Author: Marketing Journo

What YouTube Marketing Lessons can one learn from ‘DC’ and ‘Marvel’

What YouTube Marketing Lessons can one learn from ‘DC’ and ‘Marvel’

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Untitled collage
A collage featuring photos from ‘Justice League’ (Above) and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ (Below) (Image Source: DC Entertainment and Marvel Studios)

Of late, in 2018, I could see a considerable number of deliberations going around in online, in favor of video when it comes to online contents. YouTube seems to be the go-to video platform for certain brands especially in cases where the brands target a younger audience. Also, YouTube seems to have a leg up on other video-viewing platforms as it has a more established ad monetization system.

So, when I was casually going through some write-ups in the online space concerning YouTube Marketing and assimilating ideas as mentioned above, a thought just did spark my mind. The thought is on the similarities that exist between the working of ‘DC Entertainment’ and ‘Marvel Studios’ in rendering superhero movies and the usage of YouTube as a marketing platform by brands. You will get to know more about my underlying thoughts as we deep dive further into the article. Now, let us start taking a look at my thoughts one-by-one.

Focus on creating video series to cultivate viewership:

‘DC Entertainment’ and ‘Marvel Studios’ have been producing series of super hero films based on characters that appear in their respective publications. The efforts of these two production companies are keeping their audiences engaged over a period of time.

Likewise, brands like ‘Refinery29’ (An American digital media and entertainment company focusing on young women) are creating a series of videos, relevant to their business, in their YouTube channels. In the second half of 2017, ‘Refinery29’ created a series of videos with the goal of cultivating a regular viewership.

Explain dense topics in serialized videos:

‘DC Entertainment’ and ‘Marvel Studios’ unite their respective superheroes and render ‘Justice League’ movie and ‘Avengers’ movie series respectively. At the same time, they are also making movies that are exclusively centered on a particular superhero character. In such movies, they depict the backstory of the superhero. Thereby, they lay a firm foundation around a character among the audience. While watching ‘Justice League’ movie and ‘Avengers’ movie series, this approach helps the audience… helps in understanding on ‘why’ and ‘how’ the superheroes gathered together and what makes them special as an individual.

In the similar way, when a brand has got to explain dense topics to its audience, it can explain them in serialized videos. ‘Financial Times’ has created a series of videos to explain dense topics like blockchain or Cryptocurrencies. As per the report of Digiday, it seems like the videos explaining dense topics are driving a high click-through rate.

Also, serialized videos ensure that your audience comes in contact with your brand on various occasions. This is what ‘Financial Times’ estimates, which is, its readers come in contact with the brand between six and eight times before subscribing to it.

Split up video contents into verticals to target more specific audience:

There are some movies of DC and Marvel that had or seem to be having sequels. In this case, the fans of such movies will feel excited when announcements on those movies pop up in media. They get driven in a state of ecstasy to catch with those movies soon after their theatrical release. Here, one could see the audience getting consolidated under the umbrella of a particular superhero character.

In the same way, you could split up your video contents into verticals in your YouTube channel. Thereby, you could hope to target a specific audience more. ‘Financial Times’ has its video contents split into various verticals such as ‘FT Life’ and ‘FT Transact’, in its official YouTube channel. The videos in ‘FT Life’ provide coverage on arts, style, travel and food and drink .Whereas, the videos in ‘FT Transact’ focuses on the future of finance.

Deliver a subject in multiple formats:

In spite of producing live-action films, DC and Marvel produce animated films too. Wherein, most of them are released direct-to-video. The companies sense an opportunity in showcasing their contents in multiple formats and they deliver the same.

In a like manner, a subject could be delivered in a range of videos like short explainer videos, news-related quick videos and longer mini-documentaries. Going by the ‘Digiday’ article, ‘The Financial Times is splitting up videos into verticals’, I affirm that ‘Financial Times’ had leveraged these video formats in an effective manner in covering the 2017 French and U.K. Elections.

Leverage YouTube End screens to cross promote your contents:

Recently, when I went to watch ‘Black Panther’ in theatre, trailers of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ were screened. This practice of promoting the upcoming Marvel movies by showcasing their trailers to the audience who have come to the theatre to watch ‘Black Panther’ is what I term a simple illustration of the marketing technique, ‘Cross Promotion’.

Similarly, you could leverage options like YouTube End screens to cross promote your website to your YouTube audience. Thereby, you enable a gateway for your YouTube audience to help you grow your referral traffic to your site via the video-viewing platform. Also, you could point your viewers to other videos, playlists or channels on YouTube and introduce call for subscriptions to your YouTube channel.

To promote their superheroes, ‘DC Entertainment’ and ‘Marvel Studios’ seem to be spending a lot of time, money and effort. Likewise, to reach one’s business goal, one has to invest a considerable amount of time, money and effort based on the scale of the business.

I hope you found the ideas, which have been mentioned above, to be useful. Let me know your thoughts on my opinions!

Learn these 5 Essential Blogging Tips from ‘behind the scenes’ of Stephen Hawking’s International Bestseller

Learn these 5 Essential Blogging Tips from ‘behind the scenes’ of Stephen Hawking’s International Bestseller

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'A Brief History of Time' book's cover
Stephen Hawking’s international bestseller, ‘A Brief History of Time’ (Image Source: The Rare Book Sleuth)

This week, I completed reading the book, ‘My Brief History’ written by Stephen Hawking. I find the memoir to be interesting and identify a lot of takeaways from its chapters. As a blogger too, I am able to relate with some key points about Blogging with the aspects mentioned in a chapter. The chapter is on Stephen Hawking’s international bestseller, ‘A Brief History of Time’.

