Brand Equity is not something that only companies derive from their product or service for their exquisite quality, but, it is equally same with a person who gains unrivalled following with his/ her remarkable quality of work. Recent times, I found Baahubali movie as a spectacular cine-craft designed by S.S Rajamouli who moved the journey from being commercial fictitious movie to being Brand Baahubali merchandise and teaming up with renowned character Entertainment Company – Graphic India ,that is ready to enthuse Baahubali loyal audience beyond movie walls and provide a platform to explore more that is unseen in the movie through – original graphic novels, animation and video games. It is the contribution of S.S Rajamouli and Team Baahubali work that remained as memorable, qualitative, easily recognisable, reliable, inspiration and thought-provoking project so far in the history of Indian Film Industry.
Since its inception, everything seemed as a massive fest in their approach – through cast selection, shooting location, VFX media companies, shooting progress, social media campaigning on -Facebook, Twitter, Baahubali Blog and Baahubali Website . The very approach of Baahubali movie brand image penetration into the hearts of audience has taken mammoth branding effect in multiple ways – branded tee shirts, mobile covers, badges, hoodies, concept sketches, posters, novels, comic books, animation and video games and remained as exclusivity case study for Entrepreneurs-to-be and emerging Startup companies.
In this article, you’ll find how S.S Rajamouli and team Baahubali has created strong relationship between business brand and customer perception – experiences, positive thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions and perceptions which forms as a must-learn Brand Equity lessons to Startups – that teaches how to improve the standards of Brand Image through techno-digital awareness.
Following Brand Equity model has been categorised according to Keller’s Brand Equity model (Customer-Based Brand Equity model)
1.Brand Identity:
S.S Rajamouli is itself a strong influencer to a magnificent movie like Baahubali and Eega movies to box office turnover and market share. Audience identified his movies to be beyond expectations by narrating an universal subject and raising the depth of the stories by means of VFX as another strong weapon. He made ‘Eega movie’ with a tiny fly as a hero who avenges a murder, which made a telugu movie debut to multilingual status. The story weaves around a fly and how it creates chaos to a human who gets into trouble, which seems to be a simple script yet designed a technical VFX extravaganza movie with a fly as a major role player and thus making audience envisage a movie never seen before.
The subject powerfully connected to audience whom experience flies annoyance in daily life, which stood out as a USP to Rajamouli’s creative treasure. However, the combination of a spectacular script design and Rajamouli’s way of envisaging story makes an unique box office collections of non-bollywood-made-movies. He adds that he designs a script to create a sense of recollection element in a movie , which attaches viewer’s perception gracefully to his movies. This quality sets as a brand and identifies as a ‘movies-to-be-watched’.
Lesson 1: It is to develop a product through in-depth research and development and break any limitations that cause to perform a product magnificently. Creating sense of reminiscence sets as a salient feature which adds key element to a product or service and bind an emotional relationship between your product or service and customers.
2. S.S Rajamouli Brand Meaning:
His previous movie venture ‘Eega’ or ‘Makki’ sounds puny initially, but, movie experience speaks stellar performance. Imagery of his movies creates certainty of in-depth social and psychological attachment to audience, which leaves a long-lasting impression of a subject that has never been touched before by Indian Film Industry. If we retrospect the movies like Magadheera, Makki or Eega and Baahubali, what is that special brand meaning applies to Rajamouli movies is that – Story Characters brilliance and cast selection. He portrays a role of hero ordinarily in the story yet brings out his majestic power by battling against villain with massive dominance. He shares that he moulds villain’s subject to gigantic scale thus creates a daunting scenario to be beaten by Heroic role. This in indeed produces reliability and durability to a viewer’s mind,bringing back to his movies and unleashes a refreshing journey till the end of the story.
The visual appeal of each subject in his movies are well designed through
a perfect combination of – stunning cast, costumes design, VFX program, background score, extremity of the story, customised weapons and screen play.Combining all these elements, a viewer’s psychological get impacts largely by a story-combo like this. Thus , enhances the value of loyal audience globally and a secret formula that breaks the barrier of regional language movies to international must-watch movie.
Lesson 2: You can unusually build a common product available in the market through ‘n’ number of ways and strike the right chord of customers expectations with exclusivity of your product as a key brand perception, that attracts global attention.
3. S.S Rajamouli’s Brand Response:
Quality: Rajamouli’s movies from his first movie ‘Student No.1’ to the recent National Best film Movie ‘Baahubali’, there’s no single movie that diminished the quality of stories experienced by audience. Each story from him speaks up the natural element of characters that are seen in normal life and fictitious characters supporting stories mutually ,which forms as a greatest strength to his movies and winning loyal global audience till date. Apparently, he strikes viewers expectations by consistently matching actual quality of a scripts and perceived quality of movies with his commitment to work every minutest detail of every project he undertook.
Credibility: Buyers of his movies will never miss the credibility that work miraculous figures at Box office. It is measured in three dimensions – expertise (includes innovation), trustworthiness and likability.
