Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘Happy New Year’ releases today, but much before that Red Chillies Entertainment through some unique promotional events and unconventional marketing strategies generated revenue beyond the box office collections. A look at the marketing and promotional whiz that they have employed.
Selling of rights: If reports are to be believed, then the film has been committed a Minimum Guarantee (MG) of Rs 125 crore towards the worldwide theatrical release by Yash Raj Films, whereas the satellite rights have been purchased by Zee between Rs 60-70 crore and the music rights sold to T-Series for around Rs 10-15 crore.
Manish Kumar, Head-Marketing & Digital for Red Chillies Entertainment, however said, “I cannot comment on this, but according to me the satellite rights haven’t been sold.Yes, the music rights have been sold for a small amount, but I cannot comment on the figure.”
SLAM! The Tour: The Happy New Year team, toured US, Canada and UK in a new and unconventional promotional tactic for the film. The multi-city tour was called SLAM! The Tour, in which the team put up live shows in several US cities including Houston, New Jersey, Chicago, Vancouver, San Jose and then London. There were around seven shows in all and each was expected to fetch them around Rs 5-10 crore.
Kumar who had a different take, commented, “The tour was just a smart self-funding exercise. It was an initiative of Cineyug and Red Chillies Entertainment, where the actors got a chance to perform abroad and with that a chance to promote the movie, but the motive was not film promotion. It was only a world tour.
It was smart in the sense that these tours generally need a lot of funding, but in our case the money made from the shows was used to retrieve the funding cost.” When quizzed whether they had made money, he said, “More or less it was self-funding, but there was some mark-up left.”
Dance-reality TV show: A dance-reality TV show titled Dil Se Naachein Indiawaale, a spin-off from the film’s popular track Indiawaale, was launched along with Zee TV. The only criteria required to participate on the show was to ?dance from the heart?. The show’s format had the film’s actors as ‘Agents of Happiness’, and judging participants in four cities ? Mumbai, Delhi, Indore and Ahmedabad.
Said Kumar, “Dil Se Naachein Indiawaale was just a platform to get the message of the movie across: how losers can become winners. In this case non-dancers could also get recognised. Plus, it was a platform to promote the film through various channels. There was a little money made through brand associations, but the intent was never monetary.”
Mad Over Donuts association: Donut brand Mad Over Donuts associated with the film and had created a special ?IndiaWaale Donut? to go with the theme of the Film.
Mad Over Donuts started promoting the specially created donuts from October across 54 stores in the country priced at Rs 59 each.
“The association was just for promotions, as we wanted to associate with Mad Over Donuts. Maybe a minimal amount was made out of this association,” stated Kumar.
Gaming & application rights: “We also tried to make a little money by selling the gaming and application rights to Hungama Digital Ltd. They have developed a first of it?s kind dance game which will use motion sensors to play,” he said.
Value Added Services: ?We even tried to get some monetary benefits from Value Added Services from the telecom industry by providing 2G content such as pictures, animation, caller tunes etc,? revealed Kumar.
Social media: Red Chillies Entertainment also earned a little by advertising their associated brands throughout their pages on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and also by holding co-brand contests.
Other associations: The company had minimal cost association with PNB MetLife, Western Union, Lenovo, Dairy Milk (they launched a special Happy New Year pack for Diwali), Nokia, Lux soap (they launched Happy New Year packaging), BEST rice, Western Digital, Ayurwin (for Tamil & Telugu markets) and AMAZON.com for merchandises.