In this write-up, I am sharing my correlations with you.

1. Purpose of writing a blog post:

Stephen Hawking had two main intentions behind writing ‘A Brief History of Time’. One was to explain on how he felt on the evolution of the understanding by humans about the universe. Other was to explain on how humans might get near in finding a complete theory… a theory describing universe and its aspects.

Next, he was clear-cut for whom he is writing the book for, as he wanted to make the book to reach as many people as possible.

Also, he was particular on the feel that the book has to offer its readers. He had been very impressed by Jacob Bronowski’s TV series, ‘The Ascent of Man’. The series had given him a feeling of achievement in the evolution of human race over years. Likewise, he wanted to convey a feeling on the progress of humans in getting to know the system of the universe. In the book, he felt that he shouldn’t explain unfamiliar concepts that weren’t essential to what he has got to say. All he felt was only to mention them and not discuss them in detail. But, despite certain ideas being difficult, he explained as he considered them essential. He decided to describe his ideas with the help of familiar analogies and a few diagrams. In this way, he hoped that most readers would feel elated on the notable progress in physics in last fifty years from then.

Here, Stephen Hawking’s purpose on writing ‘A Brief History of Time’ looks so convincing. In the same way, before starting to write a blog post, you have to ensure the following which Stephen did for his book

  • Why are you writing the blog post?
  • Who will be its target audience?
  • What information should you be avoiding in it?
  • How should you be providing information in it?
  • What will your audience gain from it?

2. Keep writing as simple as possible:

Stephen Hawking had chosen to have his book published by a publisher named, ‘Bantam Books’. One of their editors, Peter Guzzardi made him to rewrite the book so that it appeals to non-scientists too. Each time he sent Peter a rewritten chapter, Peter sent back objections and questions. Stephen felt that the activity seemed prolonging. But, at the end of the activity, he felt that the book was much better than what he had expected.

In a like manner, try to keep your writing as simple as possible in your blog post for it to reach a large audience.

3. Prefer brief to short titles:

Stephen Hawking’s original title for the book was ‘From the Big Bang Black Holes: A Short History of Time’. But, it was Guzzardi who changed the title to ‘A Brief History of Time’. Stephen Hawking considered this change as a stroke of genius. He felt that the title change would have contributed to the book’s success. Post which, there seem to be a lot of books like ‘A Brief History of Thyme’, imitating the title.

All these sum up the importance of writing catchy and brief headlines. Bloggers can make use of CoSchedule’s free Headline Analyzer to write such headlines.

4. Review the post before publishing it:

When the book was nearing publication, a scientist who was about to review it found in its advance copy a lot of errors… errors in the labels of the photographs and diagrams. Hence, ‘Bantam Books’ had to recall and scrap the entire printing. Following which, in an intense way, they spent three weeks to correct and recheck the entire book.

This situation summarizes on how crucial is a review before a book’s publication. Lesson learnt from the situation applies before a blog post publish as well.

You can review your content in two ways. First, read aloud the content that you have written to identify the mistakes in it. Second, provide your content to your family members or friends and get a review done.

5. Choose apt Social Media channel to distribute blog posts:

As Stephen Hawking wanted to take the book to a large audience, he opted for ‘Bantam Books’ who could help him in doing so. Also, he was so specific that he would want to create a book that would sell in airport book stores. ‘Bantam Books’ had not specialized on publishing science books till then. But, their books seemed to be available in a wide manner in airport book stores.

This scenario implies the significance of opting apt channel to distribute content. Likewise, it’s essential for bloggers to opt an apt social media channel (E.g. Facebook, Twitter etc.,) to promote blog posts.

Before starting to write your next blog post, think on the above mentioned Stephen Hawking’s efforts… efforts in bringing out his book and making it as an international bestseller. Then, try panning out your blogging efforts in the same way. Stephen Hawking’s efforts and spirit behind, may inspire and be followed in blog posts.

 

 

What Black Panther teaches about ‘Grassroots Marketing on Social Media’

What Black Panther teaches about ‘Grassroots Marketing on Social Media’

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Black Panther Portrait
Image Source: Marvel Studios

Recently, I happened to read the article, ‘Grassroots Marketing in the Age of Social Media’. I could relate many aspects in it with Marvel Studios’ marketing efforts for ‘Black Panther’. So, I have come up with this article by jotting down my observations. Now, let us take a look at the efforts and the corresponding takeaways:

1. Understand your audience:

In Grassroots Marketing, it is of primary importance to understand your audience.

On the day of Black Panther‘s release, ‘Captain Marvel‘ star Brie Larson tweeted as below

This tweet based on the theme, ‘Pay it forward‘ did sound striking. Thereby, it generated a considerable number of comments, retweets and likes.

To come up with a campaign and result as mentioned above, you have to understand your audience.

Takeaways:

To understand your audience,

i) Know whether your audiences are available in social media

ii) In case, if they are, know which platforms (g.: Facebook, Twitter etc.,) they are using and are active on

iii) Know the person who can spur a grassroots marketing campaign for your product or service

(Here, the person could be a celebrity or an influencer)

iv) Engage your audience, using the person, in a way that relates to your product or service

2. Mobilize your audience:

When you have a considerable audience, you need to engage them via various activities. In other words, you need to mobilize your audience. Marvel Studios knows this.

