Digital Marketing Archives - MARKETING JOURNO

Look Back: A “Spooky” Twitter Bot to Promote ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’

By Dhileepan | January 22, 2023

When I feel satisfied completing a movie or web series on OTT, I google to know its critical reception, box-office performance, and the whereabouts of its actors. Above all, I spend relatively more time looking up the marketing endeavor put behind the movie. A lot of those marketing strategies would be as interesting as the associated movie or web series. For quite some time, I’ve been wishing to blog about such initiatives in an organized manner (although I’ve blogged considerably and randomly on movie marketing). It is not just that I love to put them down, but also because they deserve to be raved about for the creativity invested to conceive, design, and execute them. So, here I am to fulfill my wish with the ‘Look Back’ series, wherein I’ll retell the interesting aspects I gather on the marketing of the movie or web series I watch.

Kicking off the series…

Recently, I watched the 2016 American supernatural horror film, ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil‘ on Netflix. I loved the movie. So, I dug up to know its marketing initiatives. As a result, I got to know a handful of promotional events done for the movie, but the one that interested me the most is the campaign titled, ‘Ouija Knows All Twitter Bot‘. Therefore, I begin the series with this article on the initiative.

**About the movie, ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil‘…**

A widow (Elizabeth Reaser as Alice Zander), with her daughters, carry out a phony séance business at her home. Upon bringing the Ouija board to the business, they make contact with an evil spirit existing there. Consequently, the entity possesses Alice’s 9-year-old daughter (Lulu Wilson as Doris Zander). The movie then focuses on the event’s after-effects.

About the campaign, ‘Ouija Knows All Twitter Bot‘…

The movie’s distributor, ‘Universal Pictures’ and the Digital Marketing agency, ‘Addison Interactive’ collaborated on the campaign, which invited fans to tweet random questions to the Twitter handle, ‘@OuijaKnowsAll’. The questions posted were like, “What is my name?” and “are ghosts real?“. The agency-curated customized bot facilitated the Twitter handle to reply with a GIF image, which showed a planchette sequentially moving over the letters on the Ouija board per their order in the answers. The alphabet under focus on each movement of the planchette displayed beneath the board. Within the confines of the GIF image, the alphabet got added in an incremental manner post each movement and ended with accurate answers to the questions.

Reply to a few other questions had Doris Zander replacing the Ouija board and planchette in the GIF. For instance, a question like “Will Rihanna win a Grammy for her 8^th album ANTI?” had the image say “OF COURSE“.

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About the offline promotions…

Real-world giant projections, installed at the annual Halloween events, ‘Haunted Hayride’ and ‘Halloween Horror Nights’, entertained people waiting in the queue. In conclusion, the ultimate goal was to get everyone buzzing around the movie.

Outcome…

Influencers and celebrities jumped on the bandwagon of posting questions, resulting in the campaign’s reach getting amplified. As a result, the initiative garnered 355,000+ questions and 23,000,000 impressions on Twitter by then.

Per Deadline, the movie debuted at 3,167 theaters with cumulative gross earnings of $14M in its Week 1.

Recognition…

As an entrant to the Clio Awards program, the agency submitted the below video and photo to the medium, ‘Theatrical: Social Media’ within the entry type, ‘Theatrical’, and the category, ‘Single Platform Campaign’. Eventually, the campaign won Clio Gold.

Source: Clios

‘Sri Thenandal Films’ pushes the envelope with Digital Marketing for ‘Mersal’

By Dhileepan | August 15, 2017

'Mersal' Vijay — **‘Sri Thenandal Films’ pushes the envelope with Digital Marketing for ‘Mersal’**

It’s always been interesting to watch film production houses leveraging the digital space to offer a personalized experience to their target audience. With their 100^th movie ‘Mersal’, in pipeline for a grand audio launch on 20^th of August, Sri Thenandal Films aka TSL (makers of ‘Mersal’) have come up with a unique and interesting promotional strategy for the movie.

A chatbot to create personalized movie posters:

Along the lines of utilization of interactive chatbots for movies such as ‘Kaabil’, ‘M.S.Dhoni’, ‘Jolly LLB 2’, ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya’, ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’ and ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, TSL has introduced a chatbot for ‘Mersal’ using which their audience could create personalized Mersal posters. Sri Thenandal Films, in association with ICONICbot (a tech start-up cofounded by the Indian film actress cum producer, Vishaka Singh and ex-IBMer, Sandesh B Suvarna), has launched the chatbot that could be accessed by messaging in the official Facebook page of Sri Thenandal Films or on its messenger.

Target audience rejoicing the outcome of the strategy:

With Vijay – an iconic Indian actor who enjoys a huge fan base – on board for ‘Mersal’ and the movie being TSL’s 100^th movie, what better circumstance than this could get TSL to implement the AI technology! As expected, the fans seem to love the outcome of this strategy a lot. In the social media accounts of TSL, the information regarding the chatbot was shared with the hashtag, ‘#MyMersalPoster’. Following suit, the fans have been sharing their customized Mersal posters under the same hashtag.

