MxMIndia

Tag: Rohan Sippy

  • It's a win-win for all: six top directors try their hands at films inspired by HUL products on MTV, a project engineered by Mindshare

    Leveraging films by top guns on MTV

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    In a seemingly volatile broadcast scenario in India, it is a given that only ideas that are fresh and out-of-the-box manage to make a mark while the others face the possibility of being rejected. In a synergy that probably plans to change the way the genre has been approached until now, leading youth channel MTV has joined hands with FMCG major Hindustan Unilever to launch MTV Films.

     

    The idea germinated out of a casual conversation that MTV and HUL’s media buying and planning agency Mindshare had sometime last year. Convincing HUL was easy for Mindshare, and since then it’s getting all parts of the act together.

     

    The initiative would see six young and well-known directors known for their cutting edge film making styles making original movies just for television. Eminent movie directors including Anurag Basu, Abhinay Deo, Shoojit Sircar, Rohan Sippy, Nikhil Advani and Anurag Kashyap have been assigned the task of bringing the idea alive on television.

     

    What would make this initiative unique is that MTV Films would be a mixed bag of six movies based on brand philosophies of different HUL products that will be showcased every month.

     

    An initiative to provide film buffs a unique movie viewing experience in the comfort of their homes, MTV Films offers a mix of all the ingredients that connect with the youth instantly. These 60-minute movies are inspired by HUL’s brands like Sunsilk, Ponds, Tresemme, Close Up, Lakme and depict today’s generation’s perspective on love, friendship, family, responsibilities in a light hearted fashion.

     

    Speaking about this initiative, Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head of MTV said, “It’s been a treat to watch six very special people look at youth through such different lenses. This project has redefined the rules of television and branded content in so many ways. Everyone around the table today has dared to take risks and it’s that spirit that has made this an exciting journey for all of us. With a new film being released every month, MTV Films can become a very strong franchise.”

     

    Hemant Bakshi, Executive Director, Home & Personal Care, HUL, said, “HUL firmly believes in pioneering and creating newer ways of engaging consumers by leveraging popular culture. With the launch of MTV Movies, we will re-define the way in which brands tell their stories to consumers. This initiative will focus on communicating brand purpose and we are confident that it will resonate with our audience and build brand love.”

     

    The initiative will see Bollywood, television and the corporate world collaborate to give consumers content they can best relate to. While MTV India is seen as the channel that has its check on the pulse of today’s youth, the film-makers roped in for this initiative have already made waves with their art and have an increasingly large fan base in the younger generation. Their unique approach and cutting edge portrayal of different themes has made a lasting impact on many. It is befitting then, that Hindustan Unilever – known for their innovative touch in every initiative – imbibes these themes in their brand philosophy and make MTV Films the perfect platform to reinforce their connect with the youth of today.

     

    ‘For HUL, the films are beyond passive integration… more of active integration’
     

    Aditya Swamy
    Ravi Rao

    Q&A with Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head, MTV and Ravi Rao, Leader, Mindshare South Asia

     

    And we thought MTV was a music channel… has the basic positioning changed by this move of getting into movies?

    Aditya Swamy: MTV is about entertainment and if you see there is a strong music element to all of the stuff that we create. So there’s this film that we showcased at the preview where a bunch of girls coming together to run a radio station…similarly there is a strong musical element in all the films.

     

    But the core premise of the channel initially was just around music…

    Aditya Swamy: My sense is that the audience is changing. Twenty years ago when we were asked what music you listened there were a few names that came top of mind. But the times have changed today where the youth have a plethora of options to choose from. Right from the brands they wear or endorse they are getting defined by a lot of other factors. So as the audience is moving forward the only way to stay relevant is to move with them. Like I say, music is synonymous with creativity and creativity will always be the sole of MTV. That’s where we take this from; it’s storytelling.

     

    Would you elaborate on the cost aspect of the deal with HUL?

