Source: Time

The Academy Award-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire may have made all things Indian popular with moviegoers in the West, but before the movie’s release three U.S. Americans of Indian heritage were putting the final touches on their plan to take Bollywood into the digital age.

Today, three-year-old Saavn (an acronym for South Asian audiovisual network) controls global distribution rights, outside India, to a massive number of Bollywood films, songs, albums and music videos, all downloadable to iPods, MP3 players, cell phones and computers. And if consumers in America are captivated by the song-and-dance extravaganzas of Bollywood — the umbrella name for Mumbai’s film industry — Saavn believes its offerings will be attractive marketing tools for U.S. companies.

Last year Saavn posted revenues in the low seven figures — five times its 2007 numbers — with the largest spurt coming from its music enterprise. The company expects 2009 revenues in the low eight figures, “growth north of 500%,” says Neal Shenoy, one of Saavn’s co-founders, who manages the three other media companies within Saavn’s parent company 212Media. (Saavn is co-owned by Indian company Hungama, a competitor turned partner.) “We had no idea how quickly Bollywood and India would penetrate American culture,” Shenoy says.

Shenoy and Saavn’s two other founding partners — CEO Vinodh Bhat and managing director Paramdeep Singh — had witnessed popular media’s gradual but certain infatuation with Bollywood, whose revenues account for roughly 80% of India’s $2 billion film industry. In 2003, rapper Jay‑Z sampled London DJ Punjabi MC on the Bollywood-flavored track “Beware of the Boys.” Bombay Dreams launched on Broadway the following year. The infectiously danceable “Chaiyya Chaiyya” played over the opening credits of Spike Lee’s film Inside Man in 2006. And last year even Snoop Dogg got into the act by creating a rap song for the Bollywood movie Singh Is Kinng, “helping put the film and its music on the map in the U.S.,” says Bhat. Warner Bros. recently released its own Bollywood film, Chandni Chowk to China, whose sound track Saavn distributes for downloads.

And then there’s Slumdog.

A.R. Rahman, a 20-year Bollywood veteran — he wrote “Chaiyya Chaiyya” and hundreds of other songs — and the composer of Slumdog’s Oscar-nominated score, concedes that the film’s music, with vocals sung in English rather than Hindi, is not true Bollywood. Nevertheless, the movie has been a dynamic conduit for Saavn’s business — even if Saavn distributes only one Mumbai-produced song from it. “Slumdog’s sound track has elevated the entire Bollywood genre and brought us a new customer base wanting to explore similar music,” says Bhat.

Saavn’s offerings — more than 90% of all Indian music is film music — are available at digital music stores, while mobile carriers offer Bollywood ringtones, ring-back tones, single tracks, music videos and Bollywood graphics. “Since the release of Slumdog, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the sales of Bollywood ringtones, ring-back tones and songs,” says Ed Ruth, director of V Cast Music at Verizon, which offers more than 1,200 Bollywood ringtones and ring-back tones and more than 30,000 songs.

Powered by Bollywood, Saavn has already conducted a brand-marketing campaign for Verizon. Half a dozen major U.S. companies are now in discussion to use Saavn’s content to pursue the same market. The wealth and education level of South Asian consumers in the U.S. make them a desirable target, says Nirmalya Kumar, a professor of marketing at the London Business School and the author of India’s Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking On the World. The best way to reach them emotionally, he says, is through the music and movies they love. As for Saavn’s platform, “You can’t market today without including the digital world,” says Jerry Wind, a professor of marketing at Wharton.

Digital Ties
South Asian consumers in the U.S. have strong ties to family back home and, coupled with their strong interest in and knowledge of changing technology, they are key consumers of other online content innovations. This might include digital wedding website content, which would allow them to share photos, videos, podcasts and music from their wedding with distant relatives out of the country. Other options besides film, music and personal events could likely include forms of recognition via any one of the new online memorial website tools available.

Americanized Bollywood hybrids could help Saavn expand. “Whether it’s Slumdog or Snoop Dogg, future media collaborations will inject Bollywood further into the mainstream,” says Shenoy. “And when fans want to experience the real Bollywood genre, they’ll come to us.”

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My take: I’m guessing these guys have stumbled into a gold mine. The success of Slumdog, not to mention the literature of India over the last decade, has created a huge market for all things Indain among otherwise non-Asian consumers in the U.S. Certainly, if we are just as comfortable buying shopping bags, or the latest in organic and natural beauty products on the Web, why wouldn’t we want to download the best of Bollywood? Asian cultures will glom on to this idea, too, because the music, videos and other art forms of India are simply unsurpassed by America’s versions in Hollywood, not necessarily because they are inferior, but because they cannot conjure nor recreate the cultural connections the way real Indian art can.

In my neighborhood shops and specialty stores there is no shortage of Indian products for sale. Right there next to the kids stationary, games, or trendy cards are also things like incense, bindi dots, henna tattoo kits, scarves, sandalwood oils, and other great Indian personalized custom gifts you can give to friends and family. The more ethnic the better it seems when it comes to giving.

Speaking of giving, you can also customize those great reusable plastic bags that you take to the grocery store with a friend’s name or a graphic design. They make great gifts for friends and family, too, and you can give them away stuffed with food items from Trader Joes; books; or speciality skin care products.

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