Vivek Ramadevan: Nepotism thrives as film families understand the business better

During my MBA days, I read a book called What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School by Mark H McCormack, the founder of celebrity management in the West, which ignited a spark in me. After graduation, I joined an advertising agency in Palakkad, owned by V A Shrikumar (the director of Odiyan). One of our clients was Kalyan Jewellers, who sponsored an event celebrating Mohanlal’s 25th year in cinema.

During this event, I pitched the idea of celebrity management to them, but most were unaware of it. Prithviraj, however, had an interesting response— “How will you manage my career? What background or knowledge do you have in cinema? Since I was born into the world of cinema, I would know more than you,” he told me. It was a valid and relevant question. I knew marketing and branding, but not the medium. So I decided to introduce new talents to the cinema, who won’t ask me the same questions. It started with Padmapriya in Kazhcha. She was the first actor I started managing and we collaborated on around 50 films.

Typically, most actors were helped by the people who introduced them to cinema, often parents or non-experts in the medium. Directors or producers are not career managers and exploitation due to naivety was common, as seen with Kavya Madhavan’s parents. Asin’s father was an exception as he smartly managed her career throughout, till she moved to Mumbai. Unlike today’s digital age, reaching out without a film background was difficult. This is why nepotism has always thrived — film families understand the business better.

Yes, I read scripts or attend narrations for most people I work with, including directors. Some managers excel at negotiations and business, but I focus on content, making people comfortable with my script opinions. With freshers, it’s an added responsibility since they trust my judgement entirely. Each decision can be costly in this industry.

With Padmapriya, I have done that. I also played a significant role in Sudev Nair’s journey. I have also worked with actors like Shwetha Menon, Rima Kallingal, and Parvathy at different points of time, and some choose to manage careers on their own.

I don’t filter much. Trust and comfort are crucial. Celebrities are not commodities. I work according to their needs and aspirations. I welcome everybody because I believe in supporting anyone who needs my services. Everyone with talent deserves a chance. Early in my career, I used to be prejudiced and make mistakes by underestimating talents, just based on their looks. With time, I’ve realised that there’s a space for everyone in this industry, given they have the patience and passion. Patience is crucial as the journey can be morale-breaking. Sometimes, their struggles affect you because this job cannot be done by staying emotionally detached. Though I can’t always help beyond a point, our effort, irrespective of the outcome, makes a difference.

Obviously! During such situations, proper decision-making is important. You have to decide which way you want to go — whether you speak up or remain silent, how you counter at a given point in time, all of these are closely monitored by the public. Unlike before, we now prepare celebrities for such scenarios, and even the ones who manage them are also prepared for the same. We work with Priya Varrier, a victim of continuous backlash, but we don’t have an answer for it. As an artist, she can only focus on her work, do things positively and move on.

Everybody has a personality and you can’t tell people to change themselves completely. They can never be something which they are not. I’ve been friends with Ranjini Haridas for long and I recall her reading negative comments aloud, almost enjoying them. She has a unique personality and take things lightly. This attitude and her Malayalam, in turn, became a part of her brand. She stayed true to herself, and her brand was shaped by her resilience.

Similarly, Priya Varrier has a personality before entering the cinema. Once you’re in the limelight, you can only be who you are. Priya has a substantial following, though much of the criticism seems to come from the Kerala market. It sometimes feels like we escalate negativity to an extreme level here. I haven’t observed such viciousness toward celebrities outside Kerala. For instance, we’ve faced significant backlash for films like Mamangam, and it’s puzzling when these critics haven’t even seen the film.

We have a long strategy planning for everybody’s brand or career. When one controversy happens you can’t change the entire set of well-thought plans and backtrack into something else. You also know today that backlashes are inevitable. So, you have provided it in your plan itself. Very rarely do things happen that you haven’t thought of. When a backlash happens, we advise the celebs to react and sometimes not to as well. But after that uproar, you go back and stick to the plan. If you put in extra effort to compensate, the people of Kerala will see through it. So it’s better to stick to your plan. Prithvi is one of the most intelligent people in the industry and yet, he faces backlash for what he is. I admire him for his personality — candid and straightforward, which people can’t take. But what can he do about it?