Before the release of ‘Black Panther’, Twitter and Marvel hosted a live-stream Q&A with the cast and crew of the movie. To make fans join the conversation, Twitter provided the hashtag, ‘#BlackPantherLive’.

And, Tumblr conducted its first-ever video ‘AnswerTime’ with the cast of ‘Black Panther’.

Besides, Marvel is encouraging fans to submit their Black Panther arts to it in social media. It is offering them the hashtag, ‘#BlackPantherFanArt’ to share their artworks. This campaign of Marvel has been receiving a lot of submissions. The arts are being shared in the official social media pages of ‘Black Panther’ by crediting the fans.

Also, Marvel is making fans to share the photos of them dressed up in Wakanda-esque costumes. For this campaign, it provides them the hashtag, ‘#WakandaStyle’. Marvel posted few of such photos in the social media channels of ‘Black Panther’.

Takeaways:

To mobilize the considerable number of audience that you have,

i) Conduct light-hearted events related to your business in popular social networks (g. Facebook, Twitter)

ii) Encourage them to involve in the events by providing customized hashtags

iii) Leverage video features of popular social media to showcase events like Q&A sessions… sessions about your product or service

3. Encourage your audience to speak out about your product or service:

Another important Grassroots Marketing approach is to encourage your audience to speak out… speak out about your product or service.

Marvel created customized Twitter Emojis for certain ‘Black Panther‘ characters… for characters like ‘Black Panther‘, ‘Nakia‘, ‘Kill Monger‘, ‘Shuri‘, and ‘Okoye‘. And, it encouraged the fans of ‘Black Panther’ to tweet the name of their favorite character from the movie… name preceded by a hashtag.

Also, the fans were asked to share their favourite track on Black Panther album.

And, Marvel prompted the fans to take part in a sweepstakes contest. It encouraged them to share their favourite Black Panther memory or their personal photo using the hashtag, ‘#Marvel10YearSweepstakes’. Here, Marvel advertised that the fans might get a chance to win a trip to ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ premiere.

Takeaways:

To encourage your audience to speak out about your product or service,

i) Conduct contests with announcements about a chance to win prizes

ii) Make them speak out about product or service as part of the contests

iii) Start simple conversations as Marvel did of fans’ favorite character and track

With these grassroots efforts on social media, Marvel has generated a buzz for its movie. In turn, this has helped in upping the Black Panther‘s prospects at box-office in a notable manner.

So, tailor the campaigns of Marvel for ‘Black Panther‘ to suit your product or service needs. And, enhance your business prospects.

5 Best Ways of Universities in using Facebook Pages

5 Best Ways of Universities in using Facebook Pages

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5 Best Ways of Universities in using Facebook Pages
5 Best Ways of Universities in using Facebook Pages

Many universities and colleges are coming up with interesting contents and impressive initiatives. They use Facebook pages as one of their media to let people know about such works. But, only the ones who do that in an effective manner seem to stand out.

I went through the Facebook pages of few varsities to look for such effective approaches. Thereby, I have come up with this write-up jotting down the approaches that I have observed. Check out the following 5 examples that you could make use of for your very own page.

1. Harvard University:

Harvard University

Most colleges and universities publish websites, blogs, newsletters or newspapers. But, not all leverage the options that are available in Facebook pages to promote the content. Very few have been using the options to promote their content in an effective way. Harvard University is one among them.

The ‘Harvard Gazette‘ is the official news website for Harvard University. To promote the website’s contents, the varsity has a tab, ‘Harvard Gazette‘ in its Facebook page. One can sign up by providing one’s name and email ID in this tab, to receive daily updates on the site’s contents.

The Harvard Gazette Sign up

This is an ideal way to gather the email addresses of the

a) University’s students,

b) Prospective students and their parents

c) College counsellors and

d) Outsiders

2. Marquette University:

Marquette University

For its undergraduate admissions, Marquette University offers an organized daily visit for students. There are provisions, in the university’s website, to book an appointment for the visit. Details about these provisions are available in the ‘Visit Marquette‘ page of the site. A ‘Book Now‘ call-to-action (CTA) in the university’s Facebook page links to this page.

Visit Marquette

So, this is a good example of how to use the Facebook page’s CTA feature to promote a varsity’s primary initiative.

3. Stanford University:

Stanford University

Some universities render videos with a professional touch on a consistent basis. To maintain such videos, they have an official YouTube channel too. Stanford University does these activities down pat.

To promote the videos to its Facebook circle, the varsity has incorporated a tab for YouTube in its page. When you click the tab, you get to view the preview of their YouTube channel with few videos displayed.

Stanford University - YouTube Tab

You can add the YouTube tab to your Facebook page using Woobox application.

4. University of Oxford:

University of Oxford

University of Oxford also produces videos with professional touch on a consistent basis. And, it also uploads its videos to its official YouTube channel. But, unlike Stanford, Oxford has opted for the ‘Watch Video‘ CTA, on its Facebook page, to promote its videos.

When you click the ‘Watch Video‘ CTA, you get redirected to a video of the university in YouTube.

University of Oxford teaser video

5. Texas A&M University:

Texas A&M University

Besides an official Facebook page for Texas A&M, there is a dedicated page for its alumni association (‘The Association of Former Students’ is the official alumni association of Texas A&M).

