new Delhi The prolonged shutdown of cinemas over the past two years of the pandemic has had a profound impact on India’s movie theater business, with an overall two-year box office collection 5,757 crore. According to a recent report by media consultant Ormax, it is about 50% (or .) This is less than what the industry had earned in 2019 alone. With theaters reopening for the third time as the Omicron wave lifts, the release of big-ticket movies is being combined with enough marketing efforts to convince people that it’s safe to visit theaters. In an interview, Sanjeev Kumar Bijli, Joint Managing Director, PVR Limited, India’s largest multiplex chain, said that the company’s promotional efforts to express its commitment towards customer safety and hygiene comes at a time when the streaming platform is not a button. Provides entertainment at the click of At home. Edited excerpt:
As cinemas reopen after a long hiatus, are you planning to increase your advertising budget to inform that it is safe to visit them?
Yes, we certainly intend to communicate more aggressively with our consumers. When you look at advertising or communication in today’s world, it is about both digital spending and traditional spending. So we have increased the volume on our digital assets like Instagram, Twitter, social media, emailers and started communicating directly with our customers as we have data like email id and telephone number. The idea is to tell them that first of all, we are open, because there was a lot of confusion (during the third wave) since the closure of Delhi and Haryana and the rest of the markets were open, and also that we are safe.
Just before the third set of restrictions, we installed Wolf Airmasks in all our cinemas, a technology that neutralizes viruses in enclosed spaces. In terms of capital expenditure for the Wolf Airmask, we have approximately Rs. 9 crore because it is something that is available on all 860 screens across the country.
At the same time, we are not only following all protocols mandated by the government, such as 50% capacity restrictions or temperature checks, but also sanitizing auditoriums and other equipment more often. We have a marketing plan where the voice is going to be high and we’re looking at both our digital assets and traditional media, like newspapers and radio.
Do you have any new campaigns to emphasize the safety of cinema halls?
We have campaigns that are focused on safety, but a lot of it is also focused on upcoming movies, because at the end of the day, people are really attracted to certain types of content that they will come to theaters for. Plus, we have campaigns on offers from F&B (Food & Beverages) and on offers in general, such as getting points on your credit card, around vouchers, privilege cards, loyalty memberships.
Did you see any other revenue generation efforts?
There were so many challenges because we were locked in for so long. But we were able to launch two products. Ek Thee We Pristine, where we provide cleaning services to homes or offices and buildings and it is still running. Earlier it was launched in Delhi, NCR and now it is present in Mumbai, Bengaluru and other cities. Then, there was our microwave popcorn called PopMagic, which we have managed to sell through our platform and through aggregators like Swiggy and Zomato.
How open are you to showing cricket, like the IPL, or content other than feature films?
We are always ready to screen alternative material; We screened the ICC T20 India-Pakistan match in October and got a great response. We also watch gaming events. We tied up with NODWIN GAMING (an e-sports company) and launched the PVR NODWIN Cup, which was a ticketed event last year.
How do you like the upcoming movie slate?
March is going to be a good big month for us with Jhund, The Batman, Bachchan Pandey and RRR. And then after the next financial year, we have some good films like Jersey, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and KGF 2; Later, there are Prithviraj and Shamshera. It looks like a strong line-up and we are very excited that it will bring people back to theaters in a big way.
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