BARFI

Innovative Promotion For Barfi Movie On YouTube PRE EVENT ACTIVITY UTV Motion Pictures upcoming movie Barfi, slated for a release on September 14 has launched an innovative campaign on YouTube where users can interact with the main character. Bollywood movie Barfi is an upcoming Indian romantic comedy. The movie has been directed by Anurag Basu and has Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana DCruz playing as the lead roles in the movie. It is expected to be released on 14th September, 2012 and is all set for creating promotional buzz about the movie. How is Barfi promoting on YouTube? UTV Motion Pictures, producers of the movie have chosen a funny and interactive way to create awareness. The makers of the movie have opted for YouTube as the network for creating the online buzz. A dedicate tab has been created Barfi and the tab has all the excitement Once you are on the tab, the video that plays has Ranbir Kapoor himself introducing the main lead Barfi, the filmy character to you. Ranbir goes on sharing some funny bits about Barfi so that fans get to know him. Once that is over, the video turns into an interactive fun-loving app. As a user, you can now get interactive with Barfi. Either you can ask Barfi to show how to impress girls or you can change his mood and Barfi will enact that for you. Lets say if you want to see how Barfi can dance to impress a girl or how would he flirt then you need to type that and Barfi will do it for you. Similarly, you can change Barfis mood by typing. So you can type nerdy, excited, angry, etc. and Barfi will show the different moods in his style. But make sure that you type and then only Barfi gets to know what you want from him. And dont act smart by typing anything which doesnt make sense as Barfi is smart and will make a face and walk away! Is it innovative?

Definitely this is innovative and an engaging idea from the makers of Barfi. The interactive app is not only interesting but designed perfectly. For example, the character Barfi in the movie is a deaf-mute person so the app only works when you type. Additionally, you have the original character Ranbir guiding you on how one should use the app. The app scores full marks on the design aspect. The app provides a set of words that you can type and Barfi will enact that for you. These are small but significant features and help bring the user one step closer to the online engagement. POST EVENT Bollywood in the past has been investing heavily on social media for promotions and creating awareness. Movies like Ra.One, Don2, etc. had massive budgets for online promotions including Gangs of Wasseypur. Along with these, every movie that is releasing this year has a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube page. The presence is there but there is nothing unique about the content or engagement. Barfi, in comparison to all the others, stands apart for two reasons mainly: 1) Uniqueness and 2) Engagement. The campaign is definitely unique but at the same time it has made sure that it buys time from the user. Recently, I had reviewed Chakravyuh which is creating comic books to create awareness about the movie and we had also seen in the past how Gangs of Wasseypur created movie characters on Twitter and they became the talk of the town. Barfi! marketing campaign Innovative marketing has become an integral part of film promotions nowadays and UTV Motion Pictures carries forward the trend by roping in B-school students to design marketing campaign for its upcoming film "Barfi!" "The idea behind roping in the students from top B-schools was to attract young audience. The film is targetted towards youth and what better way than to have young minds to create the marketing campaign. It is exciting to get young minds and their unique thinking together," Shikha Kapur, senior vice president, marketing, UTV Motion Pictures, told IANS. UTV launched a nation-wide hunt to get students from key business schools.

"A lot of brainstorming went into the whole thing. We received entries from 35 colleges and we shortlisted 20. It was further brought down to six, and of them two have been chosen as winners. During the quest, we have come across some very creative minds," Kapur said. Students from Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, were the winners and IIT Delhi students were the first runner-up. Directed by Anurag Basu, the film starring Ranbir Kapoor as deaf-mute boy and Priyanka Chopra as an autistic girl will release July 13. There is a popular belief that "Barfi" is slow paced and full of melodrama which might be heavy on audience. But Ranbir dispels the notion describing it as a fun, family film and as a romantic thriller. "Its about two dysfunctional people who bond together in the nicest of relationship, one that is sweet, touching and heart-warming," said the actor. Present day Barfi is deeply ill and close to natural death in a hospital. Jhilmil arrives and lays with Barfi in his hospital bed as Shruti narrates that the two peacefully passed away together, not wanting to leave each other behind in neither life nor death. The film closes showing the last days of Barfi and Jhilmil as credits roll.

Promotion
Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor, Ileana D'Cruz at the launch of Barfi! promo An official trailer was released on YouTube on 2 July 2012 featuring all the three leading stars. Having no dialogue and portraying comedy through gestures and actions, the trailer received immense praise from critics and audiences alike. While promoting the film at Bangalore, excited crowds broke free of the barricades separating them from the cast

Box office
Domestic Barfi! had a strong start at multiplexes all over whereas single screens had lower opening because of limited release. The film grossed INR8.56 crore (US$1.62 million) on its opening day. Its second day collections were around INR11.50 crore (US$2.17 million). The film had an excellent weekend, taking in INR34 crore (US$6.43 million). In its first week, Barfi! collected INR56.46 crore (US$10.67 million) nett. The film had collected a very nice figure of around INR3.25 crore (US$614,250) despite new release Heroine on its eighth day. Barfi! garnered a decent figure of INR15 crore (US$2.84 million) in its second weekend. Barfi! had a good second week where it has collected INR24.18 crore (US$4.57 million) nett. The third week collection of Barfi! was extraordinary with a collection of INR15.75 crore (US$2.98 million) nett. The film raked in INR6.15 crore (US$1.16 million) in its fourth week.Finally it had grossed INR106 crore (US$20.03 million) in India.

