Tollywood tries creative promotions!!!

The Telugu film industry has left the days of advertising on flexi boards and posters far behind. With competition in Tollywood fierce, mana filmmakers are treading the innovative path when it comes to promoting their films. From publishing ‘making of the movie’ booklets and giving away freebies to fixing a date with the movie’s stars, directors are going the extra mile to make the audience sit up and take notice.

One such attempt is the ‘Win a cute car’ contest for the movie Naa Stylei Verule. A modified car complete with bright colours and a painted face, has been doing the rounds of the city and grabbing many eyeballs. The winner of a contest gets to take home this car which was used in the film.

Actor Rajasekhar, who played the lead role in this flick, says, “The car is so cute that both Bhumika and I wanted to buy it. Everyone started talking about it. So, the producer decided to give it away to the audience through a lucky draw. This kind of promotioncertainly adds to the movie’s curiosity value. It makes people inquisitive.”

Freebies are always a hit. Not to be left far behind, the filmmakers of Raju-Maharaju are distributing a glossy with behind-the-scenes images, making of the film details, interviews of the stars et al, in city theatres.

P. Ravi Kumar, MD of RK Media promotions, says, “We sent copies to all film personalities too, apart from putting it on the stands of theatres. This not only generates great interest among the audience but they also get to know more about the cast and crew of the film. It helps the audience connect with the film.

”Some tech-savvy filmmakers are even giving print promotions a miss to go the online way. The makers of Kalavaramaye Madhilo have not only started a website for the movie but are also aggressively promoting their flick on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut. Actor Kamal Kamaraju, who plays the lead in the film, says, “We need to come out with multi layered promotion campaigns to draw audience attention. People can also download one minute of the movie songs for free.

This way, we get immediate feedback from the people about the movie.”
While the filmmakers of Current and Boni, conducted quizzes and gave away free goodies to viewers, the winners of the Current contest will snag a date with the film’s stars.Some filmmakers are even taking up “socially conscious” projects.

Actor Vikram adopted three villages as part of the Mallanna film’s activities. He says, “We wanted to implement the movie’s message. So we decided to adopt the villages and help bring in investments for its development.” But critics claim that this is just a gimmick to remain in public memory and generate interest for the movie.