Marketing ‘Baahubali’: India’s Biggest Blockbuster

Indian movie production house Arka Mediaworks’ first instalment of the two-part epic fantasy film Baahubali (“The One with Strong Arms”) – the Beginning (Baahubali) took the Indian box office by storm and set the cash registers ringing, raking in Rs. 2.15 billion in revenue within just five days of its release worldwide on July 10, 2015. The movie also set records in North America, earning US$3.6 million in a 236-screen limited release, for an exceptional US$15,254 per-screen average. It was among the top 10 movies released that week in the US (See Exhibit I). According to trade analysts, rarely had an Indian regional movie created such a box-office frenzy as this fantasy epic mounted on a lavish scale and marketed in an equally slick way had done. According to Debasmita Ghosh, content manager for brand Code{ur}idea , “Given such smart marketing strategies through with Baahubali spread its wings on social media, and dared to walk off the beaten track, it certainly comes as no surprise that this was a campaign that many are henceforth going to take a leaf out of.”...