# Introduction n recent era, brands and products are more and more appearing in Hindi movies popularly known as Bollywood. Otherwise such concept was only popular in Hollywood movies. Increasingly, the Indian movie industry is using this technique for promoting as well as earning revenue. Obviously for audiences, it makes movie viewing experience more real. Two reasons are attributable to such a change. First, with increase in production cost of movies, such secondary sources of revenue act as an additional benefit to the financers as well as producers of a movie. Second, with the growing population of the young urban middle class in the Indian economy it becomes more important to satisfy need of this changing economy that this class follows. From the brand managers' point of view using product placements as a tool in movies provides his product and or brand with a higher reach and penetration level. It is true for India that many villages don't have electricity but they have cinema halls running on generator sets. This makes the use of product placement through celebrities as an ideal way to push them for use. From the perspective of a sponsor neither advertisement nor publicity provides the appropriate blend as the sponsor has control over the message and its content only but the audience decides its credibility. Hence according to Balasubramanian (1994) a different form of marketing communication tool is required. Product placement is a tool which can effectively combine both advertisement and publicity components. Again since placements are paid for they are sponsor controlled messages both in their format and content. In the broader Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) context, all the elements of the marketing mix need to be integrated and co-ordinate to achieve both the marketing and organizational objectives, in targeting a specific market. Van der Waldt (2005) contextualized product placements in movie and broadcast programmers as a communication vehicle within IMC. Since 1970s, product placement in movies existed in India. One of the famous product placements in Hindi movie was appearance of the yellow coloured 'Rajdoot' bike in the movie 'Bobby'. However the first recognized in-film placement in India was that of 'Cocacola' in the movie 'Taal' in the year 1999. Thereafter, Indian movie producers, advertisers and corporate began to show interest in this advertising technique. They started to use it as a part of their Integrated Marketing Communication Strategy and accounted for 10-15% of their total marketing budget as confirmed by report published and as quoted in book. This industry is still at its nascent stage in India. In Bollywood, 'In-film' placements help to garner business of not more than Rs.10 crore each year, which is minuscule compared to Hollywood as one of the news article confirms. In recent time, though concept of placing brands in movies is widespread, it is not easy to determine the effectiveness of brand placements because much of the data on their effectiveness is proprietary (Karrh, 1998; Yang, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2004). Consequently, very little is known about the effect of brand placements despite the dynamic nature of this practice (Babin & Carder, 1996a As with the many previous studies, the main purpose of the current study was to explore the effect of brands placed in hindi movies. First, prior research suggests that how the brands were presented in the movie might lead to different responses from the audience (Russell, 2002). The current study focused on the how movie genre, type of placement and gender of viewers influence the recall of brands placed in Hindi movies. Second, the current study also explored which product categories are highly recognized by the viewers. Brand recall was used as measure of explicit memory, which has been used in measuring the effect of brand placements. # II. # Literature Review Theoretically, product placement has been defined as "a paid product message aimed at influence movie or TV audiences via the planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into the movie or TV programme" ( Balasubramanian, 1994). Also Brand placements can be defined as ''the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within mass media programming'' (Karrh, 1998, p. 33). Though, it is not stated in this definition, brand placements have been conducted for increasing brand familiarity and sales. Some of the advantages of brand placements practices include overcoming the problem of zapping because people are unlikely to change the channel or leave the room when a brand appears within a movie like they do for commercials (Avery & Ferraro 2000;d'Astous & Chartier, 2000). In addition, product placements often involve an endorsement by the celebrity using the brands which have a influence on attitudes toward the brand (Avery & Ferraro, 2000). Further, brand placements allow advertisers to target very specific audiences because the demographics of who attends what kind of movie are well understood (Nebenzhal & Secunda, 1993). Brand placements also have a longer life span than typical advertisements (Brennan et al., 1999;d'Astous & Chartier, 2000). When a movie is released as a DVD or shown on TV, the brand placement is typically still present. The research regarding the effect of brand placements on memory generally finds that memory is improved for a brand that is placed within