- Expertise: He gained abundant knowledge of film making by working in multiple departments of films. He knows the quantity and quality of work expected from each department and how he inspires through his vision and make other departments to work on single mission. He says that vision plays a critical role to align several tasks wonderfully in a single frame.He tells that he builds an effective screening by matching his direction ingenuity meeting the expectations of average group of audience, who accepts the real value of a movie.
Image courtesy : Baahubali Blog - Trustworthiness: There’s no word other than trust that his work produce from all stakeholders – producers, cast, crew, buyers, financiers, distributors, theatres and audience. He builds a financial model, economic model and perceived model of a movie in detail which never misses out the parameters set for each movie. This requires relentless planning capability to control hassles associated to reach its final destination. He impresses each member of team by consistently making himself grounded to reality and take appropriate actions leading to final goals.
- Likability: The approach of likability is observed from audience with an appropriate blend of unprecedented stories, story characterisation, crew, music composer and technical effects embedded into it. There is this potential of attracting audience from all age groups to his movies that has been consistently working without fail so far with a kind of formula to innovate story essence in a new dimension.
- Consideration: In the current social media ruling world people expect and want for newness at every level of a movie and Rajamouli knows to cook a film recipe that beats contemporary movie stories which usually revolves around Hero-centric roles. This is the mantra that has an implicit consideration to choose his movies and watch time and again.
- Superiority: He prepares a movie with unparalleled characters design, exclusivity weapons design and make in india concept . He adds multiple tools to elevate characters and how they appear in audience eyes ,like – Costume design, location, weapons, facial appearance (make over), emotions, language, cinematography, production design, visual effects, background score, costumes design ,dialogues, script and choreography. Enhancing all these elements entirely takes its toll and impression on viewer mind. If you consider Ranadheer billa character in Magadheera ; Titla character in Vikramarkudu ;or Sudheer character in Eega; Bhallal dev and Kalakeya characters in Bahubali, each role mirrors the immense impact in every project, which is fighting against truth, but , what is uncommon is the way roles nurtured visually with many of these ingredients helping to enhance the casting impression on audience mind. And, certainly, this will create a story that a viewer can’t forget for many years.
Lesson 3: Ensure your vision for Startup is reflected in every task , to be undertaken by your team and then work uninterruptedly on the quality of subject that raises the standards of your Startup ultimate vision. Always make a perfect plan to control – finances, expenses, hassles associated to run startup in a way that keep track of all targets and reduces redundant costs.It is not think ,but, do out-of-the-box principle that recreates a business model and loyal customers time and again.There should be always a mix and match approach of business model to pursue things and bring best to all stakeholders trusted on your Startup mission
4. Rajamouli’s Brand Resonance:
Behavioural loyalty: His movies receive regular and repeated audience that shows distinctive style of stories selection and hence producing consistent qualitative movies which indeed conquers film industry from his direction genre. There’s always thrilling quotient to his upcoming movies which brings back loyal audience regularly . - Attitudinal attachment: S.S Rajamouli Signature is the brand image that concludes at the end of the movie which is creating an imprint on viewers perspective perfectly and artfully developing attachment between his movies and his signature . Developing such intangible attachment, implicitly, has so much to attract audience for indefinite times from diverse mindset of people every now and then.
- Sense of community: Baahubali movie team has performed an amusing skit to raise funds for Hudhud disaster witnessed by Visakhapathanam (Vizag) and won thousands of people support for the havoc relief. This special bundle of performance by the team made audience felt sense of responsibility towards society. Again, this way of producing skits is another way to build sensible projects rather than a simple commercial movie proposal which survives with sheer profits and collections.
- Active engagement: Baahubali marketing team has been proactive prior to and while making the movie through Facebook, Youtube videos on – promotional campaigns, first posters, videos featuring lead stars on their birthdays. Team Baahubali laid a great foundation to update their status from all grounds through Baahubali website and from Arka media works Blog.
Also, S.S Rajamouli has actively posted updates related shooting progress on Twitter and Facebook pages which maintained strong engagement with his social media followers, fans, audience. Indeed, he used social media platform as a smart marketing plan to enthuse viewers and bring them to theatres with much-awaited feel experience to watch the movie again and again. Perhaps, he has a potential marketing head traits to target right customers at right time.
And now, Team Baahubali and Graphic India collaboration allures audience more to experience lives, culture, adventures, weapons, tools, characters and many through their graphic novels, video games and animated series. There’s only unlimited opportunities when a subject is powerful and that use digital technology and applications intelligently.
Lesson 4: A key lesson to emerging entrepreneurs is to make customers thrilled about product improvements or new product release. It is not about marketing gimmicks that work, except the content that keeps you in tact with customers and reach their expectations at right time. Every action of your product delivery forms an attitudinal attachment , which enhances the customer perception towards your brand, so, it is worth to take utmost care to produce right results. It is not always taking, but, giving back to the society which will always gain millions of hearts. Further, execute a program that matches societal requirements and up bring social conscious through your brand.
Let me know your views and any other key lessons that can be drawn from the #Baahubali movie and #S.S Rajamouli directorship
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