Marketing of Rock Music in India

“Standin by….. Standin by…… Standin by……” - PSP12, ZERO

The rock music industry in India is doing just that, still standing by. The segment still remains a niche sector with a lot of talented artists but no proper exposure or opportunities to showcase themselves. The industry is plagued with rampant plagiarism and lack of mainstream record label support. The need for the hour is to take Rock to the masses and a concrete marketing effort in order to make rock music both popular as well as financially profitable.

The rock music scene in India is actually pretty old, dating back to even the 60’s when an entire generation discovered Hendrix and the Beatles. There on it has pretty much evolved and is now a quite a force. But yet it is nowhere close to where the Hindi music industry is. I think there are quite a few reasons for it:

The primary language of most rock music is English. This is not the language of our masses. Hence there is low consumer connect.

There is an inherent resistance amongst Indians to absorb anything remotely western when it comes to culture, especially dance and music. This is especially true with the older generation and can be seen amongst many parents.

There is low acceptance of true rock music within the mainstream music industries.

Rock music in India needs a facelift and quickly. The reason for the quickness is that one can see an outflow of talented musicians shifting over to commercial Hindi/regional film industries, the shining example being Vishal Dadlani, once a RATM screaming front man for Pentagram, now-turned singer-music director for SRK chick-flicks.

It is not that there is a lack of effort from within the industry. People like Farhad Wadia, CEO Independence Rock have kept the flag flying high for the past 25 years. Channel V’s Launchpad is one the most viewed shows. Bands like Avial (Malyalam) and Faridkot (Hindi) have reached national recognition status. Marketing for the Rock music industry needs to change on several fronts:

The positioning needs to change from being an elitist sort of culture to one which promotes that everyone can be along for the ride and be part of the same fraternity.

There needs to be more emphasis on promoting regional language bands. This will help gather local support and build fan bases.

There need to be more international acts happening in India for rock music. Sporadic tours by Iron Maiden will not help.

The promotion for any concert is usually featuring sponsors who wish to indulge in surrogate marketing, namely liquor companies and cigarette manufacturers. There is a need to bring in a diversity of sponsors.

Mainstream music industries must give more support and start recognizing rock as a genuine art form.

There has to be a concrete effort to change the mindsets in an average middle class household towards rock music. The acceptance levels towards rock must increase.

This year Independence Rock, India’s largest rock fest celebrates its 25^th anniversary. In 2002, I-Rock almost got cancelled because there were no sponsors. But the crowd agreed to pay extra and the show was held. Such is the craze and loyalty that people have towards rock music in India. For this passion alone it is worth putting efforts towards marketing rock music in India. And in ACDC’s immortal words…..

“……it’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock n roll…….