PUBLIC RELATIONS AND BOLLYWOOD

PUBLIC RELATIONS AND BOLLYWOOD

Dear Friends,

Thank you for reading my earlier blogs and sharing your views. I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. Friends, presenting my 40^th blog titled “Public Relations and Bollywood” to you.

You are very well aware of the fact that Public Relations or P R is a planned, sustained, long term and ongoing activity to create and cultivate a positive image of an individual, organisation, corporate, state or even a country among its target audience.

Indian film industry is one of the biggest players in the entertainment field. Every year, around 1800 big or small budget feature films are produced in India. Along with the traditional advertising campaigns, now public relations activities have also become one of the major part of film promotional activities. Public Relations help create the anticipation and excitement which successfully draws the audience to the nearest theaters. Sometimes the star cast or big named actors, nice songs, good story, award-winning directors, famous film production house fails to garner the best interest from the audience. hence, the film makers / production houses also need a strategy to generate interest in their films, and yes… public relations tactics immensely help bring the spotlight to their films.

In case of BOLLYWOOD (the term BOLLYWOOD has been used to represent the entire Indian  film industry / fraternity) Public Relations takes an additional responsibility of managing the image of a film celebrity, who could be a story or lyric writer, music or film director or maker, and or male or female actor. The role of public relations is to very cautiously craft and build larger than life image of a film personality – celebrity among its audiences using 7Ps of marketing mix i.e. Product, Place, Price, Promotion, Packaging, Positioning, and People very intelligently. 

When the image of a film personality – celebrity is damaged or tarnished because of either his or her own objectionable actions or purposeless utterance in public domain, public relations enters the scenario to play the role of a crisis manager and does damage control by reaching out to the target media with their version of the happening to get favorable media coverage  or at least film personality – celebrity’s point of view across the target audience to maintain a positive image of the person concerned.

In the entire film world from HOLLYWOOD to BOLLYWOOD, not only the male and female Film / TV actors are concerned about their image and reputation and are clients of public relations professionals and or image consulting agencies, but film makers, directors, production houses, film studios, casting agencies etc…etc…etc… also engage public relations experts to promote, maintain and protect their right image.

Public relations professionals employ various tools for the purpose of image correction, perception and reputation management of their celebrity clients. Some of the tools are…. National and International Film Awards Functions, Film Festivals, Film Premiers, Music Launches, Product Launches, Public Speaking Opportunities, Special Events like Film Announcement, Star Evenings, Red Carpet Events, Meet & Greet the Actors in shopping malls, renowned book stores, famous coffee shops, big jewellery showrooms & Film Parties, beside interviews in popular TV & Radio Talk Shows /  entertainment shows and channels, Photo opportunities for  Print media, Digital Media i.e. Blogs, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and interviews with major online social media influencers, promotion of social cause and  supporting a fund raising event. The list is unending……….......

The filmmakers have now started realizing the influence of public relations and innovative public relations campaigns to make huge profits. As per a leading film maker and a personal friend, nowadays budget for promotion of a film is almost twice to that of the entire budget for film production. Role of public relations starts from the date of the launch of the film i.e. First clap to the last clap to keep audience’s interests alive and goes till release and in some cases even post release of the film.  

BOLLYWOOD also make effective use of Public Relations tactics not only in promoting themselves but their films too to get nominations for national and international awards including film awards. 

Friends, you would agree with me that getting an accolade for a film or a TV serial is also a result of well crafted public relations strategy – campaign.

Thank You for reading the blog.

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