The Association of Former Students

People, running the page, share information about the association in an active manner. They also use the page to promote the content from the association’s web site. The site contains alumni’s stories and info on varsity’s traditions, events and services.

In some stories, I loved the way of narration of the relationship between the alumni and the varsity. Check out one such story here!

Which University’s Facebook page you like the most? Share with me in the comments section!

3 Amazing Marketing Ideas Used for ‘Jurassic Park’ Movie Franchise, in the celebration of its 25th year

3 Amazing Marketing Ideas Used for ‘Jurassic Park’ Movie Franchise, in the celebration of its 25th year

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Jurassic World
3 Amazing Marketing Ideas Used for ‘Jurassic Park‘ Movie Franchise, in the celebration of its 25th year

The Jurassic Park franchise has stepped into its 25th year. The way the film series grew all along like a childhood friend makes it an endearing one. In all these years, lot of aspects related to the franchise has evolved. One among them is marketing.

The next instalment of the franchise i.e. ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ will release on June 22, 2018. As a lead-up to the movie’s release and to mark Jurassic Park‘s 25th year, the makers are up with three amazing stuffs!

1. ‘Relive’ favorite memories of, and ‘Recreate’ favorite scenes, from ‘Jurassic Park’:

Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary
‘Relive’ favourite memories of, and ‘Recreate’ favourite scenes, from ‘Jurassic Park’

The makers of ‘Jurassic Park‘ seem to know well on how to engage the fans of the movie in the evolution of the franchise.

To take part in the celebration of the movie’s Silver Jubilee, the producers offered fans a couple of ways. In which, one was to share their memories of ‘Jurassic Park‘ via a video. Wherein, selected videos will feature on ‘jurassicworld.com‘ and ‘Jurassic World‘ social media. And, the other way was for them to film and share an own version of their favorite scenes from ‘Jurassic Park‘ as a video. Here, chosen videos may be crosscut with original film footage. Also, the videos will get shared across the social media channels of ‘Jurassic World‘. The producers provided the platform, ‘jurassicworld.com‘ for fans to submit their contents. Besides, in either of the contests, there seem to be prizes for the winners.

The contests were open from January 5th to 22nd of 2018.

2. ‘Jurassic World’ camera effect on Facebook:

Blue
Pic featuring the raptor, ‘Blue‘ and Own Grady (Chris Pratt) from ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘

It seemed as if only Owen Grady (Chris Pratt in ‘Jurassic World’) dared to face the raptor, ‘Blue‘ barehanded and tame it ;-). But now, everyone, who has access to the Facebook’s mobile app, can share a screen space with a virtual raptor. All you need to do for that is to enable the ‘Jurassic World‘ effect in your Facebook camera. After enabling the effect, tap the place on your mobile’s screen where you would like to place ‘Blue‘.

The makers have used the ‘AR Studio‘ tool of the Facebook’s ‘Camera Effects Platform‘ to build the effect.

3. ‘Jeep’ commercial that kindles the nostalgia of ‘Jurassic Park’:

Wrangler
Pic featuring Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and Jeff Goldblum

In the beginning, I had mentioned about the evolution of various aspects of the franchise. Among which, the Jeep Wrangler that featured in ‘Jurassic Park‘ is no exception. Now, ‘Jeep‘ has come up with a brand-new 2018 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. The new model of the off-road SUV has now featured in one of the best ads released in this year’s ‘Super bowl‘. Along with the jeep, the ad features one among the favourites of Jurassic Park’s cast, Jeff Goldblum. And, we have the all-time favourite, T-Rex as well in the ad!

The ad, by kindling the nostalgia of ‘Jurassic Park‘, puts up an extensive advertising… An advertising for the Jeep’s latest model and ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘, alike!

Click here to watch the ad!

Conclusion:

The above mentioned strategies should be the beginning of many such sorts. Also, we will have to wait for some time to watch the winning ‘memories‘ and ‘recreation‘ videos. And, on whether the chosen ‘recreation‘ videos get cross cut in the original film footage.

What are your thoughts on these marketing tactics? Do you feel that I have missed any? Share your opinions in the comments section!

4 Experiential Marketing Tactics of popular films that you’ll want to know

4 Experiential Marketing Tactics of popular films that you’ll want to know

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Untitled collage
4 Experiential Marketing Tactics of popular films that you’ll want to know

To take a product or service to the customer, there are several types in Marketing. In which, there is one type that is gaining prominence of late. The type is none other than Experiential Marketing.

Experiential Marketing goes by this simple theory:

Find your target audience. Know what they expect from you. Create an experience around their expectation. Make them feel touched by your approach.

When you do all the above, you earn not alone customers but their loyalty too.

This has been the beauty of Experiential Marketing.

Always, you could spot interesting instances of Experiential Marketing in various industries. Film Industry is no exception. In my previous article, I shared my views on a couple of movie marketing campaigns that excited me. Today, I present another four tactics implemented for popular films by their producers.

Interactive chatbot by ‘Red Chillies Entertainment’ (RCE) for ‘Ittefaq’ and ‘Raees’:

There is one aspect that has become an integral part in the movie marketing of RCE. It is none other than its Facebook Messenger chatbot.

For example, consider that RCE has come up with content for its upcoming movie. Here, the content refers to a movie poster, teaser, trailer, video song or a promotional video. To take such content to its audience, the chatbot begins chatting with the person who has subscribed to it. The important aspect to note here is that the chat continues only when the person wishes to. If the person responds in a positive manner then the chatbot builds a lively interaction. In the course of the conversation, the bot shares the contents.

