Bahubali – The success
Bahubali is the way of marketing the experience entities.
Introduction:
Promotions and advertisements are the major marketing strategies which was followed by Indian film industries till date, but bahubali utilized the current digital marketing techniques and strategies to create awareness and expectations for their product among the Indian people. Padma Shri koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli directed and screen played the fictitious Indian epic sequel movie “Bahubali”. The movie was conceived by his father, later he developed the whole story with his mythological fascination. He started pre-production work by 2011 with his team and by 2013 after a 15,000 story boards, he made a final craft to the Bahubali. He nurtured his team to a maximum level which includes the months of training given to the actors and actress in body building, physique maintaining and martial arts. Also, researches were done on historical events and Indian mythology for developing war tactics, arts, attire and costumes. On extreme, his team with Madhan Karky developed a new language called “Kilikili” for this movie. The VFX and CG group has provided the audience with a visual treat of bringing forth the “Mahismati” in 70mm. The sequels were produced for INR. 450 crore and shooting done for 380 days. All the efforts and hard work had been marketed in an efficient way. The movie made a record in box office with a collection of INR. 2200 crore approximately and won many awards and accolades. This movie is not a short-term project, nearly for three years, for such a period bahubali should remain in people’s mind. The technics used in sustaining the audience. The purpose of this case study is how the marketing strategies helped in success of the movie and what approach and channels, sustained and accelerated the success. How the Bahubali team used digital marketing and made a huge success with 380% profit by marketing the experience entities to the world. Whether the bahubali team positioned themselves well in the cinema market and how? Whether the factors like brand positing and goodwill, brand building will help the bahubali team in their future projects either in the same team or in individual?
COMPANY
Arka Mediaworks founded by Prasad Devineni and Shobu Yarlagadda is a leading TV and film production house based out of Hyderabad, India. ARKA media is the production company which produces this movie. Since its inception in 2001, it has prospered significantly by remaining fiercely loyal to the core objective – to constantly and consistently push the boundaries of commercial cinema. Arka Mediaworks has produced several television shows across languages and channels. It has involved in creating content in Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Oriya. With production centres in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Bhubaneshwar, it is among the largest television content producers in India.
Arka’s clients include some of the nation’s largest TV channels, distributors and advertisers. The members of our team come from a wide range of backgrounds but share a commitment to excellence, ensuring consistent delivery of high quality products and services that our partners, customers and clients can count on.
Acknowledging the infinite possibilities, Arka Media Works passionately explores uncharted territory when it comes to the vision, scale and potential of a project. Committed to leaving an indelible mark on the Indian Film and Television Industry, it thrives on creating innovative and engaging content that captivates our audiences.
It has produced commercially successful and critically acclaimed Telugu films such as Maryada Ramanna and Vedam.
MARKET RESEARCH:
The whole team underwent a vigorous training and research on Indian mythology before the camera started rolling in 2013. This includes martial arts training, body building, various weapons and sword handling which would astonish the audience in big screen.
Prabhas and Rana were asked to build their physique for justifying the characters of Amerandra Bahubali and Ballaladheva. The body building starts with weight gaining process and exercises. Prabhas and Rana followed a massive food supplements under the supervision of the trainer Lakshman Reddy. Their breakfast includes 40 egg whites and they had six meals a day. This process for continued for 8 months to build the attire of prince Bahubali and Ballaladheva before production work in 2013. This strengthen the expectations among peoples.
In the whole process for about 5 years, Rajamouli proved himself as an able Marketer by designing each and every part of the movie to overcome the expectation of the audience.
MARKETING:
Bahubali marketing team utilized the maximum of digital marketing for the promotions, audience expectation management and publicity all over the world.
Rajamouli sparked the idea of bahubali among the peoples in 2011 while officially declaring the statement about bahubali and prabhas as a lead role. They targeted the audience with the help of social media. In 2013, they started a twitter account for bahubali which gradually attracts the audience with photos and poster of the sets and actors. Followed by that, a Facebook account was created and it constantly feed the audience about the production work. About 36 lakhs likes and 2.54 Million followers were accounted in Facebook and twitter. Movie “teasers” were launched on Anushka, Prabhas and Rana’s birthday which created the hype with peoples through the epic visualization.
In 2015 the movie Bahubali: The beginning was launched in 2000+ theaters in south India with a cost of 180 crores. Rajamouli made Karnataka Star actor Sudeep for a guest appearance to target the Karnataka people also. The movie was dubbed in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi to target the nation and it made a hit in box office by 600 crores. The beginning part had broken multiple records and also earned multiple awards including national award.
