Marketing the stars

Tanaaz Bhatia had it all. A career on Wall Street with Merrill Lynch, popular clients, a loving family and a busy life. At that point, eight years ago, she couldn’t have asked for more, until things began to spiral downwards. A rushed move back to India after her father’s heartattack and a company to look after... things seemed to go out of control, but they actually were beginning to fall into place.

Today, years after moving to Mumbai, after leaving her high-profile banking job, Tanaaz heads the successful Bottomline Media Pvt Ltd, a marketing solutions company. She's the one responsible for the marketing strategy of movies like Ra One and Vicky Donor and has clients like Gauri Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and many other brands apart from a wide list of movies that the company has worked with.

“I moved back to Mumbai when my father had a massive attack, little did I know that I wouldn’t be going back to New York,” says Tanaaz. After her father passed away, Tanaaz had to take over his construction business. “My mum and I decided to shut down the business because we didn’t have much idea about how to run it. It took about eight months to do so. Post that I took up a job at Kotak Mahindra and that was followed by Citibank,” she says.

But, Tanaaz knew she had to do something else with her life. “I really didn’t know what to do. I only knew that I wanted to start a company, what would the company do? I had no clue,” she says with a laugh. Amidst a lot of objection from her family, Tanaaz quit her banking job and decided to go ahead with her dream of starting her company.

Having grown up in Bandra, Tanaaz had quite a few friends who were part of the film industry and that is how, her friend Jaspreet Walia Singh approached her. “I met Jaspreet who was then working on a film. He asked me to work with him on his film Lamhaa. I laughed because I didn’t know what to do in a film, so he said I should take up in-film branding. I was apprehensive initially, but then I took it up. After that movie in 2010, word about my work spread and I got more projects,” she says.

Sanjay Dutt, who was part of the film, wanted her to work in another project, in the process she met Arbaaz and Sohail Khan. And just like that, the one-woman show slowly became an eight-person team and before she knew it she was working on SRK’s Ra One. “Ra One was the turning point in my life. The marketing idea, the videogame based on Ra One, was a huge success and we got in touch with many international brands. That put me on the map,” she says.

After Ra One’s marketing strategy went viral, there was no stopping Tanaaz. They signed up for more brands and it was through one such brand that she happened to meet Gauri Khan. “We were marketing consultants for a brand and it was there that we came upon the idea of signing Gauri to work with Satya Paul. That clicked, Gauri loved the idea and here we are... representing her for her work,” she says.

More recently, Saif Ali Khan was signed up for a campaign Bollywood Britain, where he promotes tourism in Britain and yes, Tanaaz’s company was the hand behind the deal. “Saif was the first B’wood star to go to a Burberry show and we were responsible for that project, that is how we came to know Saif. Post that we stayed in touch and when the deal to sign a star for the promotional campaign for Britain came to us, we knew we just had to choose Saif,” she says.

So, how does it feel representing such popular celebrities? “It feels great, but it is also a lot of hard work. But they make it very easy for us as well. Take Gauri for example, she is one of the friendliest person I have ever known. I just enjoy working with her and she is very easy to get along with and is always open to ideas”
Tanaaz’s journey might seem like a cake-walk, but it was anything but that. She says, “I’ve come a long, long way. From escaping the 9/11 attacks and getting through my father’s death, leaving my job and starting a new company, where I hardly earned money... the journey has been very tough... but worth every minute
of it.”