THE BOLLYWOOD “BRAND-WAGON”: PRODUCT PLACEMENT STRATEGIES

Product placement in Bollywood is not new. It has its roots long back in the 1940's but only after 2004 it got recognition. Indian audiences in these days are exposed to a lot of media clutter and product placement may help in breaking that clutter. It even helps in eliminating the loss which marketers have to bear because of the zipping and zapping effect. This paper tries to explain the advent of product placement in Bollywood industry. A lot has been talked about placement as a strategy but is it equally effective? Is the audience aware and can comprehend the same? A focus group study of small number of participants has been done and they being studied on the awareness and recall score. The researcher has tried to seek out the brands and movies which respondents could recall (Unaided), the plot connection, prominence and product integration in that scene recalled. It is concluded that a brand when associated with a celebrity gains good recall. The brand placed should be well connected with the plot and should be prominent if the marketers want his placement to be remembered over a period of time but prominence can affect attitude negatively. Same is the case with the placement strategy. Explicit placements are remembered over implicit placements but when it comes to liking, the scene and the plot got appreciation where the brands were placed implicitly, doesn't hindering the flow and rationality of the scene.