Love him or hate him, you just can’t get away from him. Welcome to the world of Salman Khan. Behind the façade of a smirking superstar, is a marketing brain that has ensures that he remains a very strong brand. Salman Khan started his film career from a small film called “Biwi ho to aise” but became famous with the love story “Maine Pyar Kiya”.
Today Salman Khan is worth almost, $ 275 Million, according to various sources which have to be validated. With interests in movies, endorsements, a production and a life style brand “Being Human” the valuations are bound to go up. In my opinion these are the three things that Salman Khan has done right from a management perspective.
Segmentation: One thing that Salman has got spot on is Segmentation. He knows is target audience is the 18-30 something, mostly male and living in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. He chooses roles that help him cement his post and appeal to the aspirations of this class of people. If you look at the movies of late from Bodyguard to Dabangg, they have all factored in on this image of Salman. Getting the target audience right is a very big challenge for most marketing professionals. As segmentation is always done on the values sought by the audience or customers, this is a key ingredient in the success of the brand Salman Khan.
Targeting- Salman leaves no stone unturned in reaching his target audience. Once he has his segment locked down he uses the right channels to reach out to them. By far his biggest asset is the vulnerability as a human and he plays it to the best of his advantage. Salman also promotes most of his ventures throw road shows meeting common people to set up that connect. This form of targeting is very unique. Imagine the CEO of an FMCG company coming down to the shopping malls and meeting the shoppers, not once in a while but regularly. I think such a connect does wonders for the brand.
Positioning- The final ingredient to brand Salman. His positioning is of this highly motivated yet mis- understood individual. This is something that most of his target audience readily relates to. Most young men in that age have three things in common, they are ambitious, they are impatient and they usually end up rubbing people the wrong way and being mis understood. So in conclusion what Indian businesses can learn from Salman is to identify the target market and tailor their offerings accordingly.
Most corporates like film stars try to be many things to many people but not Salman, he is the same to his set of people and that has worked wonders for his brand.
Doc,
ReplyDeleteAgree. This thought is sort of dilbert-type-anti-management principle :-)
May be some rogue products/brands which have CSR issues like fast foods spreading obesity, colored drinks which pollute ground water, exclusive garments made of leather from rare animals can learn on how to position themselves :-). They can play the role of being victimized and being misunderstood to sell their product to a segment of customers who are pro junk food, hunting or don't care much much about pollution.
dp
I think Salman Khan just got lucky. With his limited acting abilities, it is only so far that talent can take you. It will be challenging to see how much more of this "phase" the audience can put up with.
ReplyDeletePositioning is the ultimate trick to his magic. Not many film stars can do that. These days they are even influenced by some commonplace mgmt. theories. They openly talk about professionalism, team management and what not….. which I feel is an ultimate killer to their image. When people are bogged down with the mumbo jumbo of the typical corporate world, they don’t want to hear all that from film stars again. No matter how professional you are or the film industry is, what makes you the star Is your larger than life image. And for God’s sake you cannot talk to your fans about such earthly things like professionalism and work ethics no matter how much practice them. I feel this is where Salman scores very high. He connects with his fans at an emotional level rather than trying to prove himself as a trend changing hero or a perfectionist. Films to the common people Is still a world of dreams and Salman is able to lock him within that arena in spite of the humongous effort from the media to peep into every star’s personal space, shell out their secrets and bring them down to the level of common people.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Doc - Salman has identified his target audience and works smartly to maintain his dream image to those people. And it definitely takes some vision to come up with a Dabang style movie in this decade when everybody else is focusing on contemporary topics or copying from the west.
I am a die-hard fan of Salman Khan, all the more for his gesture of charity and helping the struggling folks in the industry. I can go on for pages about him but I guess the readers need a break!
I agree DP this almost a very basic form of reverse psychology.
ReplyDeleteHi Arch
ReplyDeleteI agree luck has a lot to do with it, but the key is positioning which he has done well.
Hi Reekhia
ReplyDeleteTotally agree and he is giving the masses what they want, that is entertainment.
Thank you Cfp....
ReplyDelete