Shahrukh Khan : The Desperate Marketer !

Marketing is a phenomena used by companies to communicate with their customers/prospects about their product/service. But when, product has a short shelf life, marketing is more about creating excitement, and generating buzz among the prospects. Marketing of movies faces the similar scenario.

Movies are produced with a specific budget, and has a very short shelf life. To generate profits, the product has to be consumed by the customers within first few days. And thus, these days, marketing plays a huge role in movie budgets. Production houses try different routes like ATL, BTL Promotions and PR to generate buzz among the audience.

I consider Shahrukh Khan a “Desperate Marketer”, as he uses each and every marketing route desperately without considering the profitability and marketing relevance. He has changed the famous 4Ps of Marketing into “Please, Please, Please, Please “. In marketing terms, his marketing style would be termed as carpet bombing, which is loosing its viability in recent times.

An example which I will like to quote is “Ra One”. He bought every media spot, be it television, newspapers, internet or radio. The bullish marketing campaign ran for nearly 3 months. His movie “Ra-One” was co-branded with numerous brands. Shahrukh Khan was promoting his movie on every TV channel, in every function, every mall. With his In-Your-Face marketing of “Ra-One”, audience got really irritated with the movie, even before the movie was released, as every second advertisement was about “Ra-One”. When the movie released, it was a big dud. As a product, movie was also trying to desperately trying to please all forms of audience.

Even before “Ra-One”, in his earlier venture “Om Shanti Om”, he brought each and every star in the Bollywood industry in one song, to create buzz. Even in the first edition of IPL, Shahrukh again used the carpet bombing strategy for his cricket team, “Kolkata Knight Riders”. His cricket team even had a Music Video, which irked other owners to create one for their own teams as well. Though soon factors like profitability and marketing relevance emerged, and these music videos were no more a part of team’s marketing strategy.

Post IPL victory, Shahrukh went overboard in celebrating and promoting his team’s success, in Kolkata. Although earlier IPL champions like Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals never had such celebrations.

I believe, he should take a tip or two, from his contemporary “Aamir Khan”, who has always been lauded by marketers for his ” Intelligent Marketing” of all his ventures.

Lets see if he again goes overboard with his next venture, “Chennai Express” !