My understanding is you want greater autonomy for producers with pockets to spend on marketing.
I have a counter point: A film like Magadheera that released with 800+ prints in AP sold houseful everywhere for almost the first two weeks. At most theaters tickets were sold in the black market. Big guys anyway get the openings. What more revenue fall-off would you expect with higher TVC marketing spend for such a film in the first few weeks?

In the Telugu film industry, only very rarely we have poor openings for a big budget/actor’s film. I think it is the smaller budget movies and those with mediocre star-cast that need to be more bothered about the opening week’s collections. In my opinion it is these films that need to be more creative and aggressive marketers.
Piracy also, I think hurts the smaller movies more – I would never watch a new Chiranjeevi release on the small screen leave alone a pirated CD.

A film like Anjaneyulu (released almost alongside Magadheera) started with all the right buzz and had good openings. But did not last for more than a few weeks while Magadheera went to on and on. Just another example to say that content alone matters. So the life of a movie in the theatre equals the life of ‘word-of-mouth’. Instant reviews on the electronic media only make it more transparent.

As a marketing enthusiast I fully agree that new and creative vehicles of promotion need to be explored and that it is an intellectually stimulating exercise. But then the marketing RoI – Return on Investment also needs to be ascertained! The solution according to me is 3 pronged and lies in:

1. Making sensible cinema. Make a film only if the story needs to be told. Restraint is the ‘mantra’. Making films just for the heck of it or to launch and extend longevity of dynastic stardoms is a dumb game.
2. Innovating new revenue channels – this is the more pressing need of the hour!!!
3. As always- Cut down on piracy, but I don’t know is this is already a fast losing battle.

Cheers | Pavan

I think I am off the topic, but here is something.

http://www.ziddu.com/download/593236…a_BGM.mp3.html
http://www.ziddu.com/download/596656…rocks.mp3.html
http://www.ziddu.com/download/596770…rocks.mp3.html
http://www.ziddu.com/download/596825…rocks.mp3.html

These are the download links of the background music of your movie ‘Magadheera’, must be recorded by some movie buffs in the theatre. I loved the movie very much, and the music too. The background music is really worth mentioning. You should have released the bgm along with movie album, and it would have been very nice. Also, I think you can cash on releasing the movie mp3 albums as we get the buy online albums or just singles in sites like Amazon, etc. If you think it would affect audio CD sales, include the extras with the CD like the posters, or lyrics, and stuff like that. The main intention is this would help to people to get original high quality music directly online from you, instead of seeking download pirates links for the audio songs. Its digital era dude, I assume you are already well aware of that. That should help you with the market strategy. Also, I think you guys are already tying up with mobile companies, to promote on ringtones and caller tunes, etc.

To add up, your presentation is quite impressive. Hope you take some good ‘leaf’s from your dad, and take on the film industry to a new level. Hoping a lot in the future!!!!!!!!!

Please don’t just emphasize but lay stress upon the importance of screenplay (At least for movies that are made under your banner.
Cinema is a medium that has to be advanced aesthetically and technically. But today the condition of the mainstream cinema of Tollywood is worse than the spoofs that are made in other industries.
I think its high time there are movies as sensible as Khosla Ka Ghosla, Bheja Fry, Dev D or Kaminey be made in Telugu too.
The current cinema of any industry today, is simply a reflection of the kind mindset that the audience are conditoned to develop.
My plea:

The primary goal of any Cinema should be to win audience not serve them. Film makers! Please make movies that at least agree with your conscience ( that is if you really have one !)
Mimalni meere mosam chesukunte inka audience ki em nyayam chestharu ?!!

@Ishitha : You came up with a good old phenomena of throwing mud so that you can get noticed. Sorry if i am rude baby! But Its not the context …its the content which matters and appeals to people!

With Love,

MoBo
(Mohan Bonda)
You can follow me on twitter @bonda0123

I would suggest you to learn English first.
It was a priviledge – This is funny..

then how come arya 2.. co-branded ads with 7up…. aired in tv channels…. for every 30 mins ….

why are you not following rules of tfpc…

-Kiran Kuchibotla- Movie buff

On a different thought, how can one make a movie, shoot it in telugu but then be treated as a bollywood movie, so that you attract the same audience but go under a different board for scrutiny? Is it that a production that shoots the movie has to be registered under the BollyWood film association? If that is the case I guess everyone should start a proxy production in bollywood and release their movies through that. And I guess if you are being released as a bollywood movie, you would be free to air your own commercials in any language? Or is it that all telugu channels commercials still have to go through the TFPC? I am sure there would be a way to circumvent this. And if all the movie productions bypass the TFPC, its just a matter of time that the rules get rewritten.

BTW, I remember some kind of branding done for Johnny, where there was a line of apparel released before the movie release and I guess that was a cool idea too.

I understand there is lot of regulation as of now, and my question is why havent any of the film productions done anything about it? Is it that it creates a level playing field for them or is it that movies no longer sell based on ads but sell based on names of the starts, producers, directors in tollywood. I havent come across any industry where a producer or directors face is stuck on the posters other than our own tollywood, is it this advantage of the established producers in the level playing field that kept them from pushing for an openness in TFPC towards marketing?

Our telugu film industry has to come a long way in promoting movies over today;s technology. How often does one come across a facebook fan page or a twitter feed for a movie? Does any of our telugu movie songs get released on the likes of iTunes, Zune, Amazon or anywhere? Isnt that a revenue stream that one can capitalize on? You might not get all the audience through these technologies, but certainily this could be the difference that one can make.

One can add promotions to their movies on these sites, actively monitoring audience pulse by putting polls on the likes of facebook and create a connection with the consumer of the movies. When was the last time anyone has attempted to understand our audience through a study done by someone?

Seriously our telugu film industry has a lot of catch up to do. And seriously there is some sort of business here, where one can sell domains with pre defined templates so that productions can just run their promotions using these websites which will hook them to all those technologies in the world.

One interesting avenue for the movie houses is also to sell a few minutes of the movie to other productions of the same genre to run their trailers before the movie begins or after the intermission and that could be a revenue stream for the movies instead of the cinema houses. May be one can use this time to run trailer for their upcoming movies as well.

For the NRI audience, you can tie up with big names like netflix, blockbuster, comcast, youtube etc which has all the technology to stream movies right on the day of the release under pay per view. One might be able to hit more audience than through the threatres.

I guess there is a long way to go for our marketing with all the regulations in hand

But I got a question I believe anything should be fair enough for competition, if there were no restrictions on marketing, how can small budget movie survive as big budget movies would surpass them in marketing?