#CMCEvenings

Cash cow, Kattappa!

Very rarely does one come across a film that goes onto become a phenomena. When Baahubali: The Beginning, hit the screens, the makers of the film had a well thought plan to catch the eyeballs. The right tie ups for the distribution, the comic con move, creating merchandise, having augmented reality app for songs and trailers and much more. Not only did the larger than life story representation help in building this film; but the fact that they had most of their bases covered in terms of promotional strategy, fetched the film much fame. A regional film had suddenly gatecrashed into the main market and occupied a space that was far from everyone’s imagination.

A prominent film critic and an avid lover of Cinema, Sethumadhavan, Founder and Chief Editor at Mad About Moviez, walked us through the pillars that made Baahubali 2 a grand player in the movie marketing field.

Besides S.S. Rajamouli’s craft and a strong cast, the movie had stirred up intense amount of excitement close to its release. However, to sustain this frenzy for a period of 22 months wasn’t a cinch. After creating a mark with its first film, the part two had to make sure it delivered to the expectations and beyond. Ensuring and applying prime marketing moves like- an IMAX (4D) release, a sure shot lock in of the biggest release for an Indian film across the globe covering 9000 screens, a tactical trailer promotion, securing a good spread through distribution rights, brand and NGO tie ups, launch of animated series, a novel trilogy, re-release of part one and many such cards have drawn all the magnets of attention to this magnanimous movie. Not to mention their biggest ace of “Why Kattapaa killed Baahubali?”, surged mass curiosity and gave a solid reason for watching the prequel.

Sethumadhavan highlighted the fact that, never before had a “regional” Indian film tasted this kind of phenomenal success. The discussion brought to light, how the movie was sold out much before its release over the long weekend and how the brand tie ups had generated a great recall factor and built the momentum even further.
Baahubali team worked extensively on the entire framework, action, performances, etc, and as rightly cited by someone – Part 2 of this film brought every single movie lover of the country to talk about this one film despite the region, origin and language. This is an achievement in itself.

The session was not only engaging but also an eye opener as to how the marketing strategy can up the whole game of a movie. Whether it’s the mania or the marketing, Baahubali 2 has rolled out the dice of a double six and declared a win from the very beginning!