Does The ‘First Look’ Matter?

Posted on May 28, 2012 by

A question I’ve been asked ad nauseam over the last two years – How important is the ‘first look’ of a film? Typically, ‘first look’ today means the first theatrical promo and the associated poster design that is revealed when the film announces itself to the audiences.

My answer to the question has been generally non-committal. After all, not all audiences are exposed to the ‘first look’. So, if someone is ‘first’ exposed to your film through your second promo, that promo becomes the ‘first look’ for that person.

However, over the last few weeks, we decided to spend some time understanding this phenomenon better. We realized that for medium and low budget films, or films with a weak starcast, the ‘first look’ is a misnomer of sorts. The producers don’t have the marketing budgets to splurge on multiple campaign stages. And the reach builds up slowly, so there is no real ‘first look’ as such.

However, once we zero in on starcast films, or films which opened at Rs. 20cr+ opening weekend, we see a very interesting pattern driven by genre. We looked at the week-on-week Appeal scores of all the 20cr+ weekend films. Appeal refers to the ability of the campaign to convert audiences. For example, an Appeal of 64% means that 64 out of 100 audience said they will definitely watch the film in the theatre.

The table below shows week-on-week movement of Appeal for three popular genres – comedy, action and romance. The scores represent average of all the 20cr+ weekend films in that genre, over the last two years.

Appeal Comedy Action Romance
Wk -5 63 58 53
Wk -4 63 58 55
Wk -3 66 63 60
Wk -2 66 65 61
Wk -1 70 69 67
Wk 0 71 72 73

The findings are straightforward yet powerful. All three genres average roughly the same (71-73) in Wk 0. However, when you look at WK -5 (surrogate week for ‘first look’), you see a different picture. Comedy leads action, which in turn leads romance.

From Wk -5 to Wk 0, comedy shows only a 13% increase in Appeal, compared to 24% for action, and a staggering 43% increase for romance.

So, if you are making a (starcast-driven) comedy, you should be losing as much sleep as possible over your first look. And definitely testing it with the consumers before locking it. Because no matter what else you do thereafter, your Appeal will show only a minimal growth.

If you are making an action film, the first look is important, but life doesn’t end with it. And in case you are making a romantic/ youthful film, from the first look to the release week can be a different story altogether. So, a poor response to the first look should not deter you, just the way a great response to it should not make you complacent.

But why this difference across the three genres, you may ask. The answer lies is what we call the “drivers” of a film’s Appeal. Starcast is definitely a driver for all three genres, but that’s revealed in the first look itself. Thereafter, the drivers for the three genres are different.

For comedies, the tone & quality of the humor drives Appeal. For action, the dialogues in the action drama sequences drive Appeal. For romance, the music drives Appeal.

Humor connects instantly. So, if the quality of humor in the first look is good, its impact will be instantaneous. In contrast, if the humor doesn’t connect in the first look, it is unlikely that it will connect in subsequent promos. Hence, there is no substantial growth in Appeal for comedies.

Dialogues (action films) take about 2-3 weeks to grow and register. Hence, that genre requires one more round of promos focused on specific action scenes and dialogues to make their impact. In romance, music continues to grow till the week of release. Romantic songs (often slow) take their own time to build, and so does the film’s Appeal. It’s in the last two weeks that the real momentum of music comes, when the collective impact of television and radio airplay becomes perceptible.

So, here’s our recommendation:

1. Comedy films – Test your promo options and put the best lines in your first look.

2. Action films – Take your best 2-3 punchlines and include them in your first look and subsequent cut-downs.

3. Romance films – Test your music to decide which songs to promote and in which order.

 

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1000 and Counting!

Posted on May 14, 2012 by

July 21, 2008. New Hindi GEC ‘Colors’ launched, with much of its hype centered around Akshay Kumar starrer Khatron Ke Khiladi. In the next few weeks, the channel turned out to the one of the most fantastic success stories of Indian television. At the heart of this success story was not Akshay Kumar, but a sprightly little girl called Anandi, and her show Balika Vadhu. A show that completes 1,000 episodes today. A show that changed so much on Indian television that you can also make a show on its impact itself!

