Picture this: Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, in his role as Azaad Rathore in Jawan, exhibits his extraordinary strength while bashing up his hostage in the bustling confines of a Mumbai metro car. In between this mesmerising action sequence, the billboards inside the train quickly flash five different ads: that of Bondtite, SanDisk, GM Modular, Muthoot FinCorp and Just in Time. Blink and miss? Never mind, the job — register the brand name in the mind of the consumer — is done.
While these ads were easy to miss, there were some others in the movie that were impossible to ignore. In another scene in the movie, one member of Shah Rukh Khan’s gang slips from the police net while pretending to be a Zomato delivery agent. “While the Zomato ads were on the nose a bit, we have become used to such ads and product placements in visual entertainment. It did not take away from the fun of the movie,” says Delhi-based Manisha Singh, who watched the movie on the very first day of release.
Product placement in films is nothing new but it seems to have gathered momentum in recent years. Ambi Parameswaran, author and an independent brand coach, points out, “Brand placements are a great way for a brand to expand its reach and avoid the ‘skip’ function people so often use.” (Over 65% of audiences skip online advertising, according to IPG Mediabrands’ Media Lab.) The solution is to place these ads within the content itself, without disrupting its flow. As of 2023, product placements have become a $29-billion industry globally, showcasing around 13% growth in one year, according to Statista. In India, various estimates put it at a sizeable 10% of the Rs 30,000-crore below-the-line advertising segment and bigger than elements such as live events sponsorships.
“Brand placement rates in India can vary —between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 3 crore. All depends on the scale of the film and the kind of exposure that brands are getting,” says Sonya Kapoor, founder, M5 Entertainment.
Getting it right
Lloyd Mathias, independent director and former HP Asia marketing head, says the first rule of a brand placement is that it should appear credible and should stem from the normal flow of the film. “Just throwing banners around isn’t enough,” he adds. Karan Taurani, senior vice-president at Elara Capital, adds that the product being advertised must also be of relevance to the subject of the movie. He remembers Audi’s tie-up with Race 2 as a relevant and credible partnership.
Some other great examples that experts cited were that of Amitabh Bachchan, who starred as a retired ICICI Bank employee in the 2003 hit movie Baghban. The movie was meant to connect with middle-class families, and the brand associations seemed relevant to the target demographic, they said. Another example was that of Tata’s Starbus, which was featured in Honeymoon Travels Private Ltd, a story about six newly married couples on a bus trip.
Interestingly, Sandeep Goyal, founder, Rediffusion, cites the movie Jawan as an example of what to avoid. “Jawan has integrated several brands but many are merely visual placements in the film and are not woven into its storyline. I wouldn’t say the brands would have reaped any exceptional value from these placements,” he says. He goes back 50 years to remember the Bobby movie, which was used as a platform to launch the Rajdoot bike.
Nisha Sampath, founder, Bright Angles Consulting, cautions brands from appearing out of sync. “Brand integration in the movie Darlings was noticed because of the misfits. A lower middle-class household would not use Kama Ayurveda or Daawat Basmati rice. Unless you believe that ‘any attention is better than none’ this was the wrong way for the brands to get noticed,” she says.
Look at global brands and movies for clues on how to get it right. Mathias cites the James Bond franchise, which has always had tie-ups with popular cars and watches that agent 007 wears, as an example of placements done right. On an average, every Bond movie collaborates with around 30 brands.
In fact, there is nothing called brand overkill in this space. Barbie the movie, which has been described variously as a “114-minute advert” for toy company Mattel and “a Matryoshka” of commercials, featured a Chevrolet 4×4 Corvette, Chanel bags, ‘I am Kenough’ hoodies, and even showed Ryan Gosling, starring as Ken, wearing three TAG Heuer watches at the same time. Media reports claimed that there was a 120% increase in interest in the Chevrolet car, TAG Heuer’s CEO Frédéric Arnault said customers had nicknamed the featured watch the ‘Barbie watch’, and Mattel was selling the hoodies at a pricey £58 (around Rs 5,999).
As they say in marketing, nothing happens until someone sells something.
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