Shah Rukh Khan vs Aamir Khan:Who is the Better Marketer?

No one doubts the celebrity or endorsement power of Bollywoods Badshahs Shah Rukh Khan

(Shah Rukh) and Aamir Khan (Aamir). What started as a professional rivalry is also getting played

out in the brands endorsed by them, making it a keenly-watched and most-talked about celebrity

war. However, the most intriguing question doing rounds, both in Bollywood as well as corporate

world, these days is: who is the better marketer Shah Rukh or Aamir? While some thank them for

having set in motion refreshingly new brand of Indian film marketing with their exquisite marketing

blitzkrieg, many still wonder who would be a better marketer both for their home productions

movies, their respective business ventures as well for as their movies.

Business Today reported on the scaling up of an entertainment conglomerate by Shah Rukh

consisting of the segments ranging from film-making and visual effects to television commercials and

cricket. Highlighting Aamir as a marketing genius, it stated, films are his bread and butter, and

endorsements his jam.Aamir Khan, in contrast to SRK, has fewer irons in the fire but hes as effective.1

How both of them invented elaborate mental construct to manage the stardom in the backdrop of

Bollywoods transformation since early 1990s, sounds interesting.

Film Promotion: Scripted by Hollywood, Executed by Bollywood

Bollywood movies, prior to 1990s, were marketed and promoted by distributors through traditional

means such as television, radio and paid advertisement in print media. However, rapid

commercialisation of movies and advent of online media platforms through the 1990s and first decade

of the new millennium have augmented the traditional methods of movie promotion and marketing.

Bollywoods foray into overseas market during the same period helped it to pick up a few strings

from movie promotional tactics scripted by Hollywood.

Post-liberalisation, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) became the first Bollywood movie to be

released overseas targeting the Indian diaspora successfully. The following year, a musical love

This case study was written by Prashanth Vidya Sagar Thalluri under the guidance of Dr. Nagendra V. Chowdary, IBSCDC. It is

intended to be used as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management

situation. The case was compiled from published sources.

2010, IBSCDC.

No part of this publication may be copied, stored, transmitted, reproduced or distributed in any form or medium whatsoever

without the permission of the copyright owner.

1 Subramanian Anusha, The Other Khan: A Marketing Genius, Business Today, February 21st 2010

ecch the case for learningDistributed by ecch, UK and USA North America Rest of the worldwww.ecch.com t +1 781 239 5884 t +44 (0)1234 750903All rights reserved f +1 781 239 5885 f +44 (0)1234 751125Printed in UK and USA e ecchusa@ecch.com e ecch@ecch.com

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Shah Rukh Khan vs Aamir Khan: Who is the Better Marketer?

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story portraying the life of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and their Indian sentiment, Dilwale Dulhania

Le Jayenge (DDLJ) which set a new record at the Indian Box Office collections was also a

major hit overseas. Bollywood got a new vigour when Amitabh Bachchan was selected as the

Greatest Star of the Millennium2 in BBC online poll in July 1999, surpassing many Hollywood

legendary stars. Consequently, a number of movies such as Dil To Pagal Hai, Taal, Kuch Kuch

Hota Hai, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Hum Saath Saath Hain, Kaho Naa Pyar Hai, etc. were

released overseas. With each release, Bollywood attempted to adopt and execute the Hollywood-

style promotional strategies.

Implementing Hollywoods film promotional techniques in India such as creating buzz, showing

small movie clippings during a television show, talk shows involving crew and cast of the film describing

technical details of the film and their experiences respectively became a common practice of top

Bollywood stars. Leveraging on growing information technology, Bollywood promoted films in the

virtual world by creating websites containing movie trailers, rushes from the film and even virtual

games. Ramesh Taurani, a leading film producer states, Marketing a film in todays times is absolutely

imperative as our audiences want to get a taste of the film before they make up their minds to see it.

