Man!!! This guy is a genius!!!!!!!
Just read his write-up - posted by Sunil - and you'll realise he has hit the nail bang on!
He is concerned about EVERY thing that we too have been bothered about - and more!!!
Since AB also reads his comments, I hope he reads this piece of Satyam too and lambasts the guys at Viacom and takes the reins in his own hands!!!!!
Just look at Satyam's question - why can't BBUDDAH be bigger than just a hit or a super-hit!!!!!!
It should, in my opinion too, an "Amitabh Bachchan HIT"!!!!
----- Original Message -----From: SunilSent: Saturday, 04 June, 2011 4:40 AMSubject: Re: [bigb] Re: No BBUDDAH Music Out Yet Only Gods Knows Y?
Good write up on the blog by SatyamSatyam says:Thanks for these images.. very happy to see these posters.. nothing like a poster on a city street! When it features you it's a different deal altogether.I am going to nonetheless debate with you on three points you raised the other day concerning the Bbuddah advertising. I am certainly reassured by some of your responses in this regard and I am very gratified to see these images. But I offer the following as some 'warning signs' if you will, just in case something might have been missed. You of course know better and can disregard all that follows here. I have only been insistent on certain points partly because I have sometimes felt in the past that you have not paid as much attention to some of these factors but more importantly because I am anxious that BBuddah become the biggest success possible. But again you can ignore all of this if you feel that efforts commensurate with what I think ought to be done is already underway. What follows is nothing more than a sincere desire that the film do very well and not be compromised because one might have had illusions one way or the other. So here goes…1)If one spends 10 crores or so on a film, a very small figure by any standard, one might think that there is a certain campaign which is proportionate to this cost. Similarly one might also believe one is doing ok as long as one makes the film profitable at the end. If Bbuddah grosses 25 crores by the end it is a very successful film relative to that budget. However what if it could be doing 40 crores? Or for that matter more? If one believed the latter to be possible one would have to market the film accordingly. Given that Bbuddah cannot possibly lose money even in the worst case scenario that concern pretty much goes out the window. But there is a larger issue of prestige and so on involved. A minimal audience is necessary and similarly one must try and seek the highest benchmarks possible in terms of a final gross.2)Currently the Delhi Belly promotions are in full swing. But ZNMD has also had a number of previews. Now the Singham campaign has also begun. In such an environment it is sometimes hard for the audience to stay focused on one film. The best one can do is not let up in terms of one's campaign. Here there has definitely been a lull on the Bbuddah front. Now your point is well-taken that there are posters up in India and so on but is this matched by the frequency of the trailers on TV? One can't forget the latter. As I've been saying for a while it has to be a well-rounded campaign that takes on all forms of the media. Ready looks to have a massive opening today. Are the trailers being screened with this? If not a huge opportunity has been lost in my view.It is not that I can pretend to know more than the people at the helm of the campaign. However I do know how often those who ought to know prove with their actions that they don't know as much as we might expect them to know! And I've been saying again and again here that the usual advertising is not good enough because everyone does that. What is the 'different' pitch Bbuddah has? Yes it is yourself in an iconic part and that's fantastic. But what about the mode(s) of the advertising? How does BBuddah jump to the forefront in this sense? and again why start with low expectations. That one simply wants a successful film, that one just wants to get noticed and so forth. I know the biases and games of the media/trade but that doesn't mean one should succumb to that narrative. And depend only on the 'good audience' (about the 'goodness' of which I in any case have doubts but that's another matter!).3)Finally the word of mouth argument might quite frankly be a bit of a quixotic hope in these times. Not that it doesn't matter but as I've said before this is a very dangerous multiplex audience that simply does not respond even to good WOM if the film is not part of a pre-approved list of subjects! It's not like the old days where any subject could do well with WOM. Also remember that Paa isn't the most instructive example. This film had a very unique and 'different' selling point but also it had superlative WOM (a high bar for any film to live upto). Even so it is my contention that with a different release date and with even more intensive marketing, certainly the former, this film though very successful as is would have done easily 10 crores more than it if not 15 or so. But the 3I onslaught beyond a point just took up all the screens. And the film was still stable where it was running but there weren't enough screens to seriously add to the gross beyond a point. But one could be happy with the existing gross. It was a superhit relative to the budget, it enjoyed very good trending and so on. This doesn't mean it couldn't have done more.BBuddah has made a impact right away. This is great. But one has to build on it. Take it further. And here time is key, one can't wait around to do it 'later'. So if the folks at Viacom think this is the way I'll disagree with them. Again the posters and so on are great but this should be part of a larger campaign. If however there are lots of trailers on Indian TV and if it's being shown with Ready I'll withdraw half my criticism. But who are the people making the decisions in this sense? This too is a question that is not raised often enough. Recall the problems you had with ABCL initially? What happens is that if you entrust things to a younger generation that seems to be smart, 'with it', has the right 'managerial' approach to things you run into problems. Not because these people are not qualified but because they have no instincts about their field and no real connection with it otherwise in terms of being exposed to it enough and so on. It then comes down to an equivalent of politics-by-polls and this is always a limited way of approaching things. You were actually prophetic with ABCL. Many followed in your wake. And frankly repeated the same