After 25th December:

• 100% opening day collections with over 1500 prints
• Over 90 crore business by the end of first Sunday
• Expected 120 crore by end of first week
• Best Ever Opening
• Top film of 2008 already
  

Before 25th December:

Lets have a look at what the hell happened to get these earth shattering numbers.a sneak peek at the Marketing Strategy for Ghajini :

First Look:
Ghajini's marketing started way back from March 20 when he came out on the premier of RACE with his new BALD look. It actually gave the perfect sneak peek at the two looks of Aamir in the movie.Notice the jacket and rolled up half sleeves?Did anyone say Sanjay Singhania?

And then in November, this photo shot across leading dailies and Aamir without even showing his face and his 8 packs instantly became the talk of the town.

The 8 pack promotion:
Cut back to october 2007 and remember SRK and the ho-hallah around his 6 pack abs.It was only around that time that Aamir silently started working on his own, and just to make it better, he added a pair and made it eight!The fact that the man now had a 8 pack and a fantastic body, he decided to show the world how he got it! Up came the videos with 'Making of Aamir's 8 pack' on all news and entertainment channels.Videos similar to this youtube got thousands of visits!


He even went a step ahead and called a press conference to introduce his trainer and explain his diet chart!

Television appearances
With the TV channels filled with Ghajini promos, Aamir went into overdrive with his interviews, which came in by the day on every news and entertainment channel. Not to forget the guest appearances on reality shows, which is now a sort of a norm.

Offline Promos at Theaters
One of my personal favourite was the 'Theater personnels with Ghajini hair cut' act that he did on the release on Rab ne Bana di Jodi.Simply Fantastic. Imagine going to a cinema hall to watch RNBDJ and you watch all these Aamir Khan look alikes and his life size cut outs. You almost wish that you had come to watch Ghajini!


Co Branding

Tata Sky started running Ghajini “specials” complete with behind-the-scenes stories of the upcoming film. Samsung launched special Ghajini edition mobile phones of L700 and M200 models. These handsets have preloaded with Ghajini ringtones, pictures and songs.
Tata Indicom started with a outbound dialer service with Khan's pre-recorded voice.
Van Heusen launched Ghajini's apparels in their stores all across India and is backing it with in-store campaigns and giant posters of Khan dressed in formal attire.
Van Heusen also organized a fashion show wherein models along with Aamir sported the Ghajini look.Add a little big of jig and a bit of Guzarish and he had all the TV channels beaming again!

Viral SMS campaign

Remember the chain SMS which threatened to reveal what could possibly be the climax of the film? For those who were not on the mailing list, here it goes...

“Someone killed Aamir’s girlfriend and he lost his memory. Then he tries to find out the killer. Suspense… Aamir himself is the killer. Now enjoy Ghajini!”

I bet this one was proposed by someone at Tata Indicom!!!


Digital Promotion
With so much happening offline, something had to be done online to. And Ghajini makers had that well covered.
Websites like www.rememberghajini.com, www.findghajini.com and www.wallofsuspects.com were built to drive curiousity levels around the movie and provide a movie like experience on the Internet.
Add to that a 3D PC game and a number of mobile games and applications, and you have the digital space busy.

Not to forget that he has his own popular blog, which was a constant source of dope for all those waiting for Ghajini to release.

Final Week controversy
Just to cap it all, we had this 'Ghajini Release Stayed' court notices which threatened to stop the release of the immensely anticipated film a day before 25th December. Naturally, this became breaking news with minute to minute tracking on the latest updates. And after much drama, when the permission was granted, it was like a whole nation had taken a sigh of relief and they could all breath again!


A 10 month Campaign, where we saw Aamir from 8 pack fighting machine to turning in to a barber on the streets of Delhi, is a real case study in motion picture marketing.

To hear from the horse's mouth :

With Ghajini we've opened with the highest number of screens ever. So the marketing needed to have depth and width, so we needed to be very aggressive with the marketing of the film.

And so you did Aamir. You also made me pay 300 bucks for this one. Do read here on how I liked it!

I said here that I follow a rule, never miss a Aamir Movie. And I am glad I am sticking to it.

After months of SRK style marketing and unprecedented hype, it was a no brainer that Ghajini would open to packed theaters all around India. Scene in Bangalore was no different, with full houses all through the weekend.But such was the urge that I decided to shell out Rs 300 to the crooks at PVR to get a sunday ticket.

Not dwelling much into the story, Ghajini is a see-saw ride of Love found, love lost, revenge, action and trill. The film grips you from scene one and never loses you till its three hour length. You smile with Aamir and Kalpana and their 'it can only happen in bollywood' love story, You cry with aamir when his love is killed by the monster Ghajini in front of his eyes, you bite your teeth when Aamir juggernaughts over the villian sidekicks on his way to Ghajini, and you also feel that that 'iron sariya' was too short and hope that he finds a bigger one to slam his head in the end, and are satisfied when he finally does it.

The script is not without its flaws and takes convenient turns. But Hey! movie making is not a science lesson..its entertainment!



Aamir once again shows why he is called the perfectionist khan. He is brilliant throughout he movie, both as a billionaire Telephone company boss, and as a 8 pack mad for revenge fighting machine. He talks less, but lets his emotions do most of the talking. The Final sequence with Ghajini is enthralling and is a lesson in acting and movie making.Any actor other than Aamir would have made Ghajini more dramatic and over the top, aamir just about delivers a perfect performance.

Asin as Aamir's love does a fantastic job.She brings all the smiles in an otherwise gloomy and a dark film. Her potrayal is more of a utopian girlfriend, one who does no wrong, which makes her instantly lovable.Jiah is ok with the role given to her. She looks more like a sherlock Holmes aide rather than a Medical Student with the kind of investigation she puts in.

I must say that Indian Cinema comes of Age with ghajini. The entire look and feel of the film is amazing, with Hollywood style production and cinematography values. Fight scenes are powerpacked, Rehman scores with the music.
And please don't compare it with Memento, its a different cinema altogether.

All in all, a terrific watch.

**** 4/5

After a Guinness Book record in my name, here comes another one.I'll soon have my name circling around the earth on NASA's own satellite-GLORY!! So finally, some part of me gets to visit the Space.

Ok, I didn't design the fuse conductors for the NASA satellite for getting my name up there.You can have your name on Glory too.

As per the official NASA mail,

The Glory Mission will:
1. Measure solar energy entering the Earth's atmosphere
2. Collect data on the properties of natural and human-caused
aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere

So go ahead and write your name.If you are not lucky enough to become a star after you die, you'll surely have some part of you on that microchip!!