Suffering from the Raone overdose syndrome?

The trailer of the TV reads out three days to go…and my mind says “Well three more days and probably I will get some respite”. Yeah I am talking about the promotions of Ra.One. It seems like ever since the month of October has begun there has been nothing but Ra. One that is occupying the media space.

Be it TV, radio or newspaper it is absolutely impossible to miss the Chamak Challo and the promotional blast for this movie. From having numerous brand tie ups for the movie to being physically present on each and every reality show on the Indian television, and even plastered itself on probably each square inch of digital space through the youtube and even the Google Plus, Shah Rukh has tried to make sure that that there is absolutely no eyeball that is unaware of Ra.One or the fact that it will be releasing on October 26.

However, in the process has he managed to create a brand fatigue in the minds of consumers who are actively consuming media?

It is well known that movies have a small shelf line and usually they have only till the weekend to recover its costs. In such a scenario it becomes important to package and market the movie well so as to ensure that there are enough early adopters, who would then spread a positive word of mouth that would keep the movie running in the subsequent weeks. There have been plenty of movies that have benefited from this technique in this year. The clear cut examples for this would be Bodygaurd, Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. While there have also been instances where in movies with great potential have slipped into oblivion for the lack of proper focus on marketing. In such a scenario it does become a little tricky to define what will be a perfect marketing strategy to break the clutter and to get noticed.

It is perhaps for this reason that King Khan has decided to go all guns blazing for this movie, which he himself terms as his “dream movie”. According to sources, this is the most expensive movie made in recent times and it overall movie’s marketing budget alone is around Rs 35-40 crore. In the recent past we have seen some of the high profile movies like Mausam and MBKD were made and marketed in about this cost while in case of RaOne this is just one bit of the cost!

Also, one cannot overlook that the promotion exercise for the movie had begun in January 2011 itself and have peaked around the time of the release. In fact Shah Rukh himself had etched out a 36-city tour, which will include several foreign destinations, in this month to talk about the movie along with other mediums.

Little wonder, that everywhere we look we find is only this movie. It sure has managed to eclipse the other two movies that are making Diwali release around the same time. But in the mean time this strategy now seems to be in dangerous territory. Being everywhere has already has also caused boredom in the eyes of the few, who are bored of seeing the same songs for a while now. Though the marketing team at Red Chillies did manage to throw in some good surprises by keeping the look of Arjun Rampal (who plays Ra One) under wraps till recently. Also a large part of the plot has been kept sketchy to ensure that the audiences are lured to rush in for the movie as it hit the screens. However, there are also a set of audiences who have had enough of seeing Shah Rukh and Ra One all around the place and are looking for some respite.

These are the consumers who were earlier quite upbeat about the movie but over the period of time have developed some averse feeling for the movie because of the media overload that they have been subjected too. For now they may settle to change channels when they see the new promo and even avoid rushing in to watch the movie till they are recommended to watch this one. They may adopt to either go for the lesser talked about movies just because they are looking for a change or just skip going for a movie this holiday weekend.

The year 2011 has been exceptionally well for the Indian movies with almost all movies especially the big budget multi-starrer (barring Rascals) have managed to book in handsome profits. The current trend has been indicating that the Indian consumers are flocking in great numbers to the cinema halls and there is an appetite for the entertainment packages. It is thus expected that these consumer would probably continue the pace and will shower their love on the five day weekend for RaOne too but will this fatigue syndrome hamper it to break the record set by Ready and Bodyguard earlier in the year is yet to be seen!

Motorola comeback

Well surprise surprise, while Moto was busy planning its comeback in India, the Citi analysts decided to downgrade the company as they feel that the outlook for the company looks bleak with no great products lined up for the first half of 2011 after a strong 2010 second half. Looks like you cannot keep all parties happy :)

Moto says Hello to India again?

For Americans the Motorola brand will have a far greater emotional connect than for any Indian, simply for the fact that most of them had a Motorola device as their first first mobile device or during the rise of RAZR, they too were bowled over by its charm. While in India, Motorola claim to fame was fairly short-lived. It did march into India with a great fanfare and even managed to get a few things right but then shot back into the oblivion pretty soon and its place was soon replaced with Samsung and the other local brands, which were starting to mushroom. However, things seem to be changing really rapidly now though this American handset maker is not making too many ripples in the Indian market as of now but for anybody that’s following the device trend closely it’s action cannot be ignored.

Its romance with the Android and the success of Droid range continues to draw center stage even in India, despite the fact that most of these devices are currently not available here. One of the reasons, for the same is the experiments that Motorola is doing with the form factor through devices like BackFlip, FlipOut and now even Droid Pro (which has been even dubbed as Motorola’s BlackBerry). Only BackFlip and Milestone (GSM version of Droid) is currently being offered in the Indian market but from the looks of it seems that Motorola is now working on getting its act right and trying to launch devices in a more timely manner in the Indian market. So to be fair it’s just the matter of time and we may see all these interesting devices at the nearest mobile retail shop.

The only 'real' thing missing as of now is that unfortunately Motorola seems to be quite inactive in terms of making noise around these devices. Yes, the smartphone market in India is certainly not as big like the American market and it may not be prudent to deploy the mass media for these smartphones but then it's difficult of understand why the company is not even promoting its recently launched devices for the mass market. Motorola had recently started to offer a Dual SIM device and low cost Touchscreen, both which have been sweetly priced, and are indeddd a great ideas to make a comeback into this market. But it's difficult to understand the rationale behind being mum at this moment, when actually what's required is to try and be there ar the point of purchase and show all what you have got! Hopefully, the company will try and make some right noises around them during the festive season and also declare its comeback (in a manner its competitors now again start taking it in a serious way).

However, with the local and the Chinese brands slugging it on the price front, the going will be even more difficult but for a company that was almost written off and forgotten, this won’t be the hardest of the task. On a larger scale, what matters now is not how it plays in the entry level but how it plays with its armed Android line up and in that race too it’s pitted against the mighty Samsung and the thoughtful HTC. Yes, there are other wannabe smartphones around (read Spice, Videocon, Hauwei and the ones that will soon be out from Micromax and Karbon) but as now the focus area should be to not try and play on price with these wannabe but to play it on design, features and after sales with the bigger rivals and then move inwards.

Playing it on Celebrities

Taking on a brand ambassador to endorse their brand, is an age old marketing gimmick but usually it's the well established companies that adopt this move. However, in the handset industry it's the wannabes that are aggressively signing on known faces to pose with their devices.

The MTS Game plan