I have observed that there are two sets of film stars. The Artists and The Entertainers.

The Artists

From time immemorial the artists have dominated cinema. From Guru Dutt to Balraj Sahni. But as most of us were not even born during that time, for the sake of convinience let me stick to contemporary examples. Kamal Hassan is the current great of the artist category. These are commercially successful Cine stars. But the artist too driven by his own abilities and possiblitiles of what he can do and fails to realistically look at whether such a film will be commercially successful. He often targets his movies at the elite or experienced cinema goer- Not masses. He expects the audience to view his work from the same angle as he does. The artist takes himself and his work very seriously and expects the same from the audience. Another example of such an actor in Bollywood is Amir Khan.

The Entertainer

This category of cine stars emerged later. Mostly during the 70's and the 80's. The fore most exponent of this category were Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan. But in contemporary days the role has been taken over by the Super star of Tamil cinema Rajnikant,'Thalaiva' (boss) as he is popularly called. Who can forget his cigarette tricks, which have heralded a whole set of spoofs. This category of people are ready to be the butt of spoofs and joke. A classic example of this category is the 'Badshah of Bollywood', Shah Rukh Khan. Though the entertainers dont mind doing serious roles, Rajni in Dalapati and Shah Rukh in Swades, they would preferr to just entertain. Next line, say entertainers rarely digress from their tried and tested formula films. But when they do they are mostly well received . Eg: Rajni in Chandramukhi and SRK in Chak De India.

Movies are for the masses. and the masses in India are those whose life is a daily struggle. It is the entertainer who puts his pride on the line, selflessly just to entertain the masses.

Whether you play ten roles or one the important thing in a country like India is to entertain the masses. Any film maker/ actor aspires for mass recognition and commercial success.

But what has this got to do with marketing and business? Everything!

To begin with every firm and their marketing machinery should design products with the expectations of the customers in mind. These products then have to be modified from geography to geography.

Lets look at the mobile phone market in India as an example. Sony -Ericsson is the Artist as they have high end features in their phone. Music players, high end web browsers among others. But the market Entertainer is Nokia who has a pure play under standing of their customers. The Nokia handsets are user friendly, keeping in mind the level of technical sophistication of the Indian user. And they are rewarded with a dominant market share 62% odd as compared to 13% for Sony Ericsson. Incidentally the brand ambassador for Nokia is King Khan(Shah Rukh). while Amir Khan endorses Samsung mobiles. This seems like a complete analogy to the movie world. Similarly the market leader Pepsi is endorsed by Sjhah Rukh wile Coke is endorsed by Amir.

Similar trends can be spotted in automobiles Hyundai Vs Ford, electronics LG Vs Philip and so on. If we as marketeers take our eyes and mind off our foremost duty(customer satisfaction), the customers would respond accordingly ie with dismal sales.

Even the stars that endorse brands fall into these two categories

This is a lesson to one and all.

Its the eternal battle between the artist and the Entertainer and I personally would liked to be entertained.