The Expendables bets big on brand tie-ups

The Expendables 3

By Priyanka Bhadani

While Indian brands have always seen movies as a huge platform for promotions, the trend seems to be growing as homegrown brands that were earlier not very open to international films, considering the limited reach, have started embracing them of late.
That is what is evident from the brand tie-ups that some of the recent Hollywood films have seen. The recently-released, The Expendables 3 that is being distributed in India by PVR Pictures along with Multi Vision Pictures, has got as many as 26 brands associated with it, a big deal for an international film. The brands that have come on-board include Swiss Eagle, Nutrigain, FreeCharge, NDTV, Sony Pix Premiere Nights, Vodafone, YFC, Publicity Outdoors In Delhi, Forbes, Time Out, Auto Car, Stuff, Beer Cafe, NDTV.com, 9X Media, IBN Live.com, Indiatimes, True Caller, Gallata, Indiaglitz, Big FM, Mobile Store, CNN-IBN and Radio City.
“Considering that we had a promising franchise that is already established with a star cast that includes big names like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson among others, we went all out to rope in various alliances that could amplify our reach across platforms that included print, radio, TV, digital as well as outdoor,” says Girish Wankhede, National Marketing Head at PVR Pictures, who through these alliances got an access to reach viewers across the cities.
While three brands including Swiss Eagle, Nutrigain and FreeCharge came on-board as print partners, Sony Pix and NDTV is the TV partner. Other brands are promoting the film on mediums like radio, digital etc.
Sony Pix, as a part of its venture — Premiere Nights, ran a contest around the film on the channel. “The channel organised premiere shows of the film in seven cities across eleven theatres,” remarks Wankhede, who also talks about its tie-up with Hungama Digital, which through its Artist Alound platform, ran an online music contest and recorded a music video with Delhi-based band Faridkot, the winners.
Elaborating further on the associations, Wankhede says that while PVR Pictures is sponsoring the premiere nights for Sony Pix, in the bargain the film has got the advertisement spots on the channel. “Most of the deals are less to do with finances and more about creating visibility for both the parties involved,” he says.
Even in the case of FreeCharge, it has been a co-branded association as a part of which, FreeCharge promoted and gave away movie coupons or ticket offers for The Expendables 3 on platforms including online and print media and in return got in-cinema branding and branding on the film’s collaterals.
The brand associations for international projects have seen a tremendous rise in the recent past with films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Avengers getting more than 15 brands as partners. In fact, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 that released earlier this year, had 38 brand tie-ups.
“Movie associations are an effective way to reach out to our target audience. People connect with the brand instantly if promoted with a film. It helps in brand recall too and with movie ticket offers in the form of coupons and propositions like meet-and-greet the stars, the traction simply increases,” remarks Ami Tonk AVP – Head Strategic Alliances FreeCharge.com that had earlier associated with The Transformers: Age of Extinction, which also helped the brand in creating a lot of buzz.
For Shivakumar P.B of Ayurwin Pharma Pvt Ltd, this is the first international association. It earlier associated with only Hindi and South-Indian films for its health-supplement, Nutrigain. However, this deal looked alluring to Shivakumar as the image of the film’s actors resonate with his brand. “The film has a mass appeal. Considering it also releases in languages like Tamil and Telugu, the deal seemed even better,” remarks Shivkumar, who will assess the response of the association in a month’s time and would probably tie up with more international projects.
Neeti Shah, Head, Pulp Fiction Entertainment, a media agency that looks after planning and strategising media buying for Hollywood and Bollywood films and has worked with PVR Pictures to bring the watch brand — Swiss Eagle on-board for The Expendables, says that the brands have started recognising the value-addition that international projects bring to the table. The company has worked on projects like Riddick, Escape Plan, The Wolf Of Wall Street etc in the past and believes in making these deals lucrative. “We have to make sure that both the parties involved are benefiting from the deal. Swiss Eagle has spent close to a crore on The Expendables because it knows that the film resonates with the brand’s philosophy completely. Both the properties are targeting the youth who are hard-core, sturdy and tough,” remarks Shah, who thinks that in the future, such associations are going to become more common because of the growing reach of international projects and its appeal to the younger generation, which is the TG for most brands.