Guest Lecture by Mr. Gautam Thakker

The Marketing Club, BUZZ arranged a guest lecture by Mr Gautam Thakker, CEO of Everymedia Technologies. The lecture was insightful and an informative one. He particularly highlighted the digital marketing of movies and brands which was the forte of Everymedia. Mr Gautam started with a montage showing the digital marketing campaign of the super hit movie Agneepath, starring Hrithik Roshan and Sanjay Dutt which he had handled. The campaign was hugely successful with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube collectively generating a very high revenue.  Despite all this huge success he explained that the digital market is a hugely untapped media for revenue generation and it is still being experimented. He spoke on the digital marketing of movies and brands which was the forte of Everymedia. Although he had various other videos lined up for the lecture, students were excited to know more about the business that they kept Mr Thakker engaged during the entire session with various questions. The question posed to Mr Thakker ranged from “how the financial Structure of a digital media advertising of movies works”, “Is media advertising considering the huge success of the viral 'Kolavari Di' video an organic or inorganic” and “What impact a star has on the success of a film or a brand that he endorses” and many more such questions. He answered to all these question comprehensively giving real life industry examples.

He explained that no campaign that is hit today is just by chance citing examples from that of ”Kolaveri di” in which he tactfully cleared the doubts that it is always a tricky and calculative business. No idea is good or bad unless it works out. He also explained in context to the questions asked that marketing a movie with big stars like Shahrukh Khan and Amir Khan is relatively easier as the stars bring with them a lot of media attention and as such grabs attention nationwide. However the smaller concept movies like 'Vicky Donor' with newbie actors has to be marketed aggressively and intelligently to create a hype that will pull the crowds to theaters. Most importantly digital marketing is used to save money and not to earn revenue from. When asked by students whether it is safer to use a big star for promoting a brand, Mr Gautam elaborated how some firms had achieved success by not involving celebrities and using clever marketing gimmicks which could save money and also ensure long term brand image. 

All along student gained a lot of insights into the unexplored world of Digital Marketing and found the session beneficial.

Mr Gautam has also been judge to the FILMARK event at Simerations’13 and was received by a warm welcome from the students.