New Delhi, 12 Jan (UNI) Marketing films today is no longer limited to their storylines or lead actors, with dialogues, songs, and dance hook steps often released well ahead of a movie’s theatrical debut to build a brand and generate buzz.
These shifts in film promotion form the focus of ‘When Branding Met the Movies’, a new book published by the National Book Trust (NBT) and released on Monday at the New Delhi World Book Fair 2026.
Chaitanya K Prasad authored the book along with Vaishnavie Shrinivasan and Zoya Ahmad.
According to the authors, the book goes beyond the movies, exploring the aspects that happen around them, including marketing strategies, star personas, production houses and social media ecosystems, that often shape a film’s reception and longevity.
This book sets out to unpack that alchemy across the vast film ecosystem: Bollywood and Hollywood, regional powerhouses and indie outliers. It moves from the personal branding of stars and filmmakers to the legacy-building strategies of production houses; from fashion, film festivals, and awards to the marketing machines and social media ecosystems that keep films alive long after the credits roll. What makes a film linger in our collective consciousness and quietly become part of who we are? That is the question at hand.
The book examines what branding is, really. How did it evolve from simple trademarks into layered narratives that now surround almost everything we consume? Cinema branding, in particular, is a peculiar creature. It operates simultaneously at multiple levels, the film, the star, the director, the studio, each constructing identities that often outlast the films themselves.
The release was followed by a panel discussion attended by senior officials and film professionals, including Senthil Rajan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting; Ajay Nagbhushan, Joint Secretary (Films); filmmaker and advertising professional Anand Kumar, Vice Chancellor of the Film and Television Institute of India; filmmaker Dhiraj Singh; and Utpal Borpujari.