    Aditya Swamy: I wouldn’t be able to talk about the costs and budgets but I would say the challenge is going to be for partners to have deals that bring in good ROI for everyone concerned. If you see the films, they are not cheap or made on handheld camera they are films made by some big directors and have the latest technology to its credit. Moreover the audiences want a quality product and the directors are creating films which are mega in approach. I think the objective will be that when a viewer sees this he would not feel that these are films made specifically for television; the content rests seamlessly across different platforms and this platform happens to be the TV platform.

     

    Was it tough to get the creative folk to weave in brands in the stories?

    Aditya Swamy: For me the real cool thing has been getting these six directors together but the common thing that ties all of them together is that they are going to jump into a space that they haven’t done before. According to me, what excites creative people is taking up new challenges. Earlier they used to tell stories in two-and-half hours now they have to say it in 60 minutes. So it’s challenges such as these that excite these people. They’ve always been leading the charge that let’s do something beyond advertising. This idea was something that everybody quickly latched onto immediately.

     

    How involved or over-involved were brands with the project?

    Aditya Swamy: If you see the film it’s a new era in branded content. We’ve not needlessly pushed brands; it’s about the brand philosophy coming to life. Once they were onboard the philosophy then they would like to run.

     

    Ravi Rao: I’d like to add here by saying that when you do a product integration exercise, the emphasis is how do I ensure that it is not just passive integration but more of an active integration. In these films what we did was give a positioning line for a brand and told them to interpret the way they want. If you see the banners that we have got it has been completely imagined by the directors themselves.

     

    At Mindshare, you’ve handled spends across various platforms. How different was this exercise for you?

    Ravi Rao: Whether we like it or not, content has been an important storyline for a long time. It’s just that the canvas is the same but we have made it bigger with high production values and great directors onboard. Also, for example when you say a shampoo can clean your hair, there are a whole lot of other attributes that can come aboard because it’s to do with the person and his/her choice of using the shampoo. It was a good opportunity to go beyond the 30- or 50-seconder where you can tell a story in a much more fluent way. To that extent it is going away from mainstream and making it even more interesting.

     

    Would you be engaging in a high decibel cross-platform promotion for this initiative?

    Ravi Rao: I think you should wait and see because some of the promotional ideas that we have got on this is very unique. It won’t be like what you see the other movies doing. It will be different. Also, while television as a medium will be huge, we would be exploiting the digital platform too. If the word-of-mouth happens you will see audiences coming back towards it. The first movie is just the trigger; you will have to wait to see how fine the others shape up as well.

     

    For the last six years, Mindshare has been trying to do the content space differently. The team has done a fantastic job this time too. Here it is about how you generate impact; what is the right story that we need to do and what is the media that will be apt for the initiative. It is also about being flexible and doing things in a unique way.

     

    An FMCG company like HUL is known to be very tough on deliverables…

    Ravi Rao: They still are but they have been fair. It is also about their philosophies; on the one end, they are talking about getting great effectiveness but they also lay great emphasis on innovation. We have pushed our idea limits to see what more can we do. If the idea is strong enough for a brand to capitalise it works brilliantly and HUL gives a canvas to do it our way.

     

     

  • Rohan Sippy, Guneet Monga and Pragya Tiwari discuss the areas of filmmaking in India that have been impacted by the social media

    Crowd-funding, crowdsourcing and cinema in the age of the social media

    By Fatema Rajkotwala

     

    The influence of the internet age and social media has left few areas of creativity untouched and has then seeped into how this creative output is produced, marketed, received and consumed by the audience. Indian cinema and filmmakers are no exception to the impact of social media. What is the future of the Indian film industry in this scenario? What is the untapped potential of social media in India compared to the West and what are some of the detrimental ways in which it affects us today?

     

    In a freewheeling and candid conversation, Rohan Sippy, Director and Producer and Guneet Monga CEO, Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt. Ltd joined Pragya Tiwari, Editor-in-Chief, The Big Indian Picture at the GroupM office in  Goregaon on Day 4 of Social Media Week Mumbai 2013. The panel discussed and debated the areas of Indian filmmaking that have been impacted by social media, alternate ways of marketing and crowdfunding, censorship, criticism and box-office collections for an enthusiastic audience that devoured in each tidbit of the views of the respected movie makers.

