not have celebrities to make them popular, here the story or the character becomes the hero. Through brand building, you try to establish either of the two. This is the mantra and one must start working on it from day one.

3. Targeted Communication- One must try to reach the end consumer through as many means as possible, may it be TV, advertisement, etc. If the target audience is children, their attention span is very low. In such a case, one cannot have a long campaign. Brands and media liaisons are very important. For both Bal Ganesh and Ghatothkach, Shemaroo had partnered with McDonalds to reach the children.

Smita added that innovation is also very important. India is a very interesting and challenging market for animated films. As a result, for Ghatothkach, they created a live mascot that children could meet in person and touch in multiplexes. This was a great success with children and won a lot of support from multiplexes too.

Devang Sampat

Devang Sampat of Cinemax took the dais next and shared insights into distribution.

"There is a lot of innovation and out of the box thinking that is required in this process. If the marketing and distribution have the right combination, a film can become a success." Showing the figures of revenue generated from films on a global scale, he brought to light that Indian animated films contribute a mere one per cent to the entire revenue. "The growth of the animation industry at present is huge with a long list of films slated for release. Now even corporate companies are entering the animation industry to end their support. This proves that there is no other way to go except up."

He stressed that one needs to understand the market and see where the one per cent is coming from. There is hardly any contribution from the regional areas. There is a possibility of growth of up to 30 to 34 per cent in the Indian animation films revenue.

Though the number of cinemas is large, the number of movies being watched and the foot fall is very low. Most of the animated films do not recover even print costs and so theatres cannot afford to give them too many shows. "However, one thing that I have noticed is that content always wins."

Devang suggested that instead of spending too much on the marketing, the industry also needs to concentrate on technology and quality. Multiplexes are trying to give their contribution by promoting the product. They provide a platform to get feedback from the audience and also to do roadshows.

He concluded making two final points- "Just convey to the audience that the film is being released on a particular date and if the content is good, they will come to watch it; and second, convey to them that animation is for the whole family and not children."

Sameer Chopra

Sameer Chopra of Studio 18 then talked about a few myths about marketing. First of all, he said that the idea of 'content is king' was completely wrong. "Marketing is perhaps as important as the content of the film." It has the power to make or break the film. If the marketing is in excess, it can raise expectations of the audience who may get disappointed after watching the film and if the marketing is low the film may not be watched by many.

He began with the basics on objective of marketing:

1. To connect with the target audience
2. To generate appropriate hype
3. To bring in the initial audience and
4. For follow up

Since there is no way of doing market research for animated films, one only needs to believe in the product. The general routes one can take to market the films are advertisements, PR and promotion.

Using an example of Singh is Kinng, he showed how the style of the character of the film was portrayed to the audience. To reach out to all audiences, they targeted many channels on TV including children's and to make it acceptable to all communities, they launched the 'Main Bhi King' contest. There was also an online contest.

The key driver to promotion is to try to make everyone identify with the product. For this, every possible medium was used to advertise the product, including TV, radio, internet, print, etc.

Utpal Acharya

Following Sandeep was Utpal Acharya from Inox who shared his experience in distribution and marketing. Animation film screenings began around 1997 when there were no proper screens for the films. Distributors had to beg the cinema halls to screen the films and they would get the morning shows. The scenario is changing now with the support of multiplexes.

His personal opinion was that apart from a very few films, there is no quality content in animation films today. If the content improves, the industry could succeed.

He also suggested that some market research be done before making a film to see what potential a film would have with particular target audiences and what strategies they could adopt.

Also comparing the distribution pattern of films in India with those in the US, he opined that films releasing in Hollywood release later in India, as a result of which its brand is already established. He noticed that he hardly found any Indian animated film being dubbed in regional languages, while The Incredibles and other international films have made a good market for themselves in India through regional languages.

"Research says that anything to do with kids has the maximum number of footfalls," he said, expelling the myth that animated films do not have a market because they are believed to be only for kids.

He also pointed out the pain of an exhibitor if the content is not good. Content is very important for the success of the film but according to him, research before making the film is also very crucial.

Dale Bhagwagar

Finally, Dale of DBMG talked about the power of PR. "Today perception is reality" and this is very important to understand. For this, PR plays a very crucial role. "We dress up to make an impression on people, in the same way, film makers want to present their films so that they appeal to the audience." PR helps do just that.

What is perception? People are not bothered about how much hard work went into making a film. They are bothered about what they see, about the look and appeal of the product. There are many mediums to market a product, including print, TV, internet and radio, however even mobile space is gaining prominence.

Once, an SMS gave out a surprise cast of a film. "To undo the effect of that, we sent misleading SMSs to people. As a result, there was confusion and curiosity for the film. PR may be misleading at times, but it works when it comes to catching the audience's attention and it is also a very economical medium for publicizing a film when compared to marketing.

"As far as animation films are concerned, I feel there's a child in all of us and as long as that child is alive, animation will prevail." In animated films it may take more effort to build the image of the character but in a live action film, an actor has his own style and limitations. In animation there are immense possibilities of what one can do with a character."

Excerpts from the Q&A:

Animation films seem to have the same budget as live action films for marketing? Is it necessary to spend so much on marketing?
Budgeting for marketing matters a lot. Just a standee would cost around Rs seven lakh in addition to that of posters, banners, etc the price becomes very high. Distribution also plays a very important role in the success of the film. PR is another economical and effective way of publicizing the product.

How much revenue can be generated through merchandising?
Merchandising does not generate much revenue. It is mainly for keeping the product in the minds of the audience.

Do you think it is necessary to have actors doing the voices for your films to make them successful?
It is a fact that Sultaan, Roadside Romeo, The Incredibles which have stars doing the voices are popular and look promising. It is a good marketing strategy. However depending on star value is death for animation. Any actor who can voice act well can make a good film. What really matters is how you package the whole film.

Is it necessary to release animated film during vacations?
Hanuman was released pre Diwali when hardly any films release; it was still a success. It is required in most cases as children can only be taken to watch a film during a weekend or vacations.

However, perceptions can change and there is no other direction to go than up. All that is needed is a proper benchmark and good quality content. Trends are changing now and there is a positive growth in the animation industry.

ankita.shah@animationxpress.com