BIG Music & Home Entertainment, a Reliance Big Entertainment Company, started its operations just over a year ago, with the intention of dominating the music & home video business in the country.
To achieve this objective, the company decided to focus on the high value & premium home video segment. Within 6 months, the company became the exclusive licensee for distribution & marketing of all titles on Home Video for Warner Home Video, Paramount Home Entertainment, Dreamworks Studios & Universal Studios Home Entertainment. In addition, BIG Home Video also selectively acquired the home video rights of the biggest hits in Hindi films in last one year such as Ghajini, Rock on!!, Jodhaa Akbar, Singh is Kinng and Welcome among others. The company also forayed into regional home video by acquiring selective prestigious titles such as the highly acclaimed Satyajit Ray Signature Collection featuring Bengali movies.
The focus on quality, content value & customer satisfaction seems to be paying off. In the recently concluded Indian DVD Awards, BIG Home Video swept 9 out of 20 award categories to become the undisputed champion in the home video industry. The 4th edition of the DVD Awards for Indian Home, a part of Digital Cinema India Expo, was presented on June 5, 2009 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon, Mumbai.
The Blockbuster Theatrical Awar’ is reserved for the biggest theatrical film released on DVD. This award encourages the aspiration of being a frontline DVD publisher with national marketing and promotion. BIG Home Video won the award for The Dark Knight. In the Major Theatrical New Release section, awarded for encouraging DVD publishing, BIG Home Video’s DVD release of the national blockbuster Ghajini, garnered the honour.
It was not solely new content that bought in the laurels for BIG Home Video. In the Major Motion Picture Catalogue Release, BIG Home Video’s release Satyajit Ray Signature Collection, was awarded for its remarkable improvements in packaging presentation, quality of the content in terms of restoration, authoring, graphics and menu design and most notably value add-ons with interviews of artistes and memorabilia, director’s commentary etc.
BIG Home Video’s strength in domestic and international content was on display in the Multi-Disc Collection category. Awarded to imagination in compilation of multi-disc collections, holistic packaging, creativity in multi-disc themes focussing on directors, actors or genre etc, the Best Picture Boxset (Gone With The Wind, Casablanca & Ben-Hur) and Malgudi Days both won in their respective language domains.
Apart from films, televised programming is a growing segment in the home video format. BIG Home Video’s release of ‘Heroes’ won the best Television Entertainment award for authoring and indexing of television serialization on the DVD format. ‘The 11th Hour’, a documentary on global warming won the Best Documentary award.
Quality goes beyond content. BIG Home Video’s focus on packaging, technical details, printing and giving the customer a holistic entertainment experience has been acknowledged. BIG Home Video picked up the Best Major Technical – Authoring Design award for Jodhaa Akbar. The criteria included evaluation as per the DVD Forum standards. Factors including exploitation of storage capacity, single layer or dual layering, menu options & the authoring design, were evaluated for the award. Incidentally, Jodhaa Akbar, also picked up the best Printing Design award for its quality of printing in terms of thickness, the quality of ink and the aesthetic design impact.
Kulmeet Makkar, Chief Executive officer of BIG Music & Home Entertainment, is elated, “This is a proud moment for us. These awards are recognition of our commitment towards bringing the best in home entertainment to the customer. A DVD is more than a film. It is an experience. We aim for products which provide pride of ownership to the consumer and us. BIG Home video’s vision is to release the biggest of Indian and International movies on all available Home entertainment platforms. Our target is an audience who demands the best in content & quality.”
The company has built and consolidated an impressive depth and width in distribution, along with localization of International content, with dubbing of English films in 6 regional languages. The high value Home Video titles comes in premium packaging, with international standards of quality and are a true collector’s edition with special features and value adds. Innovative marketing has played a crucial role not only in supporting sales but also brand building. The company has used New age media including internet, social networks, mobile, viral marketing, OOH combined strategically with ATL & BTL mediums like TV, radio, internet, press, outdoor, on ground activation and retail promotion. This has ensured an all encompassing high decibel marketing campaign for the key titles and the company.
We are sure that these awards are just another feather in BIG Home Video’s cap.