     

    While crowdfunding, as an instrumental tool for raising funds for a project through social media networks such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Wishberry is gaining popularity, crowdfinancing and equity financing has still not picked up in India. Voicing her strong belief that the Indian film industry needs to come together to form an ecosystem, new wave producer of films such as Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1, Peddlers and The Lunchbox, Ms Moonga said, “We cannot function in isolation. The indie community really needs to come together and we need more people talking.” Ms Moonga has successfully used new age techniques like crowdfunding for her films and believes that raising money on networks such as Kickstarter has worked well for many. “Raising money through crowd funding is comparatively, much more structured and popular in the West.”

     

    Talking about the importance of word-of-mouth promotion and freedom from censorship in the advent of social media, the panelists shared their personal experiences on movies such as The Lunchbox, which gained immense buzz on social networks. Movies such as The Good Road, Ship of Theseus and Grand Masti also came up in conversation when the matter of box-office collections came up. Mr Sippy admitted that social media networks such as Twitter as a great leveler but confessed to missing the blissfulness of the simpler ways of filmmaking and marketing of the earlier days. “Taking a film out there still faces a lot of challenges beyond raising money. While it is great that there are now conversations on social media networks and people are getting in touch, these people are now bombarded by everyone. The joy of using these networks was of genuine discovery of something that people are talking about but with the corruption of trending and bought popularity on social media, is lost. There are no rules here and fans can turn a conversation in a national debate. For mainstream films, television is still big in terms of marketing.”

     

    On the issue of box-office reviews and collections, Ms Tiwari asked the panelists if marketing budgets are eating into film budgets and how much is one to believe in the social media popularity for a film’s success. Mr Sippy expressed his refreshing points of view, “Marketing efforts are driven towards the first week of screening, which results in collections and ticket sales tapering down to almost 30 per cent soon. Studios have sold their souls to exhibitors by accepting this arrangement. The pros of social media are that people are listening to their peer groups due to a possible lack of connect made by film critics but we can’t be sure now with marketing hawks having taken over Twitter too.” On the flipside, he agrees that a film can be affected by negative word-of-mouth. “We like shouting; that is the nature on Twitter. Sometimes a big budget film’s collections may also get affected by these immediate bad reviews.”

     

    Ms Guneet differed in her opinion here, “There is only this much you can do for small budget films in terms of promotional efforts. Money on television is so high so this is where word-of-mouth helps. We have seen a standard pattern in box-office collections across our films. In the grander scheme of things, the audience for mainstream movies is huge for even one time watchers and B and C sectors.”

     

    Social media is also showing us a new way of watching films -niche or genre films such as zombie films but the panelists agreed that this still doesn’t guarantee it commercial success. “This is good for personal interest. Kids these days like to collect movies because the internet is limitless.”

     

    Moving on to the topic of alternate movie release platforms that are popular internationally, such as Netflix, what hopes do we have for India in this regard and as a way to curb piracy? Playing the devil’s advocate, Mr Sippy light-heartedly admitted, “What else do we have other than hope? Satellite television is so big in India that the bureaucracy results in us having to show a movie on television within two months of release.” On a practical front, he believed that alternate platforms are good for audiences but making it sustainable is a different matter. “We are a different culture of audiences from the Netflix subscribers abroad. Youngsters have a fixed entertainment budget and if they can avail of a censored free version and watch it online, then something is better than nothing.”

     

    Ms Moonga cited Voodoo.com that has turned piracy into a money making model. She believes that Video on Demand is the future in India. “VOD is bigger than satellite television rights in the West and is waiting to happen.”

     

    Ship of Theseus was the first film in India to use crowdsourcing as a way to zero in on filming locations. Lamenting on the closing down of many iconic theatres in Mumbai such as Liberty Cinema, Mr Sippy said, “We have to engage exhibitors who want to maximum ticket sales with the highest prices and more popcorn sales. Conversation on social media is great but it finally results in buying a ticket and watching the movie, which will encourage exhibitors.”