Balika Vadhu

Balika Vadhu has been extremely special to me. Ormax Media was founded on July 28, 2008, a week after Colors launched. Most of our early projects centered around Hindi GECs, where understanding audience habits & preferences related to serials accounted for about 90% of our work. During this period, we could not escape Balika Vadhu, even if we wanted to. No matter which channel we did a research for, we ended up discovering Balika Vadhu in the progress. After a point, our understanding of the program was so deep and wholesome, I almost felt I knew more about it than the channel and the production house itself.

Personally too, I was enamored by the show. Till then, daily serials had a certain “low-life” feel to them, in my mind. With Balika Vadhu, this perception took new shape and form altogether. The characters were real. The situations were unfamiliar yet believable. The visual authenticity stood out. The serial was so, for the lack of a better word, charismatic.

Balika Vadhu can take the credit for several trends it has set over the last 200 weeks. Social issues, now milked to near-death across GECs, came into the forefront after Balika Vadhu succeeded. The serial’s success also meant that stories moved out of living rooms and kitchens to various parts of India. Soon, we had “UP wala serial” and “Bihar wala serial” being used to described serials. A trend started by “Anandi wala serial”.

Those who aren’t closely associated with GECs with struggle to appreciate this, but Balika Vadhu infused the “seekh” element into the life of the GEC viewer in a more heightened manner than ever before. It was about hope and positivity, about being an enabler of change in the society at large, about being a guide and a teacher to its viewers.

Notice how most of my post has been written in the past tense. Yes, at some point, I began to lose touch with the serial. Once Anandi grew up and the actor changed, it took me a while, like most viewers, to reorient myself to this change. I have to say my loyal viewing days of the serial are now behind me.

But here’s the thing. Every now and then, I sample it. And whenever I do that, I know that the purity has remained completely in tact. There is no adulteration. For example, Balika Vadhu will never use a Hindi film song in its background. The slogans in the end are still powerful and well-written. Anoop Soni and Surekha Sikri remain these great actors who have become the part, over years of playing the part. I may not be a loyalist any more, but I’m a fan for life anyway.

I’m going to be glued to the TV screen tonight to watch the 1000th episode of the oldest running daily show on Hindi GECs (a week older than Tarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah). I’m rooting for Anandi as she gets set to meet a new guy in her life. And like all special episodes, I know they will play the magical title track at the start.

Once a fanboy, always a fanboy.

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Stars & Genres: Finding The Fit

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

Horses for courses. Yes, it applies to film stars as well. There are genres that suit certain stars well, and don’t suit certain other stars at all. We often say this during our film discussions, e.g. “He is good in romantic roles only”, “He can’t do comedy”, “He is the most versatile actor” and so on.

But what does the consumer think?

We collected data to this effect. It was actually meant to be a fun exercise, for internal consumption only. But when we started sharing the results with the film fraternity, we got excellent response. It seemed that the findings were, as someone said, “directly useful”. Hence, I thought they should be put up here for public consumption.

Essentially, we asked theatre-goers a question for 16 male stars. For each star, they had to pick one out of the following genres that suited him the most – comedy, action, romance, family, none.

Why only these four genres? Because these are the ‘organic’ genres, where star imagery has a strong role to play. Other genres like thriller, horror, sci-fi etc. are not image-driven in principle. Also, we hardly make enough films outside these four genres for consumers to have any real opinions around them.

Why ‘none’? Because there are some stars someone may not want to see in the theatre at all. Why, then, should we force the consumer to pick a genre in such a case? The ‘none’ option handles the forced choice.

The table below captures the results. All figures are in percentage. While going through it, remember that each star has a different popularity level (check OrmaxMedia’s tweets on SIL). So comparing numbers across columns is not necessarily the best way of looking at this data. We need to look row-wise to understand each star’s imagery, than compare them across the columns. The stars have been arranged in the descending order of their popularity according to the March 2012 SIL (Stars India Loves) report.

Star Action Comedy Romance Family None
Salman Khan 57 15 18 9 1
Shahrukh Khan 16 12 42 20 10
Hrithik Roshan 48 12 28 7 5
Aamir Khan 24 33 22 15 6
Ranbir Kapoor 8 25 57 5 6
Ajay Devgn 55 28 8 3 6
Akshay Kumar 32 52 7 5 4
Shahid Kapur 8 14 56 18 5
Amitabh Bachchan 26 7 3 56 8
Sanjay Dutt 51 34 7 5 3
John Abraham 64 14 8 2 12
Emraan Hashmi 8 10 56 5 21
Imran Khan 8 13 51 8 20
Abhishek Bachchan 23 14 13 14 36
Sunny Deol 75 4 2 6 13
Saif Ali Khan 19 18 24 18 21

While the data tells its own story, some observations that may help you read it better:

1. Aamir Khan clearly emerges as the most versatile actor. 3 Idiots gives him a comedy star imagery, but he has substantial share in all four genres. Abhishek Bachchan and Saif Ali Khan too have well-divided share. But in their case, qualitative research evidence tell us that it is because of undefined imagery than because of versatility.

