ceremony of “promotion”.

                                      Old fashion of the time

 The present time of our banal world is of the ceremonious ritual of “promotion.” It may be said, promotion” is in vogue rather it has become “compulsion.’ Although this factor of “promotion” had always been existed but in selective fields of life. Not so frequent like “throwing a party” and giving it a name of “trend.” We can talk about back in the era of last century (20th century) up to the decade of seventy, about advertising of some movie campaign in India. It was fashion in small and medium class cities to make processions with noisy musical instruments supported with banners and hoardings.  Even stilt caricatures for the purpose and pasting of posters on the side walls of the road side was common.

These posters delineated with multicolored images of lead characters of “supposed to be released movie” were pasted at various public spots. Apart from, the fashion ( terminology of ‘trend’ was not introduced ) of releasing the songs of concern movie without ceremony existed. The custom simply was, release it, on the government run audio-platform (radio-transistor sets, the TV transmission did not exist so popularly as such during that period of time).

Withal, with the release of movie in the cinema hall, in between the running of the show during the interval, the booklet of songs at a very low cost were made available there on the stall to the audience. Since it was an established norm of the cine business line that if the music of some movie is gone “hit” in the public domain, that was taken as a sure gesture of the success of the movies. Even as on today the same gesture is followed.

                                            Musical boost

 There was the time when people across the national territory were given to display there liking for “hit musical songs” aired on radio- program. This phenomenon ever proved like a big booster to support a movie business. Renowned film producers of that time managed to get aired the musical songs of there about to released movies on the air. Oftentimes, if a single song of some movie secured a place in the hit chart, it was taken as a guarantee for the success of the movie. Even today, in the Indian film industry the popularity of a song of the movie, not yet released, is taken as somehow guarantee of good business of the movie.

WHAT Phenomenon all this was ? In the past this phenomenon was allocated a proper name and that was “ADVERTISEMENT” and today it’s called as “PROMOTION.” And this can be of any thing. It may be of any newly opened restaurant, any clothing brand or jewelry.

                                                Transformation

 Now I am going to relate a very interesting incidence of avoiding “advertisement” or “promotion” of an era, when, only ” print media” was such a powerful tool. So that any public figure could not dare to challenge it.  Even could not think to survive without its support. But a “public figure” was there, who was treading on his golden path of life in film industry. With a caption of, “once upon a time there was an angry young man type hero.” Who in his peak of carrier, arrogantly chose to boycott the leading print media of the time, without support of which, no celeb as such could survive in the public domain. And in this drive he succeeded, to such a point so that he brought the print media on his knees.

For without the gossips or stories related to his life or carrier no newspaper or magazine could increase its subscribers. It may or may not astonish you, this celeb was Amitabh Bachhan. Astonishingly, the same Amitabh bachhan’s situation got reversed, when bad circumstances hit him. Despite the fact that in this long span of time, he secured for himself the legendary conferment of “Big B.” 

This stands in the film industry, meaning there by a “Super MAN OR ABOVE ALL PEOPLE”. And what was that reverse situation? It was the occasion of his appearing in person, repeatedly, to promote his soon coming movies, in a hit comedy show of a novice, though a successful comedian Kapil Sharma.  

What is this? It is the metamorphoses of “Advertisement” in to “Promotion.” And what name it can be given to all this activity? simple ..the INSECURITY. Just I gave you the example of Amitabh Bachhan who long back took himself as a deep rooted pillar of Indian film industry, not to be replaced by any creature but shattered by the whirl of the time. So the labyrinth of “Promotion and Advertisement” is nothing but the play of wordings with a difference of scoring the good finance…. Penned by– Vinay Pharasi.