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Sometimes a film is more than just a film. It expands beyond the confines of cinema and television screens and touches its audience, connects with them in ways that mean much more than just entertainment. It establishes a relationship with the audience, a relationship that lasts much longer than the film''s running time. Just as the best of brands do with their consumers. Yes, some films become brands, offering all their stakeholders the chance to reap super-normal commercial benefits. But only some films.

When Rang De Basanti tapped into urban middle- class frustration and anger, it did more than earn just its box- office collections. It influenced social behaviour and took its place in the small pantheon of iconic Hindi films. Other than initiating a national debate on vigilanteism, it also changed the face of civil protests in the country. The real-life candlelight vigils seeking justice in the Jessica Lal murder case in front of India Gate in Delhi were modelled on the ones that Aamir Khan and Waheeda Rehman led in the film.

Similarly, Lage Raho Munnabhai suddenly heightened public interest in Mahatma Gandhi''s beliefs and tenets. The film had just made the Mahatma �cool� once more.

These films may be the biggest Bollywood brands that have appeared in the last few years, but there have been others too. Dhoom and its sequel have promoted speed and gelled-hair, stubble-bearded machismo as lifestyle, and Krrish has created a brand with enormous equity among children. And Don is a brand that is male, sexy and dangerous.

What �brand� films offer are varied revenue streams not encashable by the more ordinary. Products and services promoted in a brand film benefit, as associative marketing with the film becomes a cakewalk. Once it is established as a brand, it helps to take the marketing exercise to a next level as a lot of credibility has got attached to it. Brand Rang De Basanti is chosen as a nominee for MTV''s youth icon. In a case of classic brand extension, films like Spiderman 3 and Krrish can sell merchandise, ranging from toys to T-shirts to games.

Says Preet Bedi, CEO, Percept Pictures Company: �When a film becomes a brand, whoever promotes that brand also gets to commercially exploit it.� Filmmaker and producer Farhan Akhtar adds: �Films like Don and its sequel give a platform where you can stretch the marketing activities because they lend themselves as brands. It can''t be done through every film though.� Another big advantage of hitting the brand jackpot is the chance to make sequels whose commercial success is more or less assured. Munnabhai''s jump from medical school Munnabhai MBBS, to Gandhian school of values Lage Raho to the United States of America Munnabhai chale America, currently in planning stage has been possible only because of brand Munnabhai. Says Sidhartha Kapoor Roy, marketing head, UTV Motion Pictures: �The film that has established itself as a brand can give a lot of leverage to the producers. It can always be made into a sequel like it happened in the case of Dhoom and Munnabhai as the sequels will have the resonance of the accolades received by the first film.�

But not all super-hit films have the ability to become brands. Glossy successes like Karan Johar''s Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna or even Yashraj''s Fanaa could not manage to achieve �brand� status. So what sets the brand films apart? Says Pritish Nandy of Pritish Nandy Communications: �A film becomes a brand either by the huge critical acclaim it draws or by its huge commercial success as both are reasons for a film to rise above its immediate environment and be remembered. And ultimately, that is what makes a brand.� But, he cautions: �you cannot have just any old blockbuster becoming a brand. The iconic film is a film that has the power to grab the imagination of people and hold on to it.�

�The problem with most producers is that they are so busy chasing what they see as the commercial potential of the film that they often lose sight of the brand- building opportunity,� says Nandy. �Commercial success and brands are not necessarily the same thing. In fact, too much of boast of box office profits diminishes, in my opinion, the iconic stature of a film. An iconic film is beyond money. It is about entering the consciousness of a Nation.�

Brands are beyond money? Perhaps so. Indeed, Bedi feels that not only are big successful films in the brand category, even a few small films like Bheja Fry have begun to exist as brands in the two-tier space. In other words, the film brand space has room for both a Dove and a Rexona.

Screen India