Salman Khan raves about the promo of Dabangg on Twitter. Aamir Khan hosts a party at a swish hotel to unveil the first look of his film. Here's the story of how the promo outsmarted the film. By Janaki Viswanathan

A couple of weeks ago, theatre audiences watched a teaser in which a Hindi channel news reporter made a solemn statement: "Roz roz nahin banti Lagaan." He was referring to Aamir Khan's production Peepli [Live] which is not about farmer suicides. The line was Khan's idea. Peepli [Live]'s biggest star is its producer, so why not cash in on that? It worked. Everyone is intrigued.

The buzz around Peepli [Live] was that it was a serious take on farmer
suicides, a rumour effectively put to rest with the trailers

This Friday, audiences caught a promo of Salman Khan-starrer Dabangg during Priyadarshan's Khatta Meetha. Not that they weren't aware of it. Khan has been promoting the promo on Twitter for a while now.

Three years ago, Vidhu Vinod Chopra produced and directed royalty drama Eklavya. A source tells us that he deliberately had the promo of another of his productions -- of a very popular franchise -- shot and screened in theatres screening Eklavya, to increase footfall. He succeeded. The teaser of Munnabhai Chale Amerika excited movie-goers, though it made no mention of a release date. That's promo power.

Because the lifespan of films is short
On July 2, movie-goers were as excited about catching a trailer of Arjun Rampal-Kajol-Kareena Kapoor-starrer We Are Family, as they were to watch the first-day-first-show of I Hate Luv Storys. How did they know? The newspapers advertised it, that's how. On July 30, along with watching period gangster drama Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai, you can catch the first look of Priyadarshan's next, Aakrosh.

Promos were always meant to pique interest, but these days, they are falling over each other to claim attention. Rahul Nanda, one half of publicity campaign designer duo Rahul Nanda and Himanshu Nanda, says it's because the life of a film has shortened. "Earlier, films would run for 20 to 30 weeks, if not more. Today, some run for three weeks. It's crucial for the promo to strike home."

Mukul Misra of Trigger Happy Entertainment, seconds him. "Media has become denser, so promos are competitive too. Most can download movies off the Internet, or buy DVDs; piracy is booming. You need to give them a good reason to come to the movie hall and watch your film."

Nanda, whose recent print campaigns included Anil Kapoor's Aisha and Karan Johar's We Are Family, is busy putting together the publicity for Dabangg, Action Replayy, and Rajnikant's Robot. "The print campaign is important because the whole promotion develops around it," he says.

No wonder then that promos market films like they are advertising a brand. Vikas Bahl, chief creative officer, UTV Motion Pictures, says promos are as important as the film itself. Every film is a brand, and the promo helps build it in just 10 weeks.

What promo-type are you?
The teaser of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa, had an unbeefy Imran Khan posing before a biceped cutout. Peepli [Live] does the poke-fun-at-self act too. So, is that an Aamir signature campaign, or does Trigger Happy like the self-deprecatory angle? Neither, apparently. "Jaane Tu ufffdu00a0 didn't have any stars, so the promo had to grab eyeballs," explains Misra. For Peepli [Live], the promo borrowed from the dark humour of the film. "You couldn't have done it for say, a My Name Is Khan."

Director Anusha Rizvi had shot footage of teashops selling chips with brand names like 'Amir Khan' and 'Gajini', while filming Peepli [Live]. Later, Khan added the last line and decided that it would make for a fun promo. "It's a film that doesn't take itself too seriously, and we wanted the promos to reflect that, so that the audience gets an idea of what it's about," says Peepli's director.

The trend is that there's no trend, says Vikas Bahl of UTV. "Every time you launch a new film, you have to do something different. Following a promo trend will only kill your film."

Good promo, hit film
Trade analyst Taran Adarsh says a trailer is crucial to this end. "The first impression is the last impression," says Adarsh, who thinks I Hate Luv Storys, Peepli [Live] and Priyadarshan's Khatta Meetha carry 'good impressions'. "Khatta Meetha captures the common man, while I Hate Luv Storys was bursting with young life, of course. The effect of a promo tells in box office collections." Adarsh cites the example of a film with a name he can't recall, whose promos were uninteresting, and which flopped.

He's probably talking about Milenge Milenge, the Shahid Kapur-Kareena Kapoor -starrer, which came three years after their break-up. While the promos made no mention of the film's story, they played the "they are back together" card. "The promos weren't promoting the film; they were promoting an incident in the actors' lives," explains Aditya Joshi, one of the three founders of Trailer Wizards, the firm behind the Love Sex aur Dhokha promos. Joshi, Vikas Sharma and Shikhar Gandhi, are currently cutting promos for Anurag Kashyap's That Girl In Yellow Boots.

Promoting a film that's been in the cans is tough enough, what's tougher is marketing films like they do in Hollywood.

"In the west, a film's promotion goes on for nine months before its release. If you try that in India, people assume that the film isn't 'new'," explains Nanda.

Coming up
We may be churning them out fast, hyping them and advertising them, but desi promos have a long way to go. "Despite having a 40 per cent Hindi-speaking audience, we've lost the middle belt to Bhojpuri cinema," says Nanda, talking of how promos ought to be more region specific.

In a one-off, Trailer Wizards' campaign for That Girl In Yellow Boots will have different cuts for different countries. "The audience is vast, so we need to tap into every market," Joshi explains.

Markets and virals aside, what if the film is terrrible and the promo producers know that? "Then it becomes an even bigger challenge to find a sort of spin to it," laughs Joshi. But that's a different story.u00a0

Quick highlights
>>It costs anywhere between Rs 6 and Rs 8 lakh (minimum) to create one promotional campaign. This includes the teaser, theatrical trailer, song, dialogue and character promos.
>>Rahul Nanda did the 'calendar' promotion for Farhan Akhtar's Don. The publicity stills were shot and put up in cinemas even before the film was completed.
>>Nanda also had the promo concept for Paa worked out one-and-a-half years before R Balki even began shooting the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer. The entire campaign was worked around the first stills.

Promos that worked
>>Kaminey pitched itself as what it was: an action entertainer with its thundering Dhan te nan soundtrack.
>>Love Sex aur Dhokha had three promos, and neither gave away too much of the story.
>>Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani used certain shots that weren't part of the original film, and the comicbook feel had a huge appeal.
>>Tere Bin Laden's lead actor's resemblance to the terrorist and the comic setting did it for the audience.

Now showing
The first promo of Dharma Productions' next, We Are Family (inspired from Step Mom) was screened in theatres showing I Hate Luv Storys, also a Dharma product

Pradeep Sarkar's Lafangey Parindey started its promotion with single campaigns for characters played by Neil Nitin Mukesh and Deepika Padukone. YRF makes its own promos.

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