2. Across stars, the last 1-2 releases have an overbearing impact on the imagery, indicating that it is not very difficult to break a star’s image. For example, Shahrukh would have never been associated with action. But with Ra.One and Don 2, his action share is a sizable 16%. Hrithik’s 48% action share seems a combination of his Krrish stunts and the more recent Agneepath.  Akshay Kumar, once a big action star, is now seen more as a comedy star, something that can change again with Rowdy Rathore.

3. Having said that, if a star does a film outside his image-defined space, it will be a real challenge. The film will have to be really good at a campaign and content level for it to work. Examples: Shahid or Ranbir in an action film or Ajay Devgn or Akshay Kumar in a love story.

4. Emraan Hashmi, the rising star of this year, is seen as a romantic star. But evidently, his kind of romance is very different from that of Shahrukh, Ranbir and Shahid. Emraan’s romance is the “kiss wala romance”. The 21% who chose ‘none’ in his case were largely women, who incidentally love the romantic genre and are the core target audience for Shahrukh, Ranbir and Shahid!

Hope you find the data useful. If you have any questions, you know where to find me!

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Housefull 2: A Campaign That Fell Short

Posted on April 7, 2012 by

This post is about how Housefull 2 could have benefited from a better planned campaign and opened far higher than the level at which it has actually opened. It is not about the film itself. In fact, I haven’t watched the film yet!

Diwali 2010. Golmaal 3 (G3) released to thundering box office response, scoring Rs. 34.75cr on the opening weekend at the box office. G3 had another film with a bigger starcast (Action Replayy) cutting into about 35% of its screen space. Also, Diwali (Friday in this case) affects that day’s collections by about 30%, because of Laxmi Puja. If it was a clean holiday weekend with no competition, G3 would have scored Rs. 43cr, if not a couple more.

We are in April 2012 now. The benchmarks are going up all the time, at a rough rate of 20-25% per annum. Potentially, if G3 came this weekend (April 6, 2012), it had more than a real chance of crossing Rs. 50cr.

That’s where the puzzle begins. If a franchise comedy with only one big star and no chartbuster song can cross Rs. 50cr on its opening weekend, why can’t another franchise comedy (Housefull 2) with one and a half big stars (no, not of the critics variety!) and three songs in the top 10, achieve the same? In fact, from what it seems, HF2 may fall staggeringly short, and finish at around Rs. 40cr. Surely, it must be a case of an opportunity lost? Indeed.

Let’s look at some data from Cinematix to understand what went wrong. The chart below captures the Buzz (%) for G3 and HF2, from seven weeks before release (Wk -7) to the week of release (Wk 0).

As you can see, the campaigns were tracking equally well on Buzz till Wk -3. One can argue that HF2 should have tracked well from Wk -7 itself, given Akshay’s fan base and the pre-cursor campaign in last year’s Cricket World Cup (you remember?). But that’s a point of digression.

Wk -2 onwards, the HF2 campaign clearly ran out of steam. What G3 showed in its last two week is “normal” Buzz growth most big releases show. However, HF2 just couldn’t grow at the normal pace. There was no apparent effort to create the Buzz. The stars were not present on any reality shows. There was no controversy brewing in the papers and on the news channels. It almost seemed that the makers were over-confident that the strength of the franchise will see them through. In fact, the director of the film was more visible than the stars themselves! Our Director’s Equity Survey (DES) results show that he should have stayed away from the campaign as far as possible.

Next, let’s look at Interest (i.e. Intention to Watch). This represents % theatre audience who said they will definitely watch the film in a theatre when it releases.

G3 was always ahead of HF2, even at the start of the campaign, indicating that Golmaal is a bigger franchise than Housefull. Having said that, the HF2 campaign no growth in Interest at all. In fact, the Wk 0 score is lower than the Wk -6 score.