Marketing not only needs to spread in terms of demographics but it should also be relevant, interactive,

engaging and competitive.3

Many a Bollywood stars such as Salman Khan (Salman), Akshay Kumar (Akshay), Shah Rukh

andAamir attempted to promote their movies through buzz, viral and digital marketing. For promoting

his movie, Veer, Salman created buzz by announcing that he would ride a filly named Wild Rose at

the Million Horse Race sponsored by Hello magazine in Mumbai. He visited the multiplex, Prasads

IMAX in Hyderabad and also visited Jamnabai Narsee Schools Cascades annual day celebrations

in the suburban Mumbai along with Bollywood actress Pooja Bhatt and delivered an electrifying

message to children how to triumph in their lives in the Veer way.

Akshay, on the other hand, went a step ahead by promoting Singh is King in Silver City Brampton

in Toronto and by roping in singer Snoop Dogg for performing a promotional song for the movie. His

marketing team tied up with an entertainment portal, Sify.com, to launch an online quiz game4 to

promote Kambakht Ishq and gave away the movie merchandise as prizes to the winners.

The way Shah Rukhs Chak de India!, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Aamirs Ghajini and 3

Idiots were promoted, brought an innovative difference to movies and their success. The Ghajini

hair cut with the multiplex ushers and the online missing campaign of the 3 Idiots redesigned the

craft of film promotions in India. Their innovations hinged on unconventional platforms like personal

promotion, buzz marketing, viral marketing and digital marketing. Over a period of time, Shah

Rukh and Aamir graduated to scale up their own production houses Red Chillies Entertainment

(RCE) and Aamir Khan Productions (AKP) respectively aimed at fostering environment for

experimentation to find path-breaking ways in film production and to venture into allied businesses.

2 Srivastava Sanjeev, World: South Asia Bollywood superstar surprised by vote, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/

394226.stm, July 14 th 1999

3 Bhat Varada, The marketing of Bollywood, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2010/01/14/stories/

2010011450050100.htm, January 14 th 2010

4 qUIZ, http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/quiz/kambakht_ishq/

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Shah Rukh Khan vs Aamir Khan: Who is the Better Marketer?

Business Today and even some analysts claimed that Shah Rukh and Aamir, among all star

promoters, succeeded in receiving high collections for their movies due to their marketing prowess

and business skills. However, the charm and charisma of Shah Rukh and Aamir created by their

performances and careers also helped them become the icons of Bollywood.

Shah Rukh and Aamir: A Profile Comparison

By the end of 2009, Shah Rukhs production house, RCE had a net worth of INR 1,500 crore,

while AKP clocked in revenues of INR 350 crore.5 However, the paths chosen by these two actors

to achieve this stardom indicate stark differences ranging from their background to business ventures

success.

Shah Rukh had no film industry background while Aamir is closely associated with the film

industry. Shah Rukhs father Taj Mohammed Khan was a lawyer and a freedom fighter, and mother

Lateef Fatima Begum was a social worker and a first class magistrate.6 He began his acting career

with television serials such as Fauji and Circus in late 1980s and made his first film debut with

Deewana in 1992. On the other hand, Aamir was a descendant of freedom fighter and the first

Minister of Education of Independent India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and also of the former

Indian President, Dr. Zakir Hussain.7 The longest serving Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha,

Dr. Najma Heptullah isAamirs second cousin. His father, Tahir Hussain is a film producer while his

late uncle, Nasir Hussain was a producer, director and an actor as well. Aamir began his film career

with the film, Holi (1984), though he had acted as a child artiste in Nasir Hussains film, Yaadon Ki

Baaraat (1973).

Having no godfather in the film industry, Shah Rukh struggled to build the stardom from scratch,

whileAamir having film industry background attempted to consolidate and go ahead with the bubbly,

next-door neighbour boy image. But the genre range and breadth of the movies that each of

these actors acted in, over the years had been pretty much very narrow, as both the actors acted

largely in only one genre of the movie category i.e. romance such as Shah Rukhs Deewana,

DDLJ, etc., and Aamirs Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Ranageela (Annexures I, II, III and IV).

However, both the Khans apart from the regular commercial movie plots consciously selected

the plots championing the national and social cause also. For instance, Shah Rukhs Dil Se portrayed

the quest of a media person to stop the terrorist activities and Main Hoon Na espoused the cause of

India-Pakistan amity, while Aamirs Sarfarosh exposed the stringent effo