Overseas Barfi did well overseas in its weekend opening as it collected around INR12.42 crore (US$2.35 million). It just edged out Raajneeti as Ranbir Kapoor's biggest opener overseas which had collected INR11.58 crore (US$2.19 million). It had collected a nice figure of around $5.3 million in 17 days. Barfi! has hit the $6 million mark overseas and is the fourth film this year to do so after Agneepath, Housefull 2 and Ek Tha Tiger.

ANJAANA ANJAANI

Anjaana Anjaani (pronounced Anjn Anjn; English: Strangers) is a Hindi romance film directed by Siddharth Anand, starring Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Zayed Khan. The film is produced by Sajid Nadiadwala under his Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment Pvt. Ltd banner. The film's music has been composed by Vishal-Shekhar, who have composed the music for all of Siddharth's three films in the past. The cinematography is handled by Ravi K. Chandran. Anjaana Anjaani was scheduled to release on 24 September, then it was postponed to 1 October 2010.

Production Filming began on 12 December 2009 and was completed early July 2010. The film was shot in different locations at New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco, while some parts of the film were also shot in Malaysia and Thailand. The film was slated for release on September 24, 2010, but the release date was postponed to 1 October 2010 due to its clash with the Babri Masjid verdict.

Box office The film's opening weekend at the box office in India earned INR25.75 crore.Made on a budget of approximately INR43 crore, the film immediately recovered INR22 crore through the sale of satellite rights to Star India, INR8 crore from music rights sold to T-Series, and INR13 crore from theatrical distribution rights sold in a few territories. The movie earned $854,757 in the United States and earned 475,336 from the UK. Box Office India declared the movie an above average

MOVIE PRAMOTON

PLACES WHERE MOVIE PRAMOTED-

PROVOUGUE STORE OYE FM CHAMPION LEAUGE ENTERTAINMENT K LIYE KUCH BHI KAREGA DELHI SELECT CITY WALK BANGLORE MALL MUMBAI MALL.

ANALYSIS

ANJAANA ANJAANI The film received mostly negative reviews. On the review-aggregation website ReviewGang, the film scored 4/10 based on 8 reviews. Anupama Chopra of NDTV rated it 2/5: "Anjaana Anjaani has a flatness that is unique. The screenplay goes nowhere fast. Here the emotions and characters are singularly plastic." Rajeev Masand of IBN rated it 1/5: "Anjaana Anjaani, unfortunately, is not only painfully predictable but also deathly boring". Sanjukta Sharma of Mint said, "This is a film of a few memorable moments. Overall, the script doesnt hold up and no amount of external finesse can redeem it." A positive review came from Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama, who gave the film 4 stars out of 5: "On the whole, Anjaana Anjaani is an unpretentious romantic saga that revels in the exuberance of newly found love. The film has everything going for it: top notch performances by two super-stars, good music, a sensitive director with a good track record, a simple yet absorbing story and of course, terrific moments (emotional as well as humorous). Don't miss this one"

BARFI

The film received positive reviews. Review aggregator ReviewGang aggregated 7.5 out of 10 stars based on 11 professional critics. Madhureeta Mukherjee of The Times of India gave the film a 4.5/5 rating and said, "Ranbir, in the most challenging performance of his career leaves us 'dumbstruck'. Without use of conventional crutches of cool-catchphrases, dhamaakedar-dialogbaazi, barebodies, and other 'items'; he stuns you in every single frame. For Priyanka, there's only one word Bravo! In a role where she needs to under-emote, she does so

brilliantly." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said, "Barfi is akin to a whiff of fresh air. Its foremost triumph is that it leaves you with a powerful emotion: Happiness!" Blessy Chettiar from DNA India stated, "Barfi! leaves you teary-eyed yet happy." She gave a 4.5/5 rating..

Aniruddha Guha of DNA India rated the film 4 out of 5 remarking "Barfi cannot be missed. It demands patience, but the payoff is incredible". Raja Sen for Rediff.com has given 3.5/5 stars and opined "Barfi! is a well-crafted script with an intriguing back-and-forth narrative but it all goes south towards the end." Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave it 3 out 5 stars and noting "This is a film made with love, bolstered by wonderfully etched vignettes, Ranbir Kapoor's stupendous performance and a gorgeous soundtrack by Pritam. And yet, for me, Barfi was a singularly frustrating experience there was so much to like, but the film never became more than the sum of its parts".