By Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

When BAABUL would be released it would be a watershed day for the Indian film industry as it is going to be a day when a car is going to be launched along with the release of the film. Makers of Skoda car have announced that they would be launching Audi A6 along with BAABUL on the day the film is released into the theatres.

Advertisers also look out for novelty to advertise their product so that it catches maximum eyeballs and gets converted into product sale. With this objective in mind, it was a question of when than why as far as using Bollywood movies is concerned. It is also a recognition about the brand India as far as Bollywood movies are concerned, as the understanding seems to have gained the ground firmly that the Bollywood movies have an equal number of national as well as international audiences, and it is the international market which hankers for the celebrities of Bollywood and laps up anything that is endorsed by Bollywood.

Hollywood has been doing this for a pretty long period as the tie-ups of this kind facilitate in providing insurance against failures, owing to the fact that part of the input costs are covered by these endorsements and tie-ups. Movies of James Bond have been the biggest brand promoters on an international arena since the early 60s, i.e. with Dr. No. In fact the world only came to know about Smirnoff Vodka when bond started endorsing it as his signature drink.

For the Indian film industry sponsorship by cola companies of a move have been going on for quite some time and the first time that it was done on a pretty large scale was in the move TAAL, where in quite a few songs it formed a background. But it was an irregular phenomenon, which made its appearance on an intermittent basis. Film related merchandising, was a variant that was practiced in Bollywood but it never attained the iconic success, which is attained in Hollywood. The first step in the product merchandising was done in case of MR. INDIA. Though the movie was a roaring success, the products associated with it did not attain the success in the same proposition at all.

Then this experiment fell by the way side. The experiment was tried once again with KRRISH and the segment that was targeted was children, and the merchandise offered to them were masks as well as school bags and related products of the school. This experiment attained the desired level of success as the tie-up entered into for selling of the product was with Big Bazaar chain of stores where children also frequent and as a result quite of lot of this merchandise was sold off.

Then for the new DON Tag Heur came out with a new range of watches, which was endorsed by Shahrukh Khan, and he became the brand ambassador for Tag Heur. But this experiment could not succeed in India, as the watch under question is a relatively pretty expensive watch, to which graduation by the common public is a difficult proposition.

As a proposition, for an endorsed product to get converted into being bought by the common public the cost element and the utility value has to be kept in mind, only then the idea can succeed. This has been successfully demonstrated with KRRISH merchandise. Probably taking a leaf out of the same, Pepe Jeans has decided to launch specialized version of DHOOM 2 Jeans and T-shirt after the release of the movie, and the merchandise would be given the brand name D 2. The chance of this experiment being successful could be bright as the product on offer is a utility item, which would be lapped by the major chunk of cinema going public.

Therefore, for the product when it is sought to be associated with a movie, one thing that has to be kept in mind is the utility value of the product, and then the chances of success of the product would be quite bright.