A recent research atates that a subtle placement in Bollywood films and television soaps will prove to give the best returns on investment for advertisers in India.
This research is based on a research paper presented during the IIM-Ahmedabad conference on Marketing Paradigms for Emerging Economies.
The statistics show that about 71 percent of Indian consumers think that product placement is a good way of being informed about products and services. 85 percent of the consumers understood product placement as a way to generate revenue for the film maker and 50 percent of them said that placements were overused and unrealistic.
“Those in the age group of 16-24 and those over 60 years of age were more positive to the information provided by product placements compared to others,” said the researcher of the paper. “Again, men were more tolerant to product placements as compared to women. For advertisers, the product placement provides cleaner and clutter free advertising.”
“We need to understand this medium and the branding and marketing needs in India in a different context. It could be more important for brand building in India as compared to the developed economies,” added Raghuram, a professor from IIM-A.
During the conference, there were comparisons as to how product placements were used in developed and developing economies. “In the developed economies, brand building has concentrated on the emotional and the experience aspects. In emerging economies like India, the functional value of the brand might be more important,” commented Dr. Rajeev Batra from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
The benefits of product placement are something Bollywood producers can draw from. Bollywood movies transcend socio – economic barriers and offers brand association with big stars at a relatively low cost.