Ittefaq collage
A collage featuring Akshaye Khanna, Sonakshi Sinha and Sidharth Malhotra from ‘Ittefaq‘

For RCE‘s latest movie, ‘Ittefaq’, the chatbot started a chat by posing as ‘Inspector Dev’. ‘Inspector Dev‘ (played by Akshaye Khanna) is one among the main characters in ‘Ittefaq’. This was as in the manner in which the chatbot triggered a conversation by posing as ‘Harry’ for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’. In the course of the chat, the bot shared contents like posters, trailer and video song of the movie. Also shared in the chat was a promotional video titled, ‘An interrogation with Karan Johar‘.

Besides these contents, there were a couple of scenarios shared, for the audience to solve. At regular intervals, the chatbot presented the scenarios. Wherein, both the scenarios got based around the genre of the movie i.e. Mystery Thriller.

On the day before the movie’s release day, a short chat reminded to contain SPOILERS related to the movie. On the release day, the chatbot shared the movie’s ticket booking link.

User engagement by the chatbot doesn’t end with the above activities. It also recalls some moments from RCE‘s previous movies. And, it intertwines such moments with special days.

For last year’s Children Day, the chatbot conducted a quiz. In the quiz, few occasions from RCE’s movies accompanied the questions. GIF and JPEG images represented such occasions. Questions were on tapping the inner child that exists within every grown-up. The quiz, as a whole, appeared pleasing.

Raees
A still featuring Shah Rukh Khan from ‘Raees‘

Later, the chatbot carried out a quiz marking a year since the release of the 2017 Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Raees’. The quiz included some trivial questions about the movie. This quiz to ‘measure’ one’s RQ i.e. Raees Quotient sounded pretty unique and catchy!

Creepy ‘Insidious‘ mazes in ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ at ‘Universal Studios Hollywood’:

Insidious maze
A still featuring Lin Shaye, Angus Sampson and Leigh Whannell in the Insidious maze

The 2013 ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ featured the maze attraction, ‘Insidious: Into the Further’. The maze was based on the purgatory realm, ‘The Further’ that appears in the ‘Insidious‘ movies. Via this event, the audience got an opportunity to explore the ‘dark world’. They experienced the disquieting atmosphere that they had watched in the ‘Insidious’ movies. Few people of the event were in the guise of the frightening characters of the ‘Insidious’ movies. They scared the hell out of visitors. This made the ambience become even more eerier. This experience that was set as a lead-up to the theatrical release of ‘Insidious Chapter 2’ was a runaway hit.

The maze adventure opened again for the public in 2015 as ‘Insidious: Return to the Further’ and in 2017 as ‘Insidious: Beyond the Further‘. On both the occasions as well the mazes received a positive response from the fans of the franchise.

‘Into The Further A 4D Experience’ mobile tour for ‘Insidious Chapter 3’:

Into the Further A 4D Experience
Model house designed for the tour

Before the theatrical release of ‘Insidious Chapter 3’, its producers organized a tour. As part of the tour, they designed a model house with dark interiors. The interiors did resemble the inner part of the houses that appear in the ‘Insidious’ movies. The model house took on tour to various cities for audience visit. The cities include Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas and New York. Entry into the model house was free for the audience. Audience who had visited the house felt engaged with some genuine scares. Later, using an Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset, they experienced a horror segment. The clip, utilized in the segment, featured Dr. Elise Rainier who guided the viewer into the ‘Further’.

Click here to watch the audience’s experiences!

Later, the producers released the video of ‘Into The Further A 4D Experience’ in online. Like the response to the maze attractions, audience had rendered thumbs up to this campaign as well.

‘360 degree’ videos and an interactive chatbot by ‘Sri Thenandal Films’ (TSL) for ‘Mersal’:

A still from Mersal featuring Vijay
A still featuring Vijay from ‘Mersal‘

Like RCE, TSL too had introduced interactive chatbots for their 100th production, ‘Mersal’. In one of my articles, I had briefed the creation of customized ‘Mersal‘ posters using the chatbot. Post which, TSL had extended the utility of the bot further. The chatbot had conducted a quiz titled, ‘Mersal Match Meter’. Later, it also carried out a quick chat to make people share their feedback about the movie and rate the same. Like RCE, TSL’s chatbot also shared a ticket booking link for the movie. The entire interactive chatbot episode of TSL was quite unique and engaging!

Besides launching an interactive chatbot, TSL released a couple of ‘360 degree‘ videos. TSL teamed up with ‘Karpita‘ to render and unveil the videos. One video presented the speech of the Tamil Film Star Vijay in the ‘Mersal‘ audio launch function. Whereas, the other featured the live in concert of the legendary musician A.R.Rahman in the same function.

The efforts of TSL had appealed well to the die-hard fans of both the Tamil cinema stars.

Conclusion:

Above examples are among the finest of Experiential Marketing campaigns in Film Industry. Because, the movies not only grabbed audience’s attention but also obtained their loyalty.

Application of the theory mentioned in this article seems evident in the tactics.

So, here I end my article. Hope you find the scenarios jotted down in this article to be informative. Please let me know your opinion about the write-up in the comments section!

Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘IT’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Velaikkaran’

Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘IT’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Velaikkaran’

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Untitled collage
Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘IT’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Velaikkaran’

It’s been a while since I had written my last post in this blog. In fact, for a period of time, I wasn’t in touch with the changes that have been happening in the marketing sphere. Few days ago, when I had plunged again into one of my favorite parallel world (i.e. Marketing) to know the latest updates, I felt excited on knowing about a couple of movie marketing campaigns. One campaign being the ‘Neibolt House’ visit for public in Los Angeles, for the 2017 American supernatural horror flick, ‘IT’. Other being, the ‘Cooliekkara kuppam’ set visit for public in Chennai, for the 2017 Tamil social thriller movie, ‘Velaikkaran’. However, both the strategies could well be tagged to one topic i.e. Experiential Marketing.

Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘Neibolt House’ visit for ‘IT’:

‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ in association with the out-of-home agency, ‘Grandesign’ created the ‘Neibolt House’ (inspired by a haunted house that appears in the movie, ‘IT’) in the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine St. in Los Angeles. The house was opened for public daily, from August 14th 2017 – September 10th 2017 from 11am – 11pm. The public visit was scheduled well ahead of the movie’s theatrical release as the film premiered on September 5th 2017. The haunted house visit seemed thoroughly immersive.

Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘Neibolt House’ visit for ‘IT’
‘Neibolt House’ located in the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine St. in Los Angeles

‘Slum Set’ visit for ‘Velaikkaran’:

Following their captivating Content Marketing campaign for ‘Remo’, ‘24AM STUDIOS’ have come up with the appealing ‘Cooliekkara kuppam’ set for ‘Velaikkaran’. The set was designed and erected by the movie’s art director T Muthuraj and team for the film. The set, located inside Prasad Labs at Vadapalani in Chennai, has been opened for public from December 30th 2017 to January 20th 2018 from 9am – 5pm. The public visit was scheduled after the theatrical release of ‘Velaikkaran’ as the movie released on December 22nd 2017.

Slum Set’ visit for ‘Velaikkaran’
‘Cooliekkara kuppam’ set located inside Prasad Labs at Vadapalani in Chennai

Campaigns offering opportunities for their target audience to experience their respective brands:

In both the campaigns, audiences were offered with opportunities to physically experience the demonstrations that were put up by the brands.

Branded hashtags, such as ‘#ThatsWhereITLives’ for ‘IT’ and ‘#VelaikkaranSetVisit’ for ‘Velaikkaran’, were created by the organizers and marketed in their respective social media posts prior to the visits and also were advertised in the sets.

Hashtag in tweet - IT Movie
‘#ThatsWhereITLives’ hashtag in the tweet from the official Twitter page of ‘IT Movie‘
Velaikkaran Set Visit hashtag
‘#VelaikkaranSetVisit’ hashtag incorporated to the image, posted in social media by ‘24AM STUDIOS’

Reminding attendees of the hashtag at the event had made it easier for them to share their experiences on social media.

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Reminding visitors of the hashtag, ‘#ThatsWhereITLives‘ at ‘Neibolt House‘ in Los Angeles
Velaikkaran Set Visit hashtag 2
Reminding attendees of the hashtag, ‘#VelaikkaranSetVisit‘ in the ‘VELAIKKARAN – SIGNATURE WALL‘ at ‘Cooliekkara Kuppam‘ set in Chennai

Via these hashtags, the organizers have engaged (such as Retweets and Likes in ‘Twitter’ and Shares in ‘Facebook’) well with their audience.

The slum set visit was made live in Facebook and Twitter in order to engage the people who couldn’t attend. As a follow-up to the ‘live’ activities, few of the attendees were allowed to talk about the sets. These were captured as videos and were shared in social media. As the brands connected well with the audience, prior to the set visit, in social media, there were deeper engagements at the event.

Click the link to know on what the audience have got to say about their ‘Neibolt House‘ set visit!

Even few from among the cast and crew of both the movies paid a visit to the respective sets. Photos and videos of the same were shared in social media.

Cast and crew visit - 'IT'
‘IT‘ Director Andrés Muschietti with the cast at ‘Neibolt House‘ in Los Angeles
Cast and crew visit - 'Velaikkaran'
‘Velaikkaran‘ star Sivakarthikeyan with a fan at ‘Cooliekkara Kuppam‘ set in Chennai

Click the link to view the visit of few from among the cast and crew of ‘Velaikkaran‘ to the set!

Providing online platforms and encouraging the audiences to go through an immersive experience:

In addition to offering an opportunity to experience the sets in a tangible, offline way, ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ and ‘24AM STDUDIOS’ have also provided online platforms to the audience to go through an immersive experience of their products via the marketing tools, VR (Virtual Reality) and 360° videos respectively. ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ has released a video titled, ‘IT: FLOAT – A Cinematic VR Experience’ and ‘24AM STUDIOS’ has released a video titled, ‘Velaikkaran Set Making 360° Video’ in their respective official YouTube channels. In the former video, one gets to experience the world of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Whereas, in the latter, the viewer can avail the opportunity to visit the ‘Cooliekkara Kuppam’ set virtually and at the same time, listen to art director T Muthuraj sharing his moments that had transpired during the time of set’s design and construction.

Click here to watch the video, ‘IT: FLOAT – A Cinematic VR Experience’ and here to watch the ‘Velaikkaran Set Making 360° Video’!

A cursory view at the experiential tactics of both the organizers exhibits the manner in which they have effectively leveraged both the online and offline spaces for the purpose of marketing. Apart from people obtaining awareness about the uniqueness of these brands and the box office prospects of the movies getting boosted, these campaigns have rendered memorable moments for the audience to cherish.