Asif, like most actors from Malayalam, doesn’t like giving interviews or doing PR. They’re lazy and feel awkward about self-brand promotion. Some are also inherently introverted. It’s only because of this situation that Asif is being pushed to do more interviews. I don’t think he has any choice.

No one likes controversies, but I think there should be some occasional ones. It helps build your brand and personality. Unlike before, it’s not feasible to be just known for your films, like a Lalettan or Mammookka.

An actor’s brand should be what they stand for, their personality, and you better communicate it. This helps differentiate you from others. Tovino has done this brilliantly. Through his workout videos, etc, we now have an idea of him. Regarding Prithviraj, we know he is a straight-forward, well-read guy. This differentiation is very essential, especially since competition is so high and social media is a good tool for it.

It demanded huge effort with a whole lot of strategies and planning involved. Even now when I think about it, I get tense. We decided not to expose Dulquer before we reached the launch phase. The entire shoot happened without any media being allowed. At that time, location coverage by film magazines was a big deal and I still remember getting a lot of hate for not putting out Mammootty’s son to the public. But we wanted the world to see Dulquer only when we wanted him to be seen.

It was our strategy, which Mammooka and Dulquer were comfortable with. Hypothetically, if we had launched Dulquer before the movie as Mammooty’s son, people would have started developing negativity. By not spotlighting Dulquer before release, we maintained a positive talk around it. We balanced the visibility by promoting Sunny Wayne equally. This approach lifted the pressure off Dulquer, allowing him to perform on his own terms. At the end of the day, people flocked to the theatre not due to marketing but because of their love for Mammookka. While we didn’t achieve something extraordinary, we certainly didn’t ruin it either. I’ve seen star kids’ launches falter in various markets.

If you have a will, you can still do it. Content will go out only when you decide it. For example, filmmakers like Rajamouli and Mani Ratnam keep details under wraps until they choose to release them. See, it is not like for Second Show, people didn’t know there was Dulquer, they were aware that a film of Mammooka’s son was happening. But nobody had seen Dulquer. There was even an instance where someone approached Dulquer, unaware of who he was, and asked if Mammootty’s son was indeed acting in a film. His photos were not available anywhere and we wanted this advantage to be converted to tickets.

Interviews only click if done with the right media and with discussions about the film. About 80 per cent of the time, interviews today have nothing to do with films and we are unable to control it here. In Mumbai, PR folks clearly put their foot down and the media follows it. I think the organised media in Kerala follows the same to some extent, but there’s so much unorganised media here and they opt for such interviews for their own sustenance. At best, they are a necessary evil.

Also, there’s no such thing as overmarketing. There’s only marketing. But undermarketing is a thing. I know directors who do this either because they are not confident about the product or they don’t want the audience to expect too much. Undermarketing is fine if your movie is not having much competition on weekends. But if you try this ploy when there are other movies in the mix, your movie will tank.

Ideally, small films should have a higher percentage of cost devoted to marketing. They are the ones which could benefit from more visibility. But here, what happens often is the smaller the film, the smaller the advertising/marketing budget. Also, marketing is not just limited to digital media or putting up film hoardings. It needs to be thought out well.

Indeed, but it is your last medium. It was always the case in advertising. It was the ‘reminder’ medium. Nobody goes to a film after seeing a hoarding. But the decision to go happens elsewhere. Maybe a trailer or teaser. People here ignore this. If you ask me, a theatrical teaser or trailer is a must. This is where you get the biggest impact. It’s also the most cost-effective as you’re reaching an audience who already enjoy watching films in theatres.

Yes, and it would be ideal if the film has a younger target audience, like Thallumaala. For Palthu Janwar, a promo song was made particularly to attract kids and it worked. But was the film appealing to children is an entirely different question. We released a similar promo song for Oru Thekkan Thallu Case as well, but it didn’t click. So marketing is never a one-size-fits-all concept.

For Ezra, I had hooked the whole thing on Bhayam (Fear). First, we came up with a poster which just had the word ‘Bhayam’, which set off the process. Then, there was a campaign with a radio channel—a treasure hunt. Then for Godha, we used the wrestling theme. A video of Tovino wrestling Basil became viral. For Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil, we had Prithviraj and Basil interacting with select couples from all over the state, which helped the movie reach all these houses.

