Producers today are spending a minimum of Rs 1 crores to 2 crores on publicity for small and medium range films, yet the first day openings are not even matching that cost at the gross level.
A month before release the promotional storm begins with songs, glimpses, teasers, trailers, media interactions, mall visits and college tours.
Social media numbers on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter look massive, speeches go viral and clips cross millions of views.
Everyone celebrates these metrics, but the actual box office response remains at just twenty to forty percent of expectations.
One major illusion is the belief that social media promotion alone is enough. Many producers do not realise that a large portion of these views are non organic and driven by platform algorithms and paid amplification.
Nearly seventy percent of Instagram and Twitter users belong to the under twenty five age group. They naturally connect with youthful films like Little Hearts, but not with serious, emotional or message oriented cinema. Spending huge amounts on these platforms for such films brings very little return.
The basic need is research. Filmmakers must identify which age groups are active on which platforms and promote accordingly to reach the real target audience.
This is simple common sense, yet many producers and even strategists are missing it. Correction is necessary, though filmmaking itself will never stop.
Platforms such as Facebook largely cater to audiences in their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond, while traditional television channels continue to reach viewers who are well beyond sixty and seventy.
In addition, different entertainment websites and news portals attract users from varied age brackets. Film promotion, therefore, should fundamentally be about making the content visible to its actual target audience across these spaces.
Treating the eighteen to twenty five age group as the universal audience for every genre is one of the biggest mistakes filmmakers are making today.
Not every film is meant for the youth segment, and not every potential viewer is active on Instagram or Twitter.
When promotions are concentrated only on these platforms, a vast section of the real movie going population remains untouched, which directly affects theatrical openings.
In fact, many people are not even aware that a particular film is releasing or already running in theatres simply because the promotional material never reaches the platforms they regularly use. The issue is not always lack of interest but lack of communication.
Reaching the right audience through the right medium is the key to bringing the majority of viewers back to theatres.