So, that’s it with my blog post about the Experiential Marketing Campaigns of ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ and ‘24AM STUDIOS’ for ‘IT’ and ‘Velaikkaran’ respectively. Now, let me know your viewpoints about my article in the comments section!

Testing 280 characters in Twitter: A Conducive Approach

Testing 280 characters in Twitter: A Conducive Approach

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A Conducive method in the 280 character limit test
Testing 280 characters in Twitter: A Conducive Approach

I read the article titled, ‘Testing 280 characters: Because the trademark brevity of tweets has also proved a liability’ that has been published in the ‘TOI Editorials’ section of the daily, ‘The Times of India’. I agree with the bottom line of the write-up i.e. welcoming the increase in the character count of tweets. At the same time, I feel that the Twitter’s approach in bringing this change could have been different.

For the purpose of testing, instead of doubling the character count of tweets at one go and seeding the change to only selected user accounts, Twitter could have followed an incremental approach by involving all its users. For example, consider the approach wherein at first, the character limit of tweets is increased from ‘140’ to ‘160’ and the change is delivered to every Twitter user for utilization. After studying the response of the Twitter users — with respect to the update — for a period of over three months, the character count of tweets is increased further by ‘20’ and the update is made available to the user immediately. In this process, every round of increment is done based on the necessity that is obtained out of the observation over the response of the users for the previous increment.

The reason behind the approach of increasing the number by ‘20’, in every increment, is to gradually make most of the twitterati to come out of their ‘emotional connect’ with the current character limit. As far as the factor of ‘months’ is concerned, the intention is purely to offer a duration for the users to settle with a change. Also, within the stipulated time interval between the two increments, people managing the Twitter accounts of organizations, institutions and other businesses will find enough time to come up with a plan, execute their formula and gain insights about the various aspects of the update with respect to their work.

And here ends my thought regarding the alternative approach that could have been deployed in increasing the character count of tweets in Twitter. Now, let me know your opinion about my article in the comments section!

 

Feel like Procrastinating? Try out these 2 Quick Tips!

Feel like Procrastinating? Try out these 2 Quick Tips!

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Untitled design
Feel like Procrastinating? Try out these 2 Quick Tips!

“when ur heart says you should meet someone, don’t delay. i always wanted to meet Kalam saab and i should have made the effort . my loss .”

After the demise of the renowned aerospace engineer and the former President of India (2002-2007), Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, the above words were shared in Twitter, by the Bollywood Star Salman Khan. Salman’s tweet not just exhibits the respect that he has over the India’s ‘Missile Man’ but also explicitly stresses the elimination of an undesirable feature (i.e. Procrastination) from an individual, once and for all.

Several attributes of various individuals have been determining the outcomes of their respective actions. Wherein, procrastination has been one among the primary features, which have been inflicting a negative impact over the results of their efforts.

So, what generally makes people to procrastinate? There are a lot of reasons that come to my mind, for example:

  • Lack of self-control
  • Task aversiveness

Consider the scenario where a person procrastinates by postponing the early morning workout to evening. But what if the person gets stuck in a work in the evening or feels exhausted after a hectic day? In this scenario, isn’t the person losing a day’s exercise just because of the lack of self-control?

Rebecca Olsen’s thought about self-controlled decisions:

In this regard, I came across an idea that has been proposed by Rebecca Olsen, a PhD student from the Victoria University of Wellington. Rebecca, who has been researching on how to help people be more self-controlled and focus on long-term gain rather than immediate rewards, says:

“The act of imagining personal, future events have shown to help people make more self-controlled decisions. This means vividly imagining an event that will happen when you have achieved the long-term goal you’re working towards.”

Even though Rebecca’s research is underway, her thought about self-controlled decisions seems to be handy.

Dr. Tim Pychyl’s recommendation to overcome task aversiveness:

As far as the case of task aversiveness is concerned, Dr. Tim Pychyl, a procrastination researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, has recommended a different approach. Now, consider this situation in your workplace where you have been expected to complete a task within a particular time that has been stipulated by someone else. But, you sense that the stipulated time is practically not enough to accomplish the work and also there is no room for the time to be reversed. In this situation, you feel the task to be averse and tend to procrastinate it.

This is where you find the recommendation of Dr. Tim Pychyl to be useful. He suggests one to break down the attributes of an aversive task and work out on the attributes that require a change in the approach of their execution in order to make the task desirable.

From now on, if you feel like you’re procrastinating, just try out the suggestions that have been stated above and feel the difference! Sound off in the comments about any other method to eliminate procrastination, which you would like to share!

Utilization of Cutting Edge Technologies for Marketing in Indian Film Industry

Utilization of Cutting Edge Technologies for Marketing in Indian Film Industry

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Mersal Vijay
Utilization of Cutting Edge Technologies for Marketing in Indian Film Industry

Of late, I have observed several instances where the Indian Film Producers have showcased their immense interests in optimizing cutting edge technologies to promote their movies. There are few notable ones from among such instances. To start with, let me brief about the utilizations of cutting edge technologies for the marketing of movies such as ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’, ‘2.0’, ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ (aka JHMS) and ‘Mersal’.

b2-4
Still featuring Prabhas from ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion‘

In the case of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’, the film’s maker, ‘Arka Media Works’ had utilized the Facebook Messenger Chatbot service to conduct an interactive quiz and share information on subscription to it; released a VR (Virtual Reality) video that guided the viewers through a virtual tour on the sets of Baahubali; live streamed the Baahubali pre-release event in 360° on the movie’s official YouTube channel; released a teaser of the 10-min VR film, ‘The Sword Of Destiny’ that is based on the characters from Baahubali.

