The Product Life Cycle theory in the marketing world talks about every brand having a birth (introduction), establishing its presence, achieving growth, then maturing and finally facing decline.
Let us look at the brand Rajinikanth, which defies this marketing theory. Brand Rajinikanth was given birth in 1975 with film K. Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal. Established its presence with films like Bhuvana Oru Kelvikkuri (1977), 16 Vayathinile (1977), Mullum Malarum (1978), Priya (1978) and achieved big growth with films like Billa (1980), Muruttukalai(1980) and Moondru Mugam (1982) and became the Super Star. When everyone expected maturity of the brand with the emergence of younger heroes in 1990s, the brand became further big with films like Thalapathi (1991), Mannan (1992) and Annamalai (1992) giving a tough fight to them. The brand became gigantic with films like Baasha (1995), Muthu (1995) and Padayappa (1999).
The brand took a break for a few years and came up with Baba (2002), which did not work with the audience. Everyone started writing the oblivion of the brand and told that the brand’s magic is over with Vijay and Ajith becoming bankable and stars in demand from the audience. However, the brand Rajinikanth showed its power again with the film Chandramukhi in 2005, which became the biggest blockbuster and ran for over 800 days. Since then the brand grew bigger and bigger with continuous hits like Sivaji (2007) and Enthiran (2010).
Until Chandamukhi (2005), the brand was hugely popular majorly in South India. But, post both Sivaji and Enthiran, it became a national brand and started commanding huge respect from both audience and media across the nation.
Though Lingaa (2014) failed to achieve the magic at the box office, that did not deter the brand from getting its due respect and command.
The then Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi visited Rajinikanth at his home prior to 2014 elections and sought his support. After getting the ‘25 Greatest Global Living Legends’ award from NDTV in 2013, Rajini got the ‘Centenary Award for
Indian Film Personality of the year’ at International Film Festival of India (Goa) in 2014 and ‘Padma Vibhushan’ in 2016. Thus the brand is continuously revitalized with regular boosters of recognition and public awe by divine magic, which can never be explained.
His next film Kabali achieving over '200 crore pre-sales business is the highest for any Indian film and only the brand Rajini can achieve such magic and break the record again with his another film.
Kabali getting over 10 brand endorsements to promote and spend over '40 crore in media is a testimony to the confidence every popular brand has on this big brand of Indian cinema.
This is one brand, which will never see maturity and decline stages as we see with regular brands or film stars. This brand will only grow more in the minds of the people and film lovers and the magic.
(The writer is a film producer, distributor, National Award winning author, columnist and founder of BOFTA Film Institute in Chennai.)
