Ankur Arora Murder Case

Marketing of a
TEAM 9

UH16072 - ANKIT ANURAG

UH16075 - LIPTA MISHRA
UH16088 - SIDHANT MOHAPATRA

Bollywood Film UH16095 - RACHIT BAJPAI

UH16103 - SAGARIKA TAD
UH16104 - ANUBHAV KUMAR
AAMC Guideline 1

The Problem
Statements
What are advantages and
disadvantages of AAMC as a
product ?
What are the perceived
strengths and weaknesses of
the movie ?
Comment on the positioning
of the movie.
PRELUDE

Ankur Arora Case is directed by Suhail Tatari & written by Vikram Bhatt

Co-produced by Dhanraj films and ASA productions

Billed as the first medical negligence drama coming out of Bollywood

K.K.Menon, Paoli Dam, Tisca Chopra, Arjun Mathur and Vishakha Singh were cast

The release date was initially February 13 which then shifted to Jun 13
SYNOPSIS
1st half revolved around hospital and the 2nd half turned into a court room
drama

Ankur Arora, an 8 year old boy was admitted to the hospital for treatment and
died in the theatre because of doctors negligence

The hospital and the doctor attempted to cover up the incident blaming it on the
organ failure during the operation

The doctor knowing that the child had consumed biscuits decided to go ahead
with the surgery, despite alleged contravention of surgery regulations

The mother of the child and an intern of the hospital went to the court of law to
seek justice
AAMC as a Product

Advantages &
Disadvantages
Advantages
Well planned IMC strategy
Clarity about target audience, USP and positioning
Well defined key messages and support messages
Use of innovative promotional campaigns like Light a
Candle for Justice
Methodical marketing strategy once the release date got
finalised
Post release marketing was employed to utilize positive
reviews
To convince fence sitters
Appeal to discerning audience members
Highly positive and encouraging user feedback
Variety of IMC tools used to implement marketing
strategy
Advertising print, TV, radio, in-cinema and
Internet
Social Media
PR
OOH billboards, digital displays and multiplex
Guerilla tactics
Disadvantages
Relatively low budgets for production and marketing

Multiple postponements of the release date (delayed GTM)

Free Commercial Time

30 seconds slots on FCT, ignoring the 45 seconds or longer slots

Oversights by the Production team (Executive Producer, etc.)

Shots of Good Day biscuits should have been blurred by default

This helped garner some publicity but also created extra work for the social media team fixing links on 3rd party
websites, etc.

Not seeking advance permission from celebrities (victims of medical negligence) before using them for promotion

Competition with Fukrey which released on the same day and turned out to be an audience pleasing movie

Impact of low marketing budget

Popular tools and tactics like merchandising, in-serial promotion, city tours and college events could not be employed

Limitations on TV spot durations

Trade-off between richness and reach

Long gap between pre-production promotions (August 2012) and release (July 2013) audience memory is short
especially for non star cast films

OOH Marketing limited to two cities, namely Delhi and Mumbai

AAMC

Strengths &
Weakness
Strengths
First mover advantage Bollywoods first medical negligence drama

Blue Ocean Strategy

Known players involved Vikram Bhatt, Kay Kay Menon, Tisca Chopra, Paoli Dam

Pre-production, shoot and post-production went according to schedule

Involvement of professional marketing partners IntelliAssist and Paras Publicity

Low budget venture comparatively easier to recover investment

Based on real life events potential to evoke identification in the audience

Court room dramas are popular among audiences (Damini, etc.)

Was in contention for certain prestigious awards

Weakness
Niche theme of movie
No suspense was created among the audience
Imagery of Mahesh Bhatt
The first phase of promotion Who was Ankur Arora? was not backed up by proper advertisements and can be
seen as a non-targeted marketing
Removal of theoretical trailer owing to legal notice of Britannia
No proper integration with the media
Public Relations Team
higher coverage of this act
Controversies
Britannia Industries
Times of India

Points raised by Shah and Vasani

Most prominent star Menon was portrayed in shades of gray
Low budget,Weak Cast, Inability to draw audiences

Entertainment quotient was lacking

somber tone of the presentation
Content based films need the backing of strong star power
Positioning and Key Roles
Meaningful movie based on true events: The movie highlighted the medical
negligence and death of a child as its consequence : something that is an
issue worth sharing
Key Messages for promotional campaign :
(1)Death and suffering caused by medical negligence are crimes and
criminals should not go unpunished .
(2)Anyone can be a victim of medical negligence ..it could be someone living
next door, it could be even YOU!!
()Support messages too sensitize the audience: To a mother, her child is
unique and special ,death of a child is an irreplaceable loss
()First medical negligence drama in history of Bollywood
Key Challenges
No prominent star cast and small marketing budget
Niche Concept and Lack of Mass Appeal
Audience for Bollywood movies is pre dominantly youth.
They neither connect to the death nor mother child bond .
Go to market was delayed several times
The tagline When HOPE kills Hope is generally
associated as something positive ,to register it as a negative
emotion was a blunder.
Irrelevant headlines after main media event lead to
confused positioning: Why Tisca cried after signing AAMC ??
Positioning and Youth
Connect
Created a virtual event on Facebook, Light a candle for
Justice A five day campaign to engage rebellious nature of
youth.

The hashtags #LightACandle was trending for over 36 hours

across cities in India to increase in average engagement.

On the eve of release date Jethani donated 100000 INR to a

cancer patient at the premier show which was a nice move
to create a wave, but it was covered just one online
publication in form of a photograph.
Suggestions
I.The AAMC team should have looked to position
themselves better, by catering them to its viewers as
a movie which deals in bringing justice.
II.AAMC being a drama film should have gone for in-
serial promotions, which would have helped them to
target the middle age population.
III.Organising promotional events at Mumbai, Delhi,
and Kolkata, would have helped the team of AAMC to
leverage the regional popularity of Kay Kay Menon,
Tisca Chopra and Paoli Dam respectively and build on
audiences.
IV.The campaign WHO WAS ANKUR ARORA? in social
media, was leveraged from platforms of previous
movies. This could have been capitalized in an
effective way by using the platform of AAMC, and
with the support advertising, to create suspense and
intrigue among the audiences.
V.The two songs that were aired used only two music
channels for their promotion. The reach should have
been increased by airing the songs in other popular
music channels like MTV, 9XM.
VI.The team of AAMC should have gone into
merchandising to promote themselves.