The other day, a newspaper carried an article about Akshay Kumar “owning up” the responsibility for the failure of his recent films (Bachchan Pandey, Samrat Prithviraj and Raksha Bandhan).
Optically, it looks nice. Someone owning up a failure individually which obviously is a collective failure. He appears to be nice and as an actor he is doing a good job of being a “nice guy”.
But, this leads to a wider question.
If actors are brands, then all of their films must succeed. We know that this does not happen. Films of every superstar may succeed or fail. Nobody is immune to that. Then what makes a film successful? Is it good branding or good marketing?
Successful films are the result of good marketing. Customers have needs. Customers of various segments have varying needs. Marketing is about understanding and satisfying that need, profitably. Movie customers need entertainment. Anything or anybody that satisfies this need, succeeds. So, the films that satisfy the needs of a large customer segment succeed, regardless of who acted in them.
Karan Johar seems to have understood this phenomena very well. He caters to the entertainment needs of the younger generation. He does not make films with the same stars repeatedly. You can’t entertain a teenager with a 55 year old superstar posing as a youngster and romancing his much younger lady love. A teenager boy can’t relate to a superstar older than his father. So, Karan Johar makes films with fresh faces and he succeeds most of the time, if not all.
Also, this new generation needs a lot of “education” about what to wear, how to look and talk, how to behave, how to dance in Sangeet or other parties, how to look hip and to belong. So, KJo employs a team of designers, choreographers, musicians, singers etc. to give them references to follow. That is why films create fashion fads and you get to see the same songs and dances in every wedding which happens in a season. They mimic the films released in the recent months.
Another example. In every generation, there is a huge crowd which does not want meaningful films. They don’t want to tax their intelligence. They like Masala movies. This is a huge customer segment. They wish to relieve their stresses by putting the brain aside and watch a film. There are some directors who know how to fulfill that need. In every generation, there is a Dharmendra, a Govinda, a Salman Khan or a Varun Dhavan to fit the bill and a team of directors to weave stories around them, however absurd they may be.
Some films fail in spite of brilliant promotion. They make a lot of noise before release but fail miserably. Others fail even after their brilliant release timing or having multiple superstars. E.g. films like Thugs Of Hindostan (2018), which was produced by a big banner (Yash Raj Films) and headlined by Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif etc. But the film failed to garner much success as anticipated. Why? Because it was a bad product. It failed to entertain. It was a marketing failure.
Film audiences do not care about brands for sure. They want a good product. It could be made, directed or acted by anyone. They will welcome with open arms a film starring debut actors, directed by a first-time director, produced by an unknown banner, if the product is entertaining.
And they will not forgive a Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012) even if it s directed by the renowned director Yash Chopra who is famous for his numerous romantic movies, starring the King Of Romance, Shah Rukh Khan with Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. Why? Because it failed to entertain. It wa s a bad product.
These are just two examples. But no brand of superstars, actors, directors or producers is immune to the uncertainty of a film’s success or failure. So, films or for that matter, any product succeeds only if it understands and satisfies its customer segment’s needs. It is pure marketing at play. Brands don’t matter here.
And yes, actors are not brands. A brand stands for something. An actor, while endorsing a product brand, falls for anything if it pays him or her well. And in doing so, they lose themselves an opportunity to become a brand.