post-add

Sold on survey


Yash Raj Films’ Shuddh Desi Romance, which just made it to the list of Top 10 highest openers of the year, flaunted research findings to market the movie.

How do you possibly market yet another romantic comedy? How do you tell the world that hey this one’s actually different? How do you grab eyeballs and also pitch the contents of your film?
Yash Raj Films’ new release Shuddh Desi Romance, starring Sushant Singh Rajput (Kai Po Che), Parineeti Chopra (Ishaqzaade) and new girl Vaani Kapoor, took the survey route in a first-of-its-kind approach to movie marketing. With the help of Ormax Media, the production house went about asking 5,000 youngsters across 40 Indian cities their take on relationship, commitment, pre-marital sex and marriage.
The results of the survey, which had samples taken from big cities and small towns, were used to drive home the concept of the film – “a fresh and very real love story about the hair-raising minefield between love, attraction and commitment”.

Called “Shuddh Desi India ki Romantic Soch”, the research aimed to “create ownership of the three lead characters of the film by creating a resonance with their life and their issues”. It had a four-point strategy to achieve the same.
1. Intrigue: Buzz and anticipation around the research findings to set the genre expectations from the film.
2. Research: The actual research process (field and online)
3. Reveal: Revelation of the research findings and their contextualisation to the three lead characters in the film.
4. Engage: Discussions around the results, involving the lead characters and their ideologies in the film.
Once they were ready with the results, the three lead actors – Sushant, Parineeti and Vaani – revealed the findings at Welingkar College (another youth destination) in Dadar.
The findings were in direct relevance with the contents of the film Shudh Desi Romance. So if the movie has the characters of Sushant and Parineeti in a live-relationship, the survey results highlighted are: 72% Indians believe that live-relationships don’t end in marriage but in break-up and that 4 out of 5 parents believe that young men and women who enter a live-in relationship are “loose characters”.

Again, since pre-marital sex is a big issue in the film, the research underlines that 89% of Indian parents still believe that sex before marriage is unacceptable and should not be practised while 51% youth disagreed with them. The survey added that 50% young men believe that young Indians who are above the age of 18 but still virgins, are old-fashioned and how only 33% young women agree to that.

“Why we did this survey was not only to market the film but also bring out facts as opposed to myths,” says actress Parineeti Chopra. “Most people outside the country think that Indians only want to do arranged marriage but our research shows that more than 70% young Indians would rather have a love marriage as opposed to an arranged marriage. The film also tackles this confusion in our society.”

Also Read

Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates on our latest news