Bollywood cinema today is facing an unprecedented villain, one of its own making: PR.
Almost every film has PR strategies to promote it; some work, but some detriment its value to the extent that the strategy backfires.
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Take Aamir Khan’s Sitaare Zameen Par, for example; during promotions, Aamir answered endless questions on every platform available to him, often oversharing in ways that exhausted the audiences even before the film was released.
While the intention was to promote the actor and his cause, the strategy backfired. Even fans who were hyped lost interest at some point, stating they felt like they already knew what was coming.
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While PR strategies have proved to increase engagement, their excessive exposure makes the film feel stale before it hits the theaters.
On the other hand, there’s speculation that actors like Abhishek Bachchan, reportedly on the advice of their PR teams, now insist on filtered questions, even if they’re completely non-controversial.
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This was the case during Housefull 5 promotions, when overly restricted access distanced the audience from the film.
If done right, PR can uplift a film unlike any other medium, letting the anticipation rise through controlled build-ups, strategic drops, and fan interactions, organically generates a buzz among the masses. But this approach seems like a ritual of the past.
Caught in the middle of this drama are production houses. After investing crores in a project, they end up paying the price for flawed PR strategies, either because they overdo it or fail to create a genuine buzz.
What the audience suggests is for PR teams to find the sweet spot. In today’s time, when audiences attention spans are shorter than ever, creating authentic connections matters.
But if strategies takes away all the spotlight, the actual film gets sidelined, and sadly, no amount of marketing can save that.
