Thursday, January 19, 2006

Cola and movie, partnering together

‘Coke’ and ‘Rang De Basanti’ (an unpcoming Indian movie) has joined hands to promote each other. The deal took this shape for the current chemistry between Coke and Aamir or to be precise between Prasoon and Aamir. At one end Aamir Khan endorses the brand in its current ‘Piyo Sar Utha Ke’ campaign and plays a leading role in the movie Rang De Basanti, at other, the sire of Coke campaign Prasoon Joshi wrote the script and the song of the movie.
The current partnering strategy will offer Coke consumers as well as movie watchers some excitements. While Coke has thought of releasing a new set of 300 ml bottle which will feature star cast of the film along with their standard red white colors (only for Delhi & Mumbai), the movie trailers also can be seen in various TV channels with snippets of ‘Piyo Sar Utha Ke’ campaign.
The movie posters are set to initiate a consumer engagement program. Contests are in the pipeline, whose winner will get a chance for a dinner date with Aamir Khan. Consolation prizes for the contests include t-shirts, CDs and cassettes of the film.
The reason for this entire hullabaloo is the common string between the brand and the movie- the target market; youth. While both of them try to approach the market with common theme ‘honesty and reality’, they figured out this co-promoting plan.
Joshi’s version is, Coke, as a brand possesses the image of honesty and vigor. The movie encircles around the same theme as well. This gave them the opportunity to address their consumer together.
The marketing of this co-branding strategy will be designed by Interactive television, the movie marketing company. Interactive Television’s director Ajay is quite excited to be a part of this plan. According to him, Coke is always a brand they had pleasure to work with, and now with a 360 degree promotional approach, consumer involvement is sure to rock the brands.
The movie is announced to be released on 26th January 2006. A perfect time to stir the emotions of Indian youth, which, Coke and Rang De Basanti, are so crazy to lay their hands on.

1 comment:

Gaurav Goel said...

Partnership, sure, seems to work successfully in the market. It stirs different emotions in my mind though.
Brands are generlly misleading. Otherwise why we need them, products should sell simply on merits. Similarly, movies are made for entertainment not to show reality. Reality in movies also doesn't sell in the market (until and unless supported with drama). For reality, news channels would be sufficient I guess.
Youth on the other hand wants to freak out. Movies are a way to do that.
Advertisements too are tantalising... So, hip hip hurray for the marketting success to both the teams. Let the country go into gutter.
These kind of partnerships are playing with the emotions - does only one thing - HARM THE YOUTH. If they can not afford the stuff (whether movies or cold drinks) they have to take a back seat in their community. If they can, it is worse. They get nothing substantial out of it.