Hum Tum: A marketing blitzkrieg

Given the lack of originality among Bollywood marketeers, we have somewhat become immune to the customary glitz of movie promotions. That's why, the innovative and multi-pronged promotional campaign of Hum Tum - the latest film from the Yash Raj Films' repertoire -- deserves a special mention for its very clever and novel use of media to create a hype.

Trailers, posters, micro sites and hoardings aside, Hum Tum (featuring Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherjee) tied up with The Times of India, Sony Entertainment's teleserial Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, music channel MTV and Ruffles Lays (a PepsiCo brand) to promote the movie.

The promotions of Hum Tum began as early as March 2004, when the Hum Tum cartoon strip made its debut in the city supplements of The Times of India. The cartoon strip is a little rectangular box with humorous insights on man-woman relationships. In Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, Saif Ali Khan made a guest appearance in the role of his film character, Karan Kapoor, who is a cartoonist with The Times of India. Then, the new Ruffles Lays commercial contains scenes promoting Lays chips in Hum Tum.

The MTV promotion is equally innovative. Yash Raj Films partnered with MTV music channel to produce a music video for the title track of Hum Tum. The title track called 'U n I (Mere Dil Vich Hum Tum)', was produced by hip-hop bhangra singer, Rishi Rich. For the record, it is for the first time that Yash Raj Films has used an international artiste for its soundtrack.

In addition to this, Hum Tum's marketing team created publicity through caricature promotion and online contests inviting people to create their own cartoon strips.

"We had to be different in our promotions", says Tarun Tripathi, senior executive, Yash Raj Films. He reasons, "Today viewers are simply spoon-fed with direct promotions, which do not encourage any degree of involvement and thus fail to generate curiosity. While we went about the promotions in a low key manner, they made people curious about Hum Tum."

Each promotion was conceived with a specific marketing objective. For example, the Hum Tum cartoon strip worked superbly in building a relationship with The Times of India readers much before the film's launch. "And it wasn't an idle creation. In the movie Saif Ali Khan is a cartoonist with The Times of India, so the idea of having a cartoon strip worked perfectly from the film's point of view as well," says Tripathi.

"Our association with The Times of India and Jassi not only emotionally predisposed the reader/viewer towards the movie, it also gave the movie a pan-India reach. It also spared us the problem of fighting city audience locally," points out Tripathi.

A digital and interactive poster campaign is the latest marketing trick employed by the film's handlers. iframeTM, a brainchild of Madison Media and developed by WITS Interactive Pvt. Ltd., is India's first interactive movie poster. The interactive poster was recently launched in the Mumbai-based multiplex - Fame Adlabs.

Explaining the interactivity of the poster, Rajiv Gopinath, media director, Madison Media, says, "When the viewer approaches our 'apparently static' poster, the poster suddenly breaks into a trailer. Once the trailer is over, the poster remains inactive for 10 seconds and then starts playing all over again. We believe -- any communication message becomes more effective by introducing interactivity. Therefore, with this idea, not only have we created a clutter break in context to the various movie displays in the theatre, we have also managed to correlate the different brands in a significant manner."

What's more, the successful running of Hum Tum (it debuted on May 28, 2004) hardly marks the end of its promotional saga. Yash Raj Films is getting ready for a pitched battle here. "The Hrithik Roshan-Amitabh Bachchan-Preity Zinta starrer Lakshya is being launched on June 18. Naturally, we have to fight competition. So watch out for another burst of promotions on Hum Tum," Tripathi confides. © 2004 agencyfaqs!