mistakes. It's basically the equivalent of Rajiv Gandhi and his friends with computers. Politics cannot be done this way. This might sound rather harsh. And I honestly don't mean to sound judgmental here but note how well AB Corp is currently doing with more or less you and Abhishek deciding things on a film by film basis. Abhishek had an instinct about Paa and wanted to produce it, he clearly felt strongly about Bbuddah as well. This is how it should be done and not by a 'managerial' committee. All of this might not be the case with Viacom on BBuddah. I obviously don't know all the details. But I do think that one can sometimes be susceptible to this 'smart' younger generation with new and different ideas and so on and be willing to trust them too much. I think the record is very mixed on them and going by Bollywood's success ratio for many years compared to that in past decades (pre-90s) I would say that they haven't done too well at all. Just take a look at all the American studios in India. Not one has done hugely well so far. They're hiring the local talent and so on but with limited results so far. Cinema isn't that sort of 'rational' business which is how one reads the audience and how connected one is to the roots of one's industry is even more important. What this generation does well though is 'marketing' (and here I'd argue a certain kind of marketing for a certain kind of multiplex film) but that hasn't necessarily translated into better results at the box office.I'd make one final point — if Bbuddah is about the iconic Amitabh Bachchan, this great event of cinema, one has to approach everything in this vein. The whole conversation about this being a small film and that you are just trying to find a place among those who have already conquered the box office and so on runs counter to everything the film is trying to say. That there is still only ONE Amitabh Bachchan! This doesn't mean I am unaware of present day realities but this doesn't mean one should begin with a defensive posture. You are the star who reinvented the very meaning of the box office and took it to unsurpassable limits. Not just in the context of your industry but no other industry I am aware of has an example to equal yours (making the necessary contextual adjustments). But time happens to everyone. One cannot compare someone at 68 to someone at 30 or 40 or 45! The box office as a natural matter favors younger stars in any country of the world. But you are supreme precisely because of your extraordinary transcendence at your age. The strength of an 'empire' can be judged by its twilight years or periods of decline. The greatest empires spent more years in 'decline' than the many lesser ones did at their peak! This is how one judges greatness. Not by being a petty literalist and for example comparing how Bbuddah opens relative to Ready! So there is nothing to be defensive about. Absolutely nothing! And to be candid the tone with which one approaches these things is important. This too gives the audience certain signals.I think the campaign of Bbuddah should be waged as aggressively as possible. This should be presented as a major summer film and not a smaller film that doesn't need to do much to succeed!I might be completely wrong about all this and perhaps a fantastic campaign is round the corner (and I absolutely love these posters! thanks again…). I am just sounding, if you will, some warning bells here because there isn't much time left. And if I were you I'd blot out all the positivity you're getting from within the industry and even online and try to get to a larger audience beyond this. Notice how I have given you the perfect escape route at the end of this long response? You can now even ignore this! Ha!Again I am eager to reiterate that I am not just debating here for the heck of it and out of my usual polemical 'weaknesses' (!). I hope I am completely wrong with all these concerns. As always I am only interested in the greatest possible success for you, your name..From: Shankar <shankit_2000@yahoo.com>
To: bigb@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, 3 June 2011 6:06 AM
Subject: Re: [bigb] Re: No BBUDDAH Music Out Yet Only Gods Knows Y?
Sent from my iPhoneOn Jun 3, 2011, at 3:03 PM, "Tejas Mankodi" <tejasmankodi@yahoo.com> wrote:
What do we say after what AB wrote in the blog...he seems to be satisfied by what is planned. Still not satisfied though!!**Sent from my BlackBerry® Smart Phone**From: shankar <shankit_2000@yahoo.com>Sender: bigb@yahoogroups.comDate: Fri, 3 Jun 2011 03:36:45 -0700 (PDT)To: <bigb@yahoogroups.com>ReplyTo: bigb@yahoogroups.comSubject: Re: [bigb] Re: No BBUDDAH Music Out Yet Only Gods Knows Y?all said and done Promos are still not being aired..all i can say that Viacom18 have a theme that is non existent...
From: manoj prasad <manoj_prasad@yahoo.com>
To: bigb@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, June 3, 2011 2:17:34 PM
Subject: Re: [bigb] Re: No BBUDDAH Music Out Yet Only Gods Knows Y?
Completely agree. Only 23 days for release and frankly the promos have failed to gather momentum. ...Music should have been out last week.....the movie has currently failed to generate any curiosity
Regards,
Manoj
--- On Fri, 3/6/11, shubhi <jhashubhi@gmail.com> wrote:
From: shubhi <jhashubhi@gmail.com>
Subject: [bigb] Re: No BBUDDAH Music Out Yet Only Gods Knows Y?
To: bigb@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, 3 June, 2011, 1:12 PM
any links yet to anything new??? --- In bigb@yahoogroups.com, "Tejas Mankodi" <tejasmankodi@...> wrote: > > > Ok that's cool!! > > > > > > **Sent from my BlackBerry® Smart Phone** > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Fatima Mohamed" <MohamedF@...> > Sender: bigb@yahoogroups.com > Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:10:03 > To: <bigb@yahoogroups.com> > Reply-To: bigb@yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [bigb] No BBUDDAH Music Out Yet Only Gods Knows Y? > > The Bbuddah video theme song will be out by Friday.... > > >>> Suri Khan <suriabfan1@...> 02/06/11 05:49 >>> > > > I just don't get it................y in the world ABCorp/Via18 wanna > release the music so LATE?.........if it comes out on June 7th then they > have only 23 days before the release.............just getting so > frustrated....................this only happens with Da Man movies year > after YEAR...argggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg................. > > > Suri. > > > > Please read this confidentiality disclaimer: > > http://www.durban.gov.za/durban/e_colophon/edisclaimer >
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