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When was the last time we saw a month without Amitabh Bachchan (AB) in a new, large marketing effort? This month’s no different. The Big B now helps out his son’s (Abhishek’s) forthcoming film, ‘Bunty Aur Babli’, by featuring in a music video to promote it. Incidentally, the Big B is also essaying a small role in the film.
AB’s come a long way since ‘Eer, Beer Phatte’, his first music video in the heydays of ABCL. This one’s hip, hot and happening, with AB’s screen presence and confidence truly electrifying. The promo hit the idiot box early this week — the unusual and surprising content holding viewers spell bound.
As with any film, who knows, how this one will do? But Yashraj Films has got its marketing act together and has been able to generate a considerable amount of non-paid publicity so far. It began with the Rani Mukerjee outfit controversy, which erupted during the Lakme India Fashion Week, with Suneet Varma accusing Aki Narula of “shamelessly” copying his creation. In Mumbai, there was some media coverage ruing the ‘sad demise’ of the ‘Sholay twin-seater bike’ — incidentally, ‘Bunty Aur Babli’ has Abhishek and Rani riding one such bike (a sign of the times) that was glorified by the inimitable duo of Amitabh and Dharmendra in the classic film, ‘Sholay’.
It continued with the revelation that Maruti Suzuki has pulled off a coup with a product placement of the much talked about Swift (their Energiser marketing plan was broken in an earlier issue of ‘Impact’) — and a simultaneous movie and car launch.
Let’s bear in mind that Amitabh Bachchan and son Abhishek have featured in earlier Maruti ads (Versa), so the brand-celebrity placement in the movie…
To read the entire story, grab your copy of Impact Advertising and Weekly magazine issue dated May 16-22, 2005