Bollywood is the biggest entertainment business in India. The advent of multiplexes has made it even more profitable as movies in today’s day and age make their money in the first week itself. Lets take the example of a latest movie kabhi alvida na kehna which supposedly made 28 crores in its first week itself. Now what i want the emphasize on is how the movie producers can utilize the internet to build a connect with their audiences and which as of now is being done by mostly the top production houses.

Look at this google trends chart for the word kank (kabhi alvida na kehna)

Its suddenly shows a rise during may 2006. Now you might argue that with the kind of publicity it was having offline this is expected. I agree and I also think that KANK was marketed well even online through a tie up with MSN.

But what about the other movies? What about niche english movies catering to only elite urban audiences?

There are many google trends charts which will show you that people do search for movies online even before they release probably just after seeing promo’s. Now the question here is what are they searching for? music? wallpapers? to know the storyline? may be.. all possible assumptions.. What it suggests to me is that Indian movies need to start looking at the internet more seriously as a medium of communication through which they can interact and engage their audiences.

Links of Google Search trends of different movies titles (released and unreleased)

Dhoom 2 - http://www.google.com/trends?q=dhoom+2&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2006

Fanaa - http://www.google.com/trends?q=fanaa&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2006

kkrish - http://www.google.com/trends?q=kkrish&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

krissh - http://www.google.com/trends?q=krissh&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

omkara - http://www.google.com/trends?q=omkara&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Now lets take some flop movies or small movies which had very little online marketing (as far as we know)

36 chinatown - http://www.google.com/trends?q=36+chinatown&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Tom dick harry - http://www.google.com/trends?q=tom+dick+harry&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Pyare Mohan - http://www.google.com/trends?q=pyare+mohan&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Well i could go on and all the movies whatever scale would show some search traffic because of it being advertised on other mediums. Now the question here is given the measurability and the interactivity that the internet provides at a reasonable cost compared to other mediums and now that we have 38.5 millions users many from B and C class cities as well.. I think its high time bollywood started taking Internet seriously.. Though some change is being seen as the newly released movie Aap ki khatir ran a cross promotion along with fropper.com

I feel in the future as well more and more movies would leverage the online medium to build a connect with their audiences.

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