Rajamouli made an ultimate expectation and burning curiosity among the people by the highly suspense climax on first part that, why “Kattappa killed bahubali”? This expectation was carried by the people for two years through memes in social media. This ultimately acts as a audience sustaining and retaining strategies. Public participation events were conducted. Special app and games was launched in smartphones and tablets to advertise the movie posters and trailers.
Rajamouli well segmented the market by means of geographic (worldwide), Psychographic (mythology). He targeted Tamil and Kannada peoples by casting Tamil and Kannada actors and the movie was dubbed in five Indian languages and some foreign languages too. The behind scenes and making of videos in social media and posters in magazines, newspapers and first huge financed project had positioned bahubali like a tattoo in people’s mind.
DISTRIBUTION:
The distribution rights were sold for INR. 113 crores to 15 among which 1 Tamil, 1 Kannada, 1 Malayalam, 5 Telugu, 6 Hindi, 1 English. The Distribution share was accounted around INR. 500+ crore prerelease with 120+ % profit.
STATE GOVERNMENT FIXES BAHUBALI TICKET RATES
With the hype caused before the release of Telugu movie Bahubali-II and the ticket rates hiked in the State, the State government, Bahubali team and distributors set the ticket rates.
With the Bahubali-II movie getting special permissions from the two Telugu States, the theater managements and some online booking sites have tried to cash in the craze. After huge response from the common audiences, the final rates were fixed in the two Telugu States. The Rs 70 ticket were sold for Rs 100, Rs 90 ticket for Rs 150 and so on. However, the multiplex tickets were sold out for Rs 200 each. All these rates were continued for the first week of its release. The canceled benefit shows were compensated with the added shows in a day. The movie was screened six times a day bringing huge profits.
The movie’s world’s first premiere was screened in Mumbai with all the celebrities across the country.
SUCCESS
In 2017, he launched Bahubali: The conclusion in 9000+ screens world-wide costing 270 crores. The movie was dubbed in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and English. As a part of promotion, the crew members launched the songs in multiple countries. In YouTube 5million+ subscribers, around 13 crore viewers had viewed the songs and trailer and its growing day by day.
The movie collection has crossed 2300 crores and promo offers where provided to audience after 2 months of release to encourage the theater audience. In addition, the movie has been launched in China which collected $720,000.
WAY FORWARD
With the good will, animated cartoon series were released in Amazon. Apps and games are going to launch on the concept. In addition, Rise of sivagami: written by Anand Neelkandan, a fictional story book was launched in May 2017.It was written by Anand Neelakantan tells the about tale of the kingdom of Mahishmathi, revealing the childhood and history of Sivagami, the queen of Mahishmathi, and introduces readers to the royal slave Kattappa.The book is not an adaptation to the movie but in fact, lays the foundation for the epic that the "Baahubali" movie series. In adittion to this, it has 40 more characters which pulls out more crowd towards the movie and it also had hidden stories related to main characters of the movie which are not shown in the movie like background of shivagami. The reason behind slavery of kattappa.
An animated series named Baahubali: The Lost Legends created by Graphic India and Arka Media works premiered on Amazon Prime Video India. The first episode premiered on 19 April 2017 and the other episodes started streaming from 19 May onwards with a new episode releasing every Friday. Colors TV acquired the television rights of the series and will air the series after it ends its original run on Amazon Prime.
A game based on the franchise released during the Independence Day 2017, by Moonfrog, which involved a few characters and story as an initial phase.
References:
https://www.arkamediaworks.com/aboutus.html.
https://graphicindia.com/2016/02/03/bahubali/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baahubali:_The_Beginning
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Bahubali
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/baahubali-2/newslist/58261670.cms
https://www.facebook.com/BaahubaliMovie/
Bahubali: Making of an epic movie. https://www.icmrindia.org/Short%20Case%20Studies/Marketing%20Management/CLMM119.htm
Marketing Bahubali: India’s biggest blockbusters. https://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Marketing/MKTG344.htm
Bahubali movie digital marketing: https://themadbugkoustubh.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/bahubali-movie-digital-marketing-campaign-case-study/
Bahubali has become marketer’s new favorite guide- https://themadbugkoustubh.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/bahubali-movie-digital-marketing-campaign-case-study/