Agneepath recovers one-fourth of acquisition figure for Zee in the first airing

The channel bought Agneepath for about Rs 37 crore, while on the back of the first premiere of the movie, on June 16, it has already recovered one fourth of the total amount (Rs 8.7 crore), as per media experts.

Agneepath, the Hindi film with an opening record on the box office of Rs 21.76 crore on the first day of release, has already earned Zee Cinema about Rs 8.7 crore for its first world television premiere. The channel got on-board eight brands to be exclusively associated with the movie.

The market experts believe that the sponsors must have spent a little higher, since the premier comes with a twin screening. Rin, which is the presenting sponsor for the movie, is said to have come on board for about Rs 1.7-1.8 crore. Ideally, a presenting sponsor gets a share of 700-800 seconds in a three-hour movie.

The 'powered by' sponsor, Good Knight Advanced, is estimated to have spent Rs 1-1.2 crore, opting for 400-500 seconds in the premiere. As per market sources, the co-presenter, Vim, must have invested about Rs 80-90 lakh for the 200-300 seconds acquired in the movie.

Apart from these, the channel has got eight associate sponsors, who have spent an estimated sum of Rs 50-60 lakh each. These include Pantene, Lenovo, Lifebuoy, Vaseline, Superactive, NIIT and Honda.

A media expert, on condition of anonymity, says, "The gap between the spends of the presenting sponsor and the associate sponsor is very high. It's majorly because the presenting sponsor is mentioned in each of the communication related to the property, while the associate sponsors are exposed only during the time when the movie is on-air."

The network bought the movie for about Rs 37 crore. It acquired Don 2 (screened on the fifth Saturday of March) for approximately the same amount and the movie garnered about 1.72 TVR (C&S 4+), which was lower than expectations.

Another media expert, who doesn't want to be named, tells afaqs! that the brands do get some flexibility on account of the premium charges. Also, the parent company of the sponsor brands can very well use a share of the airtime to promote its other brands.

The channel promoted the movie aggressively through on-air campaigns, which started about a month ago on the Zee Network channels including Zee Cinema, Zee TV, Zee Marathi and Zee Bangla. Other genres such as news, music, Bollywood entertainment, kids' channels, regional channels and even religious channels were being used for the campaign.

The outdoor promotion were carried out across 12 cities in the Hindi speaking markets (HSM). There were print tune-in full-page ads on the date of airing, that is, Saturday June 16. Also, the channel tied up with various DTH platforms such as Dish TV, Airtel DTH and Tata Sky.

Zee Cinema also promoted Agneepath across 322 theatres across HSM (multiplexes and single screens) during the screening of Rowdy Rathore.

There was a flashmob activity performed on the item number from the movie, Chikni Chameli, which was followed by a light-hearted interactive quiz where people were gifted Agneepath merchandise on the spot.

The channel also invested in online banner ads on Google, Facebook and other social networking sites.