Bollywood films and their fascinating unique promotional strategies

‘Phoonk’

Ram Gopal Verma has mastered the skill of creating horror films and well, with his 'Phoonk' he was so confident that it will give chills to any one who watches it. So as a challenge, RGV called his fans to watch this film and whoever could watch it till the end without getting frightened, he would gift them Rs 5 lakh! That's how he called audiences to watch his film in the theatres. Smart one!

‘Pizza’

A film titled 'Pizza' released in the year 2014 had a pizza delivery man witnessing the presence of supernatural powers. So as the lead is a Pizza delivery boy in the film, the makers got special spooky pizza's delivered to fans as the form of promotional strategy.

‘Phobia’

Radhika Apte film 'Phobia' talks about the horror of a lady who suffers from agoraphobia. So when it came to planning the promotional strategy, the makers sought to create awareness about the different kind of phobias. Small clippings or teasers were released by the makers wherein we had Radhika explaining different kind of phobias. This was before the trailer was launched and the strategy was well appreciated.

‘Bewakoofiyan’

Ayushmann Khurranna and Sonam Kapoor starrer 'Bewakoofiyan' literally helped people seek job at India's largest production house YRF. In a unique way of promotions, their fans were asked to apply for a job at YRF through Twitter. 'Get a job @ YRF' was the hashtag which promoted in order to call for engagement of the audience. At the final round, Ayushmann and Sonam were asked to carry out the interview and elect a right candidate.

‘Aashiqui 2’

Shraddha Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur's 'Aashiqui 2' deserved an applause as it had a fantastic love story. Well, the promotions too were fantastic. We all remember the patent 'Aashiqui 2' pose wherein Aditya embraced Shraddha under his jacket, right? So mannequins posing in same style were installed at various cinema halls to call for attention for the film.

‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’

The multi-starrer film 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobarra' is about three friends who meet after ages and embark on a trip together. As it revolved around a trip, the stars viz Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol, Kalki Koechlin, Farhan Akhtar and more carried out a real-life road trip in the city of Mumbai and Delhi. Their entire trip was documented by the media and hence, was much in the limelight.

‘Ki & Ka’

During the promotions of 'Ki & Ka', a shocking video of Arjun Kapoor slapping a Radio Jockey made it to the internet and it instantly went viral. Later, everyone realised that it was just a made up story and Arjun carried out that act in the wage of promoting his film. Nevertheless, this act of Arjun did garner eyeballs for the film.

‘TE3N’

Amitabh Bachchan, Vidya Balan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer 'TE3N' does not only have three stalwarts starring in one film, but it also has a strong backing of marketing professionals. As the promotional strategy of the film, the makers invited ideas and thoughts from the viewers as to how the film should be promoted, and if it is good then the makers will will incorporate it in their strategy. This helped the film to garner support and interaction with the audience, creating awareness about the film.

‘Ghajini’

Aamir Khan's 'Ghajini' was that one film which is hard to forget. The impactful performance of our Perfectionist was more than enough to garner an applause for the film. Its marketing strategy too was a powerful one as Aamir got 100 employees of a theatre to get their hair shaved just like the one sported by him in the film. Now, that's a good propaganda technique, isn't it?

‘Kahaani’

Vidya Balan, revamped her acting career with films like 'The Dirty Picture' and 'Kahaani'. For Sujoy Ghosh's thriller film, Vidya didn't only roam around the city with a fake baby bump as she portrays the character of pregnant woman in the film, but she also sold tickets at various theatres to attract attention. She even stuck posters of her missing onscreen husband in the city and went about asking people if they have seen him.

‘2 States’

Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor's love story in '2 States' was quite a nice one and their promotional strategy too was quite unique. All of a sudden, Alia Bhatt, posted an invitation card on her Twitter handle, calling all her fans to her engagement ceremony with Arjun Kapoor. Later, everyone realised that it was about her engagement with Arjun in the film and not in real. It did create a buzz and the film was a hit.

‘Dhoom 3’

In 'Dhoom 3', one highlighting factor was that it had Aamir Khan playing the role of villain. Another reason that brought this film into limelight was its marketing strategy. Generally, the songs of the film make it to screens well before that film gets released, but Aamir released only 30 second of teaser of the songs of 'Dhoom 3' instead of the complete songs. The extended versions of foot tapping numbers of the film got released only with the film. This strategy helped the film to garner a lot of curiosity and the result, film broke several records at the box-office.

‘Ra.One’

Shah Rukh Khan's 'Ra.One' was not a visually appealing film with all the visual effects set right, but it was also an interesting one because of its marketing one. This Shah RuKh Khan film was the pioneer of gaming and merchandising strategy in Bollywood. Games with the theme of 'Ra.One' and merchandises in the form of 'Ra.One' characters were launched by King Khan.

‘3 Idiots’

Aamir Khan is known as the master of promotional strategies and well, for his film '3 Idiots', he planned an extremely unique strategy. He disguised as a common man and roamed around the country playing hide-and-seek with his fans. He visited various places for two weeks and left clues about his whereabouts. Most interesting part of this promotion was that Sachin Tendulkar was the one to reveal the first clue.

‘Fan’

Shah Rukh Khan's recently released 'Fan' was a delight to watch as we had two avatars of SRK on-screen. The story seemed to be good as it revolved around a superstar and his bond with his fans and well, SRK didn't leave any stone unturned to make this film as successful as possible. As a promotional call, Shah Rukh let the wall of his residence Mannat get painted with Graffiti. Initially, we thought that it was one of the crazy fans of SRK who messed up with him like this, but later we realised that it was a planned strategy. The Graffitti had 'C U On 15' written on the wall and the name which was highlighted was that of Gaurav. Later, we got to know that Gaurav was SRK's character name in the film.