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Vidya Balan’s famous dialougue from ‘The Dirty Picture’, when asked what drives a movie – Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment!

Ask a marketing strategist, what drives a movie? Promotions! Promotions! Promotions!

I used to have a classmate whose father was into the film industry and he once told me that if ever in a scene, you see a label of a product, it means that that product is one of the sponsors of the movie. And since then, I have always kept an eye for this small little detail. It’s a weird little fascination of mine, but I think it’s these small facts that make things so interesting.

And since this piece of information was shared with me, it has become evident to me that our famous actors appear more frequently in advertisements even if you barely see them acting in a film once in a year. Infact, it seems that our actors rake in a better income by endorsing products rather than acting in ‘GOOD’ films.

I read an article in OPEN Magazine, wherein an unknown ad professional confesses that the numerous Indian award functions are just set up to recognize/celebrate their favorite actors for their support. 

Now take for example our latest Shahrukh Khan movies – Ra-One and Don 2. Even though Ra-One was just released towards the end of 2011, and despite the numerous ‘extremely bad reviews’ that I have heard, it has been nominated as one of the best films and obviously Shahrukh for best actor. Similarly, for Don 2. Have you even seen the movie? (I usually avoid Shahrukh Khan’s movies but had to humor a friend’s request for this one). There isn’t a plot in the movie! All I could make out were the numerous brand promotions – the cars, watches, tourism….damn, it just felt like a very long ad film!!

And so it goes for the movies. However, it seems that this trend is even catching up on our blogging and micro-blogging sites…..One of the blogs that I follow, did a feature on ‘Flipkart’. The article was quite interesting in itself, but what I’ve noticed is that since then, advertisements from Flipkart are mainly featured on that blog. For those of you who do blog, it is known that a little side money is made by featuring advertisements through AdSense, and so far, I’ve only earned $0.26. So if I recommend a product that I use, would it contribute monetarily to my blog? Hmmm……I do use Snapdeal a lot. Anyone listening? ;)