The Indian corporate world is waking up to the power of cinema to push sales and capture the attention of the consumer.

Up until now Indian businesses typically considered sponsorship deals with sports such as cricket.

But the huge box office success of some recent films have made them sit up and take notice of Bollywood as a business and sales promotion avenue.

The theme song from the recent Bollywood blockbuster, Lagaan or taxes, will now be used as a promotional jingle for one of India's largest consumer goods companies, Brittania Industries.

Memorabilia promotion

Film memorabilia and signed posters of the stars of Lagaan will be distributed to consumers as part of the $1m sales promotion campaign launched by the company on Monday.

And since the period film is all about a cricket match between Indian villagers and a British eleven, the final prize for the lucky winners will be a cricket match with the Lagaan eleven.

Sunil Alagh, managing director of Brittania industries, said: "I see this trend growing substantially...what we are doing more in India, and we have been amongst the lead in this, we are trying to get the characters of the film involved, rather than the actor."

"The two things people in India love are films and sport and here we have a combination of both," he added.

More like an ad

While this may be the first instance of an Indian company tying up with a Bollywood hit to push sales and generate awareness about its product range, other corporates have also begun to use cinema as an advertisement medium.

A film released earlier this month, Yaadein or memories, in fact looked more like an ad as the film's producer-director seemed to concentrate more on promoting a cola, a mouth freshener and even a popular bicycle than bother about the storyline.

But while the critics did not like what they saw, the film's financiers pocketed nearly $1m.

While warning against overkill, analysts say this new relationship between cinema and industry is likely to become stronger as both sides realise the benefits.