SRK is known for having excellent marketing skills. Insiders say he sells like no one else. He’s got a mind that understands the business, understands what the audience wants, and he’s willing to take big risks.
Like most things, even the art of marketing a movie has changed in recent years. Production houses nowadays spend smartly on innovative strategies, including exploiting the social media space.
SRK is well aware of these strategies and also knows the importance of appearing on television. You can see Shah Rukh all over the TV, giving interviews and making appearances, for promoting his films.
For his upcoming movie ‘Fan’, SRK has also filmed a special episode on the upcoming Kapil Sharma Show!
SRK is also very active on social media, especially Twitter and says that he reads 90 percent of the content directed at him (great feat considering he has got millions of followers).
For his movie ‘Happy New Year’, SRK proved how the promotional activities for a film can be made to fetch massive returns. Instead of asking the cast of the movie to give interviews and shoot pictures, SRK conducted worldwide shows with the film’s cast. As part of the tour (called ‘SLAM! The Tour’), SRK and his team performed in various cities in the US and UK, and every show reportedly made around Rs 7-8 crores.
Doing city tours, attending press conferences, appearing on TV reality shows, SRK does it all. SRK also understands the pulse of the audience quite well. It was SRK’s idea to give one Chennai Express ticket free with every two tickets; he also took advantage of the hype around the movie and increased the price of ticket before the release of the film. Even a hike of Rs 10 per ticket can have huge impact on the overall collection of a film.
“I’m not saying I know the business 100 per cent but I do know something. Half my life I’ve kept doing movies and then I think – I want to make movies for the South Indian market but that market can change, taste can change. I want to make movies for critics but critics and their appreciation can change for a certain kind of cinema. And then I make movies because my heart says so.”
The trailer of Ra.One was released a good seven months before the movie was released (usual practice in Bollywood is to release a trailer around 40 days before the opening). But because the movie was a big-budget movie, SRK wanted to go in for a long promotional campaign to give it a better chance of recovering the money.
And although Shah Rukh ultimately spent around half of the movies budget on marketing and promotions alone, going by the collections, it seemed to be a good decision. Ra.One was made on a budget of Rs 150 crore (definitely among the costliest films ever made in Bollywood).