These are some innovative things we did. But you cannot do that for every film, and not every project will facilitate that. You can come up with such ideas only if you have been part of the process right from the script reading time or at least for six months. But usually, people think of marketing after the film is made. So it’s better if you hand it to someone who will only think about the marketing process without other responsibilities. If I’m part of it, understand that I’m the marketing expert and you’re the filmmaking expert, and give me space to work. A bad marketing job will affect my brand also.

I liked how Thallumala was marketed by targeting the young audience. They also released the songs in advance rather than doing all of it at the last moment. There are some movies like Palthu Janwar, which had good marketing efforts, but failed to work commercially. Recently, I liked Mandakini’s marketing as they created a noise, not common for a film with that kind of a cast.

Also, I feel Aadujeevitham was well marketed. Of course, the film had its own hype, but we also positioned it well. Many said that the film would be a huge success as people are already familiar with the book, but I always believed that if those readers are our only audience, then the film would tank. For any film, the core audience is the youngsters aged between 18-25. That’s why we called the film a ‘survival adventure’ and ‘visual spectacle’, and designed the teaser with a lot of action and energy. People used to question how it’s an ‘adventure’ and not ‘drama’, but we stuck to our beliefs. Otherwise, people would have stayed away because of its heavy, affecting content and the film would not have made such numbers.

The bigger challenge was marketing Guruvayoorambala Nadayil. Aadujeevitham and Prithvi were still in the limelight and suddenly we had the task of introducing him in a comic caper space. Thankfully, Basil and a bunch of talents who rose to fame through social media were there, and we could play around with them for marketing.

Yes, it was because we believed the film had a pan-India content. The fact that it didn’t yield the desired results is different, but it helped us set up the movie in the Northern markets. And many journalists were in awe of what they saw, because it was about true history, unlike Baahubali. We also used Mammukka’s feminine avatar in the film as Vanitha’s cover. We could roll out such ideas thanks to the backing of Venu (Kunnappilly) sir. These things can happen only if you travel together with a film. That’s also a reason why I don’t take up a lot of films.

Bramayugam had excellent marketing and PR. With the black-and-white format and Mammookka’s look, there was already a certain interest around it, but the film was still in the arthouse space. They marketed it so well that you could hardly see a negative talk about it, even after release. But Gaganachari, I feel, missed the trick. If they had spent a bit more on marketing, it had the potential to earn more.

I don’t think it helps. It’s happening because the particular media is doing it for its survival. It also helps the celebrity a bit to gain visibility when they are on an upward graph. However, too much visibility can rob the charm, aura and mystery around a celebrity. The star aura remains when they are not easily accessible to you. So, I think this culture will soon become stagnant.

It is debatable if Odiyan’s failure is because of its marketing or the film’s overall quality. My ex-boss Shrikumar directed and marketed that film and it still remains the biggest opener in Malayalam cinema. There are many who still like that film, but had the response been unanimously positive, it would have scaled new heights. The film also endured a lot of dirty behind-the-scene issues, which affected its run. Despite all that, it was still a profitable venture and that’s majorly because of the aggressive marketing.

Definitely, it’s important to tone down your claims because they can backfire badly. Given a second chance, Shrikumar also wouldn’t do that. We were conscious of it while promoting Aadujeevitham, but it doesn’t apply to all films. For example, a film like Gaganachari would need maximum hype to get a good opening.

Pulimurugan had absolutely zero marketing. I knew about the film much before its shoot started as both Kamalinee (Mukherjee) and director Vysakh were managed by us. From the script, I knew it had the potential to attract the kids. The only concern was about how the tiger’s portions would shape up, and they eventually aced it. It was also after a while that Lalettan was doing a typical mass role. All these factors came together wonderfully for that film. So the success was solely because of the product and not marketing. Even today, most Malayalam films don’t have any marketing, apart from the usual posters, teasers and trailer cuts. We have films with horrible creatives clicking because of the quality of the product.

Yes, I do. Pada is a classic marketing blunder. It’s a good film with an interesting star cast, but I think it was ruined by a few things done by us. Instead of promoting it as an activist film, we could have easily misled it as just another action film and more people would have come in. Post-release analysis applies only for failures. Dileep ettan once told me not to do post mortems for successful films and I still follow that.

(Interview by Vignesh Madhu, Vivek Santhosh and Mahima Anna Jacob)