a movie, compared with the same brand that is not placed within a movie (Karrh, 1998). However, the early research on the effect of brand placements on brand memory was mixed (Babin & Carder, 1996a, 1996b;Ong & Meri, 1994). The inconsistency of these early findings altered the research question from whether the brand placements were effective to the factors that moderate the effect of brand placements on brand memory. Studies found that placements that are more visually prominent result in greater memory for the brand than Gupta and Lord (1998) also distinguished the product placement into two modes by the strategic purpose. They based on the degree of product placement and how obvious it is. The two modes are Prominent Product Placement and Subtle Product Placement. Above studies reveals that very little work has been done in the Indian context and on Bollywood movies. In order to fill that gap, authors have tried to investigate impact of different types of Product Placement types in Hindi Movies. # III. # Development of Hypothesis This study is designed to provide understanding of factors which may influence viewer recall of brands appeared in Hindi movies. And such understanding is important for public relations practitioners while counselling clients about strategic brand placements in movies and when they consider placement decisions within strategic public relations program planning. In this research, we examine three variables which have been little researched with respect to brand placement in Hindi movies: Movie genre (Action/ Drama/ Comedy), According to Tan (1996), an important motivation for watching movies is the emotional experience they offer. Television programs and movies have been found to induce strong and enduring emotions and moods (Capentier et (Zillmann, 2000). Comedy provides memory escape from real life and elicits laughter through exaggeration of situation, characters action and language. Action movies, on the other hand, supply a different mood to viewers by using non-stop motion, chase scenes, frequent stunts fights, and spectacular sounds and rhythms compared to other genre (Dirks, 2000). Drama is the largest movie genre (Dirks, 2000) and it invites more audience involvement (Vorderer & Knobloch, 2000), it is most frequently used movie genre for placing brands in movies (Sapolsky & Kinney, 1994), the following hypothesis is proposed: H1: Viewer recall scores will be significantly higher for brands placed in drama movies than in other movie genres. # Global # b) Placement Type Most recall studies suggest that viewers do recognize and recall brands, products, and services placed in movies. For example, Steortz (1987) used telephone and theatre exit surveys to test brand recall, finding that aided recall averaged about 38% among audiences and that recall was affected by prominence of product placement in the movie. Similarly, Zimmer and Delorme (1997) found in a movie clip experiment that viewers recalled about 33% of brands and recognized 55% of brands. Viewer recall appeared to be affected by prominence of the displayed brand, whether or not brands were mentioned verbally, and the extent of character involvement with the brand. In another movie clip experiment, more than 90% of viewers were able to recall products (Vollmers & Mizerski, 1994). Children also recognized and recalled brands, products, and services (Vollmers, 1995). H2: Viewer recall scores will be significantly higher for brands placed in prominent type than in subtle type. # c) Gender Differences Several studies have examined relationships between viewer gender and movie genre. Richards and Sheridan (1987) examined the appeal of different movie genres using a sample of 550 moviegoers. They found that females preferred romance, history, and love story themes, while males preferred action, crime, and sex story themes. In studying gender differences regarding the enjoyment of sad or unhappy movies (dramas), Oliver (1993) demonstrated that males are less involved with, less interested in, less emotionally responsive to, and take less enjoyment in sad movies compared to females. Such differences in involvement, interest, and emotional responses suggest the following hypotheses regarding viewer gender and brand placement in movies: H3: There is Significant difference between recall scores different Genders. IV. # Research Methodology a) Participants One hundred and thirty seven Post graduate students pursuing their MBA participated in this study. The sample had 94 females and than 43 males and all the participants ranged in age from 20 to 24 years. Members of this age group attend movies at least one each month and are referred to as the "target market" for many movies (Dortch, 1996). Upon arrival at a classroom, participants were randomly assigned movie clips to view and assess. Through this process, 53 respondents were assigned to action movie, 43 to comedy, and 41 to drama. # b) Selection of Movies 3 Hindi movies (one per each genre) were selected and edited to 10 minutes in length. Ten-minute movie clips are long enough to induce various emotions and present genre's differences (Gunter, Furnham, & Beeson, 1997;Kennedy, 1971). Most experimental studies use movie clips ranging from 5-30 minutes in length. The 4 movies used for the movie clips were drawn from the list lists of box office hit movies. The genre of each movie was determined by using Dirks's (2000) comprehensive movie classification