510-091-1 Shah Rukh Khan vs Aamir Khan: Who is the Better Marketer? No one doubts the celebrity or endorsement power of Bollywood’s Badshahs – Shah Rukh Khan (Shah Rukh) and Aamir Khan (Aamir). What started as a professional rivalry is also getting played out in the brands endorsed by them, making it a keenly-watched and most-talked about celebrity war. However, the most intriguing question doing rounds, both in Bollywood as well as corporate world, these days is: who is the better marketer – Shah Rukh or Aamir? While some thank them for having set in motion refreshingly new brand of Indian film marketing with their exquisite marketing blitzkrieg, many still wonder who would be a better marketer – both for their home productions’ movies, their respective business ventures as well for as their movies. Business Today reported on the scaling up of an entertainment conglomerate by Shah Rukh – consisting of the segments ranging from film-making and visual effects to television commercials and cricket. Highlighting Aamir as ‘a marketing genius’, it stated, “films are his bread and butter, and endorsements his jam.Aamir Khan, in contrast to SRK, has fewer irons in the fire but he’s as effective”.1 How both of them invented elaborate mental construct to manage the stardom in the backdrop of Bollywood’s transformation since early 1990s, sounds interesting. Film Promotion: Scripted by Hollywood, Executed by Bollywood Bollywood movies, prior to 1990s, were marketed and promoted by distributors through traditional means such as television, radio and paid advertisement in print media. However, rapid commercialisation of movies and advent of online media platforms through the 1990s and first decade of the new millennium have augmented the traditional methods of movie promotion and marketing. Bollywood’s foray into overseas market during the same period helped it to pick up a few strings from movie promotional tactics scripted by Hollywood. Post-liberalisation, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) became the first Bollywood movie to be released overseas targeting the Indian diaspora successfully. The following year, a musical love 1 Subramanian Anusha, “The Other Khan: A Marketing Genius”, Business Today, February 21st 2010 This case study was written by Prashanth Vidya Sagar Thalluri under the guidance of Dr. Nagendra V. Chowdary, IBSCDC. It is intended to be used as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. The case was compiled from published sources. © 2010, IBSCDC. No part of this publication may be copied, stored, transmitted, reproduced or distributed in any form or medium whatsoever without the permission of the copyright owner. Distributed by ecch, UK and USA North America Rest of the world www.ecch.com t +1 781 239 5884 t +44 (0)1234 750903 ecch the case for learning All rights reserved f +1 781 239 5885 f +44 (0)1234 751125 Printed in UK and USA e [email protected] e [email protected] 510-091-1 Shah Rukh Khan vs Aamir Khan: Who is the Better Marketer? story portraying the life of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and their Indian sentiment, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) – which set a new record at the Indian Box Office collections – was also a major hit overseas. Bollywood got a new vigour when Amitabh Bachchan was selected as the ‘Greatest Star of the Millennium’2 in BBC online poll in July 1999, surpassing many Hollywood legendary stars. Consequently, a number of movies such as Dil To Pagal Hai, Taal, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Hum Saath Saath Hain, Kaho Naa Pyar Hai, etc. were released overseas. With each release, Bollywood attempted to adopt and execute the Hollywood- style promotional strategies. Implementing Hollywood’s film promotional techniques in India – such as creating buzz, showing small movie clippings during a television show,talk shows involving crew and cast of the film describing technical details of the film and their experiences respectively – became a common practice of top Bollywood stars. Leveraging on growing information technology, Bollywood promoted films in the virtual world by creating websites containing movie trailers, rushes from the film and even virtual games. Ramesh Taurani, a leading film producer states, “Marketing a film in today’s times is absolutely imperative as our audiences want to get a taste of the film before they make up their minds to see it. Marketing not only needs to spread in terms of demographics but it should also be relevant, interactive, engaging and competitive.”3 Many a Bollywood stars such as Salman Khan (Salman), Akshay Kumar (Akshay), Shah Rukh andAamir attempted to promote their movies through buzz, viral and digital marketing. For promoting his movie, Veer, Salman created buzz by announcing that he would ride a filly named Wild Rose at the Million Horse Race sponsored by Hello magazine in Mumbai. He visited the multiplex, Prasad’s IMAX in Hyderabad and also