Telecom Industry:The Indian mobile telephony market has grown at a rapid pace in the past six to seven years.

Declining call tariffs in conjunction with favorable regulatory policies have lead to a tremendous increase in the subscriber base. The growing subscriber base has positively impacted industry revenues, which have risen consistently. Mobile revenues in India registered a high growth. However, the flipside of the growth in the revenues as depicted above has been the declining Average Revenue Per User, or ARPU. While the decline in ARPU can be attributed to the marketing initiatives of telecom companies such as the life-time incoming free scheme , the market structure of the mobile telephony market in India has played a key role in altering the industry profit dynamics. The dominance of the pre-paid segment has created volume for the industry, but has put a downward pressure on tariffs. Further, customer retention has also become increasingly difficult, as loyalty is getting diluted given the low switching costs between service providers. In today s Indian telecom industry there is a fierce price war with the launch of Tata DoCoMo s rate of one paisa per second in June 2009 others follow the same. The constant decline in tariff structures over the past few years has lead to the creation of a large subscriber base, along with increasing Minutes of Use (MOUs) from the existing base. However, the industry is approaching a threshold where MOUs no longer will be elastic in responding to reduced rates. In the wake of changing industry markets, telecom operators are looking at Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) as the next wave of growth, and a large chunk of revenues is expected to flow from VAS in the near future. In the wake of the changing dynamics of the Indian telecom industry, mobile operators in India have been faced with three clear challenges: 1. How do various telecom operators create differentiation of their brands 2. How to retain customers in a predominantly pre-paid, high-churn market

Movie Marketing:From the brightly painted posters of a movie at the time of its release to the multi-media promotion of a movie well before its launch movie marketing in India has come a long way. Be it cases like 'Hum Tum', where the movie was marketed in the form of content across mediums, or 'Rang De Basanti', where 40 per cent of the movie's budget was spent on its marketing, savvy marketing of movies is gaining ground and according to experts, this is only the beginning. In 2011 Indian super star Shah Rukh Khan s magnum opus has redefined the ways movies are being marketed in India. Ra-One had generated buzz even before the movie was to be released. With a marketing budget of around Rs. 52 crore, a staggering Rs. 15 crore is spent simply on online advertising. Movie promotions in Bollywood are undergoing a 360-degree transformation. As the fight to grab eyeballs and break the clutter gets hotter, makers are going out of the box for unique marketing ideas. Some of the innovative marketing strategies which have caught the imagination of a population of over a billion Indians and others are discussed below. Advertising, marketing and co-branding Newspapers, popular websites, magazines, music channels etc were and are all flooded with advertisement posters of the movie, showcasing to the people the unique characters much before the movie is released. Tie-ups with popular brands is also done as a part of co-branding and increasing the credibility of the movie. Selling movie rights Even before its release, Ra-One managed to earn revenue of Rs. 132 crore simply by giving away the rights of the movie. The brand equity of film star Shahrukh Khan is unparalleled and his presence in the movie gives a huge boost to distributors and companies to get associated with the brand. Star India got the

rights for Ra-One at around Rs. 40 crore. Apart from this, the music rights were bought for Rs. 15 crore by T-Series. The producers got a whopping Rs. 77 crore from Eros Entertainment to own the distribution rights of the movie. Merchandising As far as Bollywood is concerned, no movie has been associated with exclusive movie merchandise products. Krish tried that but was not too successful not it was handled too professionally as is in the case of Ra-One. Merchandising enables the target audience to relate to the brand and helps them become a part of the product. Ra-One is the first movie in India to come up with an all exclusive store having merchandise for the people to purchase. Toys, computer accessories, tshirts, apparels, stationery, coffee mugs, wrist bands, watches etc were all a part of the merchandising available online as well as at popular destinations like McDonalds. Video Games and Comics While video games related to movies are a popular concept in Hollywood, it is a fairly new concept in Bollywood. Sony along with Red Chillies released a Play Station 3 game for Ra-One featuring all the characters. Also, it was the first movie to come up with a comic series showcasing the characters and promoting the film. Even iPad and Android apps are available for Ra-One movie. Aamir Khan had also done the same thing with Ghajini when he launched a PC game. A comic book preceded the release of Farhan Akhtar s Don 2 that opened in the theatres on December 23. The comic book should release in the first week of December. It will be replicated en masse and sold at kiosks at railway stations across Maharashtra and up north. Release and Premiere

The movies are released at large no of screens in India & overseas. Apart from this, premieres at international destinations like Dubai, Toronto and London, which have a high popularity for Indian films are on cards. Movie marketing has taken off in a very scientific manner now since a couple of years. Innovations in movie marketing can be seen almost with every big banner release. But yet, not all big studio s/ production houses are using the science of media planning to reach out to many people at a little cost. Many experts feel concept is still at a nascent stage in India--------Its still an exception than a norm. Out of 500 Indian film producers, only 12 now opt for movie marketing. Its difficult to stand up to expectations and huge hypes can kill the products too Questions: 1. What are the real consumer insights used by RA-One in creating its marketing strategy? 2. How does Movie marketing differ from conventional marketing of fmcg brands?