E-marketing of Bollywood movies: A case study of movies with net earnings above INR 100 crore

The Hindi film industry of India a.k.a. Bollywood is the world’s largest film producer. It produces close to 1000 movies a year. For that approximately 14 million viewers swarm the theaters each day and it sold more than four billion cinema tickets every year. According to FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2013, the Indian film industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.5 percent to touch INR 193.3 Billion in 2017. The growth of the Indian film industry in 2012 over 2011 is 21 % and the estimated size of the film industry in 2013 would be 122.4 INR billion. With the growing competition in the domestic as well as international market, Bollywood has started to spend a fortune on movie marketing in order to drive the business. 

Film marketing activities have progressed beyond posters and promos with the aggressive use of new marketing tools like social media, portals, search engines, and mobile devices. The use of social media has become an important component of the pre-release marketing strategy for any movie. The recent trend is to develop mobile apps for the promotion of movies. For instance, Disney UTV’s marketing team developed a mobile app for the movie ‘Barfi’ which was used to create a strong connection between the central character and the audience.*

In 2012, the average film marketing costs ranged anywhere between INR 80-120 million. For high-budget films, this went up to INR 150 million and for low-budget films, in some cases, it exceeded their production cost. As per industry estimates, for a low-budget film, a minimum budget of INR 35 to 50 million is required to ensure a decent commercial release for the film. It is anticipated that as media clutter grows, marketing budgets for films will continue to climb in order for products to get noticed.