The reasons were embarrassingly apparent to us. It was a comedy film but none of the promos were funny. The whole campaign hinged on Anarkali Disco Chali and Papa Toh Band Bajaaye. Only about 2-3 dialogue clips were used. There was no sampling of actual humor from the film. In fact, the Wk -4 low of 48 came after Papa Toh Band Bajaaye promos were fatiguing out, and the funny promos had not started at all.

Now some of you who have not liked the film will argue that there is no humor in it that’s “promo worthy”. Without watching the film, I can contest that thought. Because when you don’t have strong enough comic lines, you should handle the quality problem with quantity. Put 10-12 dialogue promos out and everyone will find the 2-3 that they like. That’s what the theatrical of Kya Super Kool Hain Hum attempts to do. That’s what Rohit Shetty has always done with the Golmaal films, and will surely repeat with Bol Bachchan.

Comedy is the most popular genre in India. It is the rare genre that has the ability to draw families to the theatres. But not when you choose to hide all the humor. An inexplicable error of judgment.

What happens to the film Monday onwards is another point of analysis altogether. But the fact is: Housefull 2 should have crossed 50cr on its opening weekend. And a poorly executed marketing plan has stripped the film of 20-25% of its opening weekend potential. A lesson for other big comedies lined up this year!

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2012: The Year Of Content?

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

2011 was a year that saw Bollywood box office thrive like never before. New records were set, new benchmarks created. However, a large part of this growth came from the ‘opening weekend’ phenomenon. Very few films sustained beyond the first week to emerge as true content-driven hits. The year was more about star power and hype, than about ‘cinema’ itself.

I know it has bothered many that while the industry  recorded its best business by far in 2011 (about 25-30% higher than 2010), there were only 2-3 films in the year that are likely to survive the test of time.

The good news is that 2012 has already broken the trend that was dangerously becoming the norm. The chart below tells its own story. The films is red were the top 10 films of 2011 on Word Of Mouth (WOM). The score represents % viewers who felt they will strongly recommend the film to their friends. While one can question public taste, these score are still a better representation of content feedback than the box office numbers, because a film’s WOM score is not influenced by its opening weekend performance at all.

In blue, you see the three films from 2012 that have made it to the combined top 10 list of the two years. It’s been less than three months and the ‘best’ film of 2011 has already been topped by Kahaani. Paan Singh Tomar is in the top 3, while the more star-driven Agneepath is at joint no. 4.

If this trend continues, 2012 may wipe out 2011 by the time we reach mid-year. In any case, the weekend business continues to grow, reaching higher levels with each passing month. Are we in a year that will see a further 25-30% growth in business, as well as a few solid, content-based success stories?

Seems like it. Touch wood!

PS: Data is still being collected on Kahaani and Paan Singh Tomar, and the eventual WOM scores may vary slightly from the ones above.

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Think Again, Will You?

Posted on March 14, 2012 by

Warning: This may end up being a ‘reverse-troll’ post. But since it has bothered me all day long, may as well write it.

I happened to read film critic Raja Sen’s column in Mumbai Mirror this morning (This). He wrote a ‘passionate’ piece on Hugo not getting a theatrical release in India, and hence, film fans being denied the chance to see a great 3D product in the theatres. I was with his line of argument for much of the article, till I read the following:

To those of us who burnt up Twitter in anger, making the #WeWantHugo war-cry trend across the nation yesterday, those forced to watch big-screen films at home, I recommend at least some mild revenge if we don’t get a taste of Hugo in 3D: Viacom 18’s next release, Blood Money, hits theatres on Friday, the 30th of March, and I feel we should do with it exactly what they suggest we do with Marty’s film: do please pirate it, won’t you?

Did I read “do please pirate it”? Yes, I did. It doesn’t matter if it was meant to be literal or not. Someone actually seeded that thought in mainstream media – a leading English newspaper, no less. Definitionally itself, the language is irresponsible.

Here are my three key concerns with the piece, in particular the portion quoted above:

1. The film industry loses 30-50% of its potential revenue to piracy. To encourage it even in jest is ridiculous. One of the reasons piracy continues to thrive (amongst several others) is that the media has not really “co-opted” the issue at any level at all.

2. Viacom 18 Motion Pictures is a business entity. In a free market, a business entity has the right to take business decisions based on its evaluation of the market situation. Just because you have access to prime space in a leading newspaper does not mean that you can spit venom at a private business and run down a forthcoming release of their’s, irrespective of how big or small it may be.

