As per reports, around 1,00,000 tickets are booked by brands for the opening weekend, which will be distributed among their privileged consumers.
Advertising, branding, marketing and corporate bookings are not very complex things to understand, at least not like String Theory or Quantum Physics. But mix it with movies and the toxicity on social media, and they can easily be misunderstood and taken out of context. So let us understand a few of the terms and how these things are related.
Advertising
It is basically running ads. Ads that we see all around us. Big or small, companies run ads to get noticed or let the world know about a specific product. Ads are run either to create awareness about the product/brand or to facilitate sales.
Facebook and Instagram earn by allowing people and businesses to run ads. Google earns in the same way. TV channels earn through ads in between the programs. News channels earn through ads while the news is running. All entertainment and media companies earn through ads on websites. Youtubers and influencers earn through promotions which are another form of ads. So ads are everywhere.
Brands
Brands are companies or products that are easily identified by people. A burger seller on the roadside is a vendor. A burger seller that you can identify anywhere by how it looks, is packaged, and tastes, is a brand. You see a Yellow M, you know it’s McDonald’s. A blue f is Facebook. Anything you can easily recognize by its name or logo is a brand. We at OCD Times also wish to become a brand.
Remember the movie Gabbar is Back? “Digvijay Patil naam nahi, brand hai brand!”
Brands In Movies
When you go to theatres, some of the things are common in every screening. Some brand ads, some trailers. When the film starts, we see the logo of the studio, such as, we will be seeing Red Chillies Entertainment logo in Jawan. Then there are logos of music companies like T-series, distribution companies like Eros International or in Jawan’s case, it would be YRF International.
Then we have Akshay Kumar’s Fu-Fu ad and then the movie begins. But even before the title or any scene, we see lists of different brands who have collaborated with the film. They are categorized into Media Partners, Radio Partners, Travel Partners, etc.
Corporate Booking
Every brand wants to advertise in places where they can get the maximum eyeballs. So movies are one such opportunity. Now there are various ways by which you can advertise with the movie. Show the product in the movie, run ads with the promo of the movie. Run various contests for their customers to meet the star, or go to the screening or giveaway movie merchandise or giveaway their own products and sometimes give them movie tickets.
OCD Times Contest ka naam suna hai? Yes, we do it too.
What is it? – We run a contest on our Instagram page before the movie releases.
Are we associated with the films? We wish, but not as of now.
Who pays for it? – We pay from our own pocket. And the audience gets a free movie ticket.
Why do we do it? – Because it lets us get noticed. The hype for the movie makes it a great marketing opportunity. We can connect with the audience, engage them, build a relationship with them and some of them are able to watch the film for free.
Is it corporate booking? – We don’t know. Neither we are a brand yet nor we are formally associated with any movie. We do it because of our will. It’s like buying a ticket for a friend or girlfriend, or mom-dad. Now if you want to call it corporate booking then it’s your wish. Bas Mirchi Seth ko mat batana. Ssshhhh.
Corporate Booking For Jawan
Multiple brands have partnered up with Jawan. There could be various kinds of deals among them which we are not privy to. As per sources, a total of one lack tickets are being bought by all of them together which they will be giving to their customers or contest winners (10 toh mere bhi add kar lo usme).
Now here is the most important part. The studio is never involved in this. It’s up to the brand, whether they buy 10 tickets or 10,000 tickets and do whatever with them. It is a legit sale made through booking portals. The brand pays, the theatres make the sale and they are counted in the box office. Like if you want to buy 10 tickets for you and your friends, it’s kind of the same thing. The tickets are given to the customers/winners and they go to watch the movie for free.
What’s wrong then?
Have you ever thought about why the brands only go with big films? It’s obvious that more people will be watching the film so it makes sense to advertise with them, right? It’s a win-win situation for everyone. But there are a few things that happen in the name of corporate bookings –
Studios put in their own money and distribute the tickets for free.
If the film is not good, the producers buy the tickets themselves and make it look like the shows are going housefull or with high occupancy. If the people go because of the free tickets then the trick works. And maybe more people would start buying tickets thinking the film is good.
But what if people do not go even after getting a free ticket? On the booking app, it would show occupied seats but when you go to the theatre it would be empty. Yaha chori pakdi jati hai.
The last time we heard this happened, was at the time of Heropanti 2 and Captain Marvel (USA). There is no proof this happened but a lot of people complained about this and it does not happen that often. This is not only wrong but stupid on the part of the producers as you are not making any money, but rather wasting more money because the audience is not at all interested.
So this is the kind of corporate booking that is bad. Not the contests or a free ticket along with a product. Its like discount coupons. If I give 10 coupons of BookMyShow to 10 people. I have to pay 10×500 rupees to bookmyshow for those coupons. Nothing comes for free. And hence a legit corporate booking by brands is not a bad thing.
Also, it is not correct to blame any studio for corporate bookings because they are not involved in this. If tomorrow I have 100 winners through my contest, how does it matter to the studio? They would be legit purchase of the tickets at the box office.
The only bad thing here is when producers are purchasing themselves and people are not going. Even if some of them would go, the word of mouth would be bad. So it is foolish on the part of the producers if they do this. They would be adding more loss to their balance sheet and it won’t affect anybody else.
In the end, we would like to request the audience to not just go with all the negativity every time a big movie releases. Take time to read, verify, observe and then make a thoughtful statement rather than reacting impulsively.
Also check out Jawan Phone Wallpapers here
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