visited Jamnabai Narsee School’s Cascades annual day celebrations in the suburban Mumbai along with Bollywood actress Pooja Bhatt and delivered an electrifying message to children – how to triumph in their lives in the Veer way. Akshay, on the other hand, went a step ahead by promoting Singh is King in Silver City Brampton in Toronto and by roping in singer Snoop Dogg for performing a promotional song for the movie. His marketing team tied up with an entertainment portal, Sify.com, to launch an online quiz game4 to promote Kambakht Ishq and gave away the movie merchandise as prizes to the winners. The way Shah Rukh’s Chak de India!, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Aamir’s Ghajini and 3 Idiots were promoted, brought an innovative difference to movies and their success. The Ghajini hair cut with the multiplex ushers and the online ‘missing’ campaign of the 3 Idiots redesigned the craft of film promotions in India. Their innovations hinged on unconventional platforms like personal promotion, buzz marketing, viral marketing and digital marketing. Over a period of time, Shah Rukh andAamir graduated to scale up their own production houses – Red Chillies Entertainment (RCE) and Aamir Khan Productions (AKP) respectively – aimed at fostering environment for experimentation to find path-breaking ways in film production and to venture into allied businesses. 2 Srivastava Sanjeev, “World: South Asia Bollywood superstar ‘surprised’ by vote”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/ 394226.stm, July 14th 1999 3 Bhat Varada, “The marketing of Bollywood”, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2010/01/14/stories/ 2010011450050100.htm, January 14th 2010 4 “qUIZ”, http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/quiz/kambakht_ishq/ 2 510-091-1 Shah Rukh Khan vs Aamir Khan: Who is the Better Marketer? Business Today and even some analysts claimed that Shah Rukh and Aamir, among all star promoters, succeeded in receiving high collections for their movies due to their marketing prowess and business skills. However, the charm and charisma of Shah Rukh and Aamir created by their performances and careers also helped them become the icons of Bollywood. Shah Rukh andAamir: A Profile Comparison By the end of 2009, Shah Rukh’s production house, RCE had a net worth of INR 1,500 crore, while AKP clocked in revenues of INR 350 crore.5 However, the paths chosen by these two actors to achieve this stardom indicate stark differences ranging from their background to business ventures’ success. Shah Rukh had no film industry background while Aamir is closely associated with the film industry. Shah Rukh’s father Taj Mohammed Khan was a lawyer and a freedom fighter, and mother Lateef Fatima Begum was a social worker and a first class magistrate.6 He began his acting career with television serials such as Fauji and Circus in late 1980s and made his first film debut with Deewana in 1992. On the other hand, Aamir was a descendant of freedom fighter and the first Minister of Education of Independent India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and also of the former Indian President, Dr. Zakir Hussain.7 The longest serving Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Dr. Najma Heptullah isAamir’s second cousin. His father, Tahir Hussain is a film producer while his late uncle, Nasir Hussain was a producer, director and an actor as well. Aamir began his film career with the film, Holi (1984), though he had acted as a child artiste in Nasir Hussain’s film, Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973). Having no godfather in the film industry, Shah Rukh struggled to build the stardom from scratch, whileAamir having film industry background attempted to consolidate and go ahead with the bubbly, next-door neighbour boy image. But the genre – range and breadth – of the movies that each of these actors acted in, over the years had been pretty much very narrow, as both the actors acted largely in only one genre of the movie category i.e. romance – such as Shah Rukh’s Deewana, DDLJ, etc., and Aamir’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Ranageela (Annexures I, II, III and IV). However, both the Khans – apart from the regular commercial movie plots – consciously selected the plots championing the national and social cause also. For instance, Shah Rukh’s Dil Se portrayed the quest of a media person to stop the terrorist activities and Main Hoon Na espoused the cause of India-Pakistan amity, while Aamir’s Sarfarosh exposed the stringent efforts put in by police force in containing the arms-smuggling and cross-border terrorism. Shah Rukh’s Chak De India! underscored the triumph of galvanising teamwork in true letter and spirit while Aamir’s Lagaan highlighted the triumph of villagers in Central India on their unjust colonial rulers. Shah Rukh’s Swadesh dealt with the problems troubling the village inhabitants, whileAamir’s Taare Zameen Par dealt with dyslexic children.