system and by assessing the distinguishing characteristics of the movie content. Also Product placement type was determined with help of experts of the topic. The movies and brands used and type of placement in the experiment are listed in Table 1. Most of the selected brands are very familiar to customers, and this may have reduced the potential for variance of recall among brands. # Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XV Issue VII Version I Year 2015 ( E ) # c) Procedure The experiment was conducted in classroom and clips were shown to participants with the help of projector with sound system. Before movie clips were shown, the researchers briefly informed participants about the movie titles and shared short movie descriptions. The goal of the experiment was not revealed. After viewing the 10-minutes movie clips, respondents completed a brief questionnaire. The questionnaire asked respondents to recall brands for the given product categories. Here product categories were given as clue for recalling brands. Respondents also were also asked to indicate age and gender. Viewer recall and recognition have long been used as indicators of potential effectiveness (Rossiter & Percy, 1997; Stewart, Ratneshwar, Strow, & Bryant, 1985), and in brand placement studies, aided recall, unaided recall, and recognition tests have been used extensively. Each respondent's combined score in recall tests was used as the dependent variable. The range for possible scores was 0 to 4 because each movie clip was featuring four brands. Genre, Placement type, and gender were used as independent variables in each analysis. Data analysis was performed using SPSS. To test the hypotheses, ANOVA tests and t-tests were performed with the recall scores as the dependent variable. V. # Results # a) Movie Genre and Brand Recall The one way analysis of variance test was used to compare differences in brand recall scores according to genre (Table -2). Means for the three genres were: action (2.53), comedy (3.00), and drama (3.08). The difference between mean brand recall scores for drama and action movies is statistically significant (F 2, 2.810, p. < .05), while differences between means for comedy and drama movies, and comedy and action movies, are not significant. Thus, respondents demonstrated significantly higher recall scores for brands in drama versus action movies, and H1 is partially supported. # b) Placement Type and Brand Recall The One way ANOVA test was used to compare differences in brand recall scores according to placement type genre (Table -3). Means for the two placement type were: Subtle (2.40), and Prominent (3.60). This difference between mean brand recall scores for Prominent and subtle placement type is statistically significant (F 2, 3.58, p. < .05), thus, respondents demonstrated significantly higher recall scores for brands placed in prominent type than in subtle type, and H2 is strongly supported. # c) Gender of viewers and Brand Recall Anticipated differences in brand recall by gender were not found. Though mean brand recall scores for male respondents were higher those of female respondents (Table -4), but the differences were not statistically significant. Thus, H3 was not supported. # Discussion The goal of this study was to examine whether movie genre, placement type, and viewer gender influenced brand recall, all factors which might be considered by practitioners during strategic decision making and which have been little researched. Results suggested that brand recall scores are highest in drama movies for both genders, and dramas may therefore provide better placement opportunities for some brands and products. Further it reveals that placing products prominently in movies generate higher recall than placing subtly. Finally, Research presented here could be improved in several respects. First, the intensity of viewer emotion was not examined, and emotional intensity during encoding has been shown to influence the extent to which stimuli are recalled (Dutta & Kanugo, 1975). The specific mood states induced by different movie genres need further investigation. Second, movie involvement and interest are other important variables, and these were not studied. The degree of viewer involvement with, a movie and product can be important factors in brand recall (Gunter & Wober, 1992). Similarly, Gunter et al. (1997) demonstrated that audience evaluation of programs was significantly related to advertising recall. ![Finally, surveys have found that audiences like brand placements because they improve the realism of a movie or TV show (Gupta & Gould, 1997; Gupta et al., 2000; Nebenzahl & Secunda, 1993; Ong & Meri, 1994).](image-2.png "") 1Movie nameProductsBrand nameProduct Placement TypeAjab Prem ki GajabSoft drinkPepsiProminentKahaniDTH serviceReliance big TVSubtle(Drama)Ice CreamBaskin RobbinsSubtleCoffeeNescafeProminentKamineyMobile HandsetSamsungProminent(Action)Radio FM93.5 FMSubtleDTH serviceReliance big TVSubtleTwo wheelerPleasureProminentAll the bestApparelsBarcelonaProminent(Comedy)LCD TVSamsungSubtleWrist watchRolexProminentAirlinesKingfisher, Jet airwaysSubtle 2SourceSSDfMSFBetween Groups14.2327.432.80*Within Groups233.431341.53Total250.42136*p < .05. 3Year 201512Volume XV Issue VII Version IE )(Global Journal of Management and Business Research 4GenderMeanSDNMale3.301.1143Female3.101.2694VI. © 2015 Global Journals Inc. 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