To know more on the Digital Marketing strategies of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’ by ‘Arka Media Works’, click here!

To make the first look launch of ‘2.0’ (Sequel to the 2010 movie, ‘Endhiran’) unique and special, the film’s producer, ‘Lyca Productions’ had leveraged AR (Augmented Reality) by setting up a virtual conversation between the image of Chitti (character played by Rajinikanth in ‘Endhiran’) – that was incorporated to the screen that was placed over the stage – and the film maker, Karan Johar (host of the first look launch event).

An infographic on the Promotional Strategies of ‘2.0′:

Promotional Strategies for ‘2.0’ seem to serve as perfect preludes to the movie!

To know more about the promotional strategies for ‘2.0’, click here!

JHMS promotional event
Shah Rukh Khan and Anushkha Sharma from a promotional event for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal‘

To promote the Shah Rukh Khan-Anushkha Sharma starrer ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, the movie’s producer, ‘Red Chillies Entertainment’ had launched an interactive Chatbot service in Facebook Messenger, which offered a lot more immersive experience than that of the one that was utilized for ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’. The Chatbot was designed in such a way that the people can get to interact with the character, ‘Harry’ played by Shah Rukh Khan in the movie. In the chat, the characters of the movie were introduced, an overview about the relationship between them was let known, the crux of the film was highlighted and the options to access Mini Trails (series of promo clips of the movie) and video songs were made available. Also using the Chatbot, people were able to create customized Jab Harry Met Sejal posters and access web ticket booking and film review links.

To know more about the Digital Marketing efforts of ‘Red Chillies Entertainment’ for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, click here!

Mersal
Still featuring Vijay from ‘Mersal‘

Along the lines of the efforts of ‘Arka Media Works’ for ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’, ‘Lyca Productions’ for ‘2.0’ and ‘Red Chillies Entertainment’ for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, ‘Sri Thenandal Films’ aka ‘TSL’ have been pushing the envelope with Digital Marketing for their 100th venture, ‘Mersal’. The movie also marks the 25th year, for the Oscar Winning Music Composer, A.R.Rahman and the South Indian Star, Vijay, in the Indian Film Industry. The marketing for ‘Mersal’, which is gearing up for a release on October 18th 2017, has been proceeding in full swing. Similar to ‘Baahubali 2’ and ‘JHMS’, for ‘Mersal’ as well, ‘TSL’ has launched an interactive Chatbot in Facebook Messenger to create customized ‘Mersal’ posters.

In the case of ‘JHMS’, we had a look at how an interactive Facebook Messenger Chatbot could be utilized to access contents, that are relevant to the movie, from one place. But, there is a visual discovery app of the London based firm ‘blippAR’, which I came across recently, that could also be utilized to access the contents of the movie from one place in an even more interesting manner. The ‘blippAR’ app operates using Augmented Reality, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to bring the physical world to life through smartphones and wearables. As far as the Indian Film industry is concerned, ‘blippAR’ has already created a blipp for the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ‘Bhoothnath Returns’. Using the ‘Bhoothnath Returns’ blipp, one could access the movie’s video songs, making videos, Juke Box, web ticket booking links and an option to click photos using camera effects that have been customized for the movie.

Now in 2017, as mentioned earlier, Indian Film Producers are leveraging the digital channels in a much more effective manner, than they were in the days of ‘Bhoothnath Returns’, to promote their movies. In the matter of ‘Mersal’, as of now, contents such as HD stills, lyric videos of songs, exclusive interview of the film’s producer, audio launch videos and audio CDs have been officially released. In the forthcoming days, teasers, trailers, song promo videos and full song HD videos will also be released and once when advanced ticket booking for ‘Mersal’ commences, web ticket booking links will also be available. Isn’t it a cool approach to have the contents pertaining to ‘Mersal’ as mentioned above to be packed into a blipp of the ‘blippAR’ app! Similar to the ‘Photo’ feature in the blipp of ‘Bhoothnath Returns’, a customized camera effect, featuring Vijay of ‘Mersal’, has the potential to go down with the fans of the star. Suppose if ‘TSL’ is in a plan to launch a ‘Mersal’ themed mobile video game then that as well could be incorporated to the blipp.

Prior to the theatrical release of the 2013 Tamil rom-com, ‘Raja Rani’ the movie’s primary characters were introduced one-by-one in a cine supplement of a daily newspaper. In 2017, prior to the release of the Tamil action thriller, ‘Vikram Vedha’, the introduction scenes of Vedha (played by Actor Vijay Sethupathy) and Vikram (played by Actor Madhavan) were released in the official YouTube channel of the film’s producer. Imagine the promotional tactics as said above in the case of ‘Raja Rani’ and ‘Vikram Vedha’ being incorporated to an Augmented Reality app such as ‘blippAR’! Isn’t the idea sounding effective, with respect to marketing, to the film producers and adding value to the film audience!

With all being said and done with respect to the utilization of cutting edge technologies for marketing in Indian Film Industry, all what a marketing cum movie buff like me has to do is to wait and watch for the Indian movie martech to evolve!