3. The issue in question (Hugo not releasing theatrically in India) is one of taste, not of moral standing. To make it sound like a ‘social’ issue (any suggested protest would imply that) is going way too far. People may be ‘deprived’, but they are not being ‘wronged’ if the film is not released. It is important to note this distinction.

In the war of words on twitter since this morning, one of the arguments being given is that since the Bhatts, co-producers of the forthcoming film in question (Blood Money), have been plagiarizing foreign films for ages, they have no moral authority in this matter. My simple reaction to that: Two wrongs don’t make a right. Period.

There is good journalism and bad journalism. But even more important is the distinction between mature and immature journalism. Raja Sen’s piece could have easily been an example of mature, good journalism. He could have made his point in a dignified yet effective manner, and driven the idea home to his readers. Instead, it ends up coming across as immature and childish. Because evidently, a journalist wore the hat of a ‘fan’ while writing the piece, and lost perspective of the responsibility that comes with the power the medium gives him. A pity!

It’s easy to write flamboyant pieces and make fun of filmmakers and directors. Do that by all means when you don’t like their work. But why get personal? Why cross the line? Why drag a filmmaker, who has invested his blood and sweat in his debut film (with a mere Kunal Khemu at his disposal), into it? Think again, will you?

PS: I know what some of you must be wondering: Is Viacom 18 on my client list? Why am I writing this piece? Yes, they are clients. Like the rest of the film industry. And if you are cynical enough, you will indeed correlate this article and my client roster. But you know what, I stopped worrying about such cynicism many months ago.

PPS: (I’m sure) There are trolls who hate Raja Sen, and hence, will “love” my post. Dear Those: Thanks but no thanks!

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The Promo Factor – An Open Challenge

Posted on March 11, 2012 by

Once in a while, you hit a roadblock. That awkward moment when you know the exact problem, but you just can’t put your finger on the solution. That’s when you go to the Internet for help!

Described below is a unique research issue we have been facing in our Bollywood work. To be honest, we have (almost) given up. If any of you can offer a solution that works, we’ll be thrilled to bits. We would also like to offer a worthy reward, along with some genuine appreciation to the most effective solution. So, put on your thinking hats and dig into your Bollywood understanding gathered over years. It’s an open challenge!

Here goes:

In our work, we have clearly and firmly established that there are four things that make any film’s campaign effective or ineffective (something we call ‘Appeal’). That is, there are four factors that dictate the Appeal of a film’s campaign. The Appeal, along with Buzz, plays a decisive role in deciding the opening weekend of any film. Hence, measuring and understanding Appeal is of prime importance in our work.

Three of these Appeal drivers are fairly straightforward and easy to measure. Starcast is the first one, which is already being measured by us through Stars India Loves. Music/ Songs is the second one, which is measured through our song popularity charts product Heartbeats. The third one is the Genre, e.g. comedy, action, romance, etc. We conduct an annual Genre Preference Survey to understand the popularity of various genres, and how this varies across markets and target segments. No issues here either.

This challenge is about the fourth driver – what everyone calls the ‘Promo’. Needless to say, the promo has a role to play in driving Appeal. With the same starcast, same music and same genre, you can make great promos or horrible promos. And the Appeal can vary significantly. There may be two slapstick comedies, but promos for one of them can be outright hilarious, while those of the other can end up being singularly unfunny. It becomes very important to measure how much the promo itself has been liked.

But here’s the problem. We have tried asking the promo question to movie-goers in various ways. The issue we face is that when they answer anything about the promo, the starcast and the genre colours their response significantly. Hence, a promo of Housefull 2 will score higher on likeability than a promo of Agent Vinod or Kahaani, simply because the former is a comedy and stars Akshay Kumar.

We have tried many different questions. But nothing manages to give us a response to the promo in isolation, independent of the starcast, genre and music. The question we seek to get the answer to is: Forgetting the starcast, music and genre of this film, how much did you like the promo itself per se?

The consumers don’t understand “forgetting” or “per se”. They judge things in their totality. Hence, the question asked has to be something they can relate to, something that’s “natural”, the way it’s framed.

So, can you come up with the solution? How do we ask them to rate a promo’s creative purely on its content, without the starcast or genre coming in the way of their judgment?

PS: It may not be the wisest thing for a research company to admit it has not been able to find a solution such as this, but the quest for knowledge far outweighs that concern.

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