By Malay Desai
By: Lowe Lintas
Two new spots for the online ticketing site BookMyShow follow a Bollywood theme and show college-goers. In ‘Triangle’, a young man is shown taking increasing interest towards an attractive girl, overlooking his plain Jane friend. After showing various moments of this love triangle, the film winds up at a theatre where the three get separate seats. In ‘Sad Endings’, a group of youngsters are shown being disappointed at not having enough money to buy the only seats available at the counter, and subsequently even losing the money they have in the melodrama that follows. Both films end by talking of different features of the site.
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It’s the thick of the second shopping season of our year and another critical week for Bollywood. It’s the time when the rising middle class tries to show off its purchasing power but still looks for those loyalty points and one-plus-one offers. E-commerce sites have been doing their best to be visible, and among the loud forerunners is that start-up that got huge, BookMyShow (BMS).
As CEO Ashish Hemrajani hits the press and discusses the forthcoming tidings of his venture now under Network18, the marketing boys have duly reminded perhaps their biggest target audience — college-goers of their presence. The two films, each of 50 seconds have all the ingredients of hitting the sweet spot of the people it intends to.
In one, an Ishq Vishk type love triangle featuring a hot babe, plain Jane and a boy next door, BMS tries to impress upon the viewer that awkward seating isn’t fun. ‘Triangle filmo mein theek hai’, the voiceover begins, before showing off the BMS app that allows one to book the right seats. In another, a group
of friends are shown shattered hearing that the cheaper tickets are gone and they’d have to shell out 350 bucks for a movie, evidently too much by collegian standards. Smartly enough, after talking of booking cheaper shows online, the spot also mentions special offers, which are quite popular with card holders.
What works for both films — apart from of course young faces and a funny storyboard — is the melodrama. With the exaggerated Bollywood-style music going off at well-timed moments and some slow-mo shots especially in the ‘sad ending’ spot, the effect is hilarious, well at least from the perspective of a 21-year-old.
BMS does a lot of other ticketing, but Bollywood promises a safe route of communication. There are no risks in a masala film, and especially one which talks of a relevant feature of the product toward its end, it becomes a sureshot hit. They might not feature in award lists next year, but that’s not what they’re aiming for anyway.
As Dhoom 3 rakes in the good reviews and producers begin counting their cash, one BMS will hope the middle-class melodrama will continue. Merry wali Christmas!
To watch both these films, visit Youtube.com/BookMyShow
SOCIAL NEWSFEED
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