I tweeted about the Facebook fan bean-counter yesterday and later noticed Mahesh Bhatt talking about how Murder’s sequel has 3 lakh+ fans in less than a month.
But yes, this bean-counter is vastly different from what marketing folks flaunt – brands and products have a relatively longer shelf life than a movie, which doesn’t have an active shelf life a week/month after the film’s release. Yes, there are touch points like DVD release and repeat shows but everything seems to hinge on how the film does in the opening week.
In this context, I have a few observations that may interest you.
1. Mahesh Bhatt says ‘the number of fans on the filmâ??s Facebook page is the way to measure how hot the film has become. Come the dreaded Friday, it is certain that this film will have a grand opening all over the country. We have tried all these things with Murder 2 and if it pays off this time, we will continue the trend for all our future films’.
Let’s try a back of the envelope calculation here – assuming the page has 300,000 fans and assuming all of them pay to watch the film in the opening weekend and assuming the average price of a ticket is Rs. 100, that is a cool Rs. 3 crores in ticket sales! No wonder Bhatt is putting his money here!
2. But…! Let’s get slightly realistic. The Facebook page asked the fans on Sunday, this: Murder 2 releases on 8 july… Are you planning to watch it First Day, First Show? Join the Event by pressing Attending.
If you see the event page, it lists about 26,000 fans as ‘attending’; 4,800+ fans as ‘maybe attending’; 15,000+ fans as ‘awaiting reply’ and 8,600+ fans as ‘not attending’. Our back of the envelope calculation now seems mighty different – that would be 26,000 X Rs. 100. Which is Rs. 26 lakhs…pittance, compared to the cost of making and marketing this film. But again, I’m not going to pooh-pooh this page based on numbers – social media marketing is just one tool among many to promote a film and going by this page, they’re doing an admirable job in keeping fans hooked and engaged.
3. Think about it – why would a film and its maker need to promote a film in a 2-way medium (unlike one-way media like posters, TV/radio spots etc.) like social media? Creating awareness, visibility blah blah is obvious, but this is a 2-way medium – what more can this do over dumb, one-way media?
I believe the critical difference is ‘convince’ and not just ‘inform’. From that perceptive, a few other things that a filmmaker can do is to involve his potential audiences in a deeper discussion about the film’s finer aspects. These finer aspects do not include Jacqueline Fernandez’s bare back or the fact that she has dubbed with her own voice…or even Emraan Hashmi’s six-packs. Yes, these are massy enough for the film-crazy, semi-literate crowd in India, but I’d assume that such crowds would see the film anyway, regardless of reviews in mainstream media.
Wouldn’t Mahesh Bhatt want to treat the ‘digital natives’ a bit differently and use slightly better content to involve his fans’ interest on Facebook? I’d also assume that this is the crowd that may read online reviews – from media and from their peers/friends and decide whether to see the film or not, during opening weekend. And how could this Facebook engagement insulate the film from bad reviews, if they do happen? Could it, at all? If yes, I assume it may by talking sense and not about the more frivolous aspects of the film. I do hear you asking, ‘What sense, boss? To India’s film crazy crowd? Are you out of your mind?’. No, I don’t have an answer to that!
Incidentally, one of the tactics used to engage with fans on Facebook was to announce a poster contest where Bhatts ask fans to select the film’s poster among 5 options. They did choose, but look at where the poster designs were flicked from, in true Mahesh Bhatt style!
4. That brings me to the other point. Digital natives are also most likely to download the film via torrents. It is an open secret that Hindi films are available via torrents almost by the end of the first day of release – Friday evenings, in most cases. I wonder what the Bhatts intend to do about the crowd that wants to watch the film, but would not think twice before downloading illegally.
5. The last time I recall a filmmaker using Facebook in an interesting way, using the film’s plot as the lever, was Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra…for Delhi 6. That film bombed…and rightly so…because after a point, Mehra lost grip on whatever he constructed so skilfully! But I perhaps enjoyed the pre-release discussion more than the film itself. I doubt our Orkut-fed, film crazy fans may enjoy this sort of engagement on Facebook, though.
Having written a lot about social media usage by films and filmmakers, I’d love to know how Bhatts’ attempt here to tap into ‘digital natives’…both the intent and the way they go about it…eventually helps the film. Guess we’ll know this weekend!
Related read, from this blog:
1. Shaitan takes its Facebook opinions outside the platform (June 21, 2011)
2. Online buzz and its impact on a filmâ??s box office performance (December 29, 2010)
3. Will social media be Raavanâ??s Raavan? (June 18, 2010)
4. â??Where is the audience?â?, asks leading Indian film maker! (May 28, 2010)
5. Resetting the reviewer-reader equation using internet (November 8, 2010)
6. Is the current method of promoting films on Facebook fundamentally flawed? (October 29, 2010)
7. Can complete strangers sell insurance effectively? (November 24, 2010)