Marketing Journo

Complementary factors of the strategy:

The chatbot’s launch date i.e. 15^th of August sounds ideal as the corresponding day is a pan-India holiday. Also, the regional movie influencers have propagated the news, about the chatbot launch, to their respective followers.

Chatbots of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’ and ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ VS Chatbot of ‘Mersal’:

Unlike the predominant feature of the chatbot of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’ that offered the people an opportunity to take part in an interactive quiz and that of the one for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ that offered the audience to indulge in an immersive chat experience, the chatbot of ‘Mersal’ has been restricted with the creation of Mersal posters as of now. We have to wait to know from the makers regarding the inclusion of new features to the ‘Mersal’ chatbot.

So, that’s it with the write-up on the Digital Marketing Strategy of Sri Thenandal Films for ‘Mersal’. Hope you liked reading the article! Let me know your opinion in the comments section!

Red Chillies Entertainment’s notable Digital Marketing efforts for Shah Rukh Khan-Anushkha Sharma’s ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’

By Dhileepan | July 20, 2017

Jab Harry Met Sejal - Shah Rukh Khan and Anushkha Sharma — **Red Chillies Entertainment’s notable Digital Marketing efforts for Shah Rukh Khan-Anushkha Sharma’s ‘*Jab Harry Met Sejal*’**

As far as my knowledge goes, right after ‘Ra.One’, it has been the case with most movies of Shah Rukh Khan-Gauri Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, where their marketing efforts have been as notable as the themes of the movies. With Red Chillies Entertainment’s next, ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ being scheduled for a release on 4^th August, 2017, I tried gathering information regarding the marketing strategies deployed for the movie. As a result, I have come up with this article that briefs about a couple of Digital Marketing strategies applied for the movie.

1. An interactive chatbot rendering an immersive experience:

Along the lines of utilizations of chatbots for movies such as ‘Kaabil’, ‘M.S.Dhoni’, ‘Jolly LLB 2’, ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya’ and ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion‘, Red Chillies Entertainment have come up with an interactive chatbot to offer an immersive experience to their audience.

The chatbot has been designed in such a way that the people can get to interact with the character, Harry played by Shah Rukh Khan in the movie.

The features that this chatbot offers are more than just generic conversations. In its likeable interaction, the chatbot provides an intro about the characters, Harry and Sejal (Anushkha Sharma) from the movie and then offers us three engaging 37-second clips – which the makers call as ‘mini trails’ – from the film.

Also, using the chatbot, people can create customised posters, participate in a travel based personality quiz, watch songs from the movie and win exclusive merchandise.

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2. Very own Facebook camera effect for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’:

‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ is one among the few films in Bollywood, to have their very own Facebook camera effect.

By accessing camera effects by swiping left on their Facebook profile, people could make use of the JHMS (Jab Harry Met Sejal) effect. Using this provision, people could click a picture or shoot a video and share the same in their story or Facebook profile in ‘Harry & Sejal’ style.

Those are the two Digital Marketing strategies that Red Chillies Entertainment has deployed for ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’. Wish the marketing efforts of the Khan couple, to establish a ‘connect’ between their film and the digital audience, pays dividends with their movie’s result at box-office!

5 striking Digital Marketing strategies implemented by the makers of Baahubali 2

By Dhileepan | May 21, 2017

b2-4 — 5 Striking Digital Marketing strategies implemented by the makers of Baahubali 2

Similar to the amount of effort that has been put into the making of the two technically rich movies in the Baahubali franchise (Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali 2: The Conclusion), an equal amount of effort has been invested from the marketing arena as well to take the movies closer to the audience and sustain the ‘Baahubali’ sensation among them for all these years. In this digital era, when it comes to marketing, Digital Marketing becomes imperative and essential. So, here I have come up with 5 striking Digital Marketing strategies deployed by the makers of the Baahubali franchise, ‘Arka Media Works’ around the theatrical release of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’.

1. Launch of #ChatQuizChallenge on Facebook:

ChatBot 3 — **Launch of #ChatQuizChallenge on Facebook**

After the release of the trailer of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’, the producer of the film launched on Facebook, an interactive quiz named ‘#ChatQuizChallenge’ driven by a Chatbot, that was accessible by messaging in the movie’s official Facebook page, Baahubali, or on messenger. The interactive quiz created by the Social and Digital Agency, ‘KRDS India’ had 5 trivial questions that were based on the trailer of Baahubali 2. People were provided with an option to take the quiz on the language of their preference with available languages being Tamil, English, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. As part of this strategy, people were also offered with an option, by the Chatbot, to subscribe to it to get to know the latest news or updates, pertaining to the movie, from the production crew.

2. Release of the Graphic novel, ‘Baahubali – The Battle of the Bold’ on Google Play Store:

WEB.jpg2_ — **Release of the Graphic novel, ‘Baahubali – The Battle of the Bold’ on Google Play Store**

Targetting the fans of Baahubali and comic book lovers, two months ahead of the theatrical release of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’, Arka Media Works had launched the Graphic novel, ‘Baahubali – The Battle of the Bold’ on ‘Graphic POP Asia’ app, which is available in Google Play Store. Post the installation of the app, the graphic novel can be downloaded from it. According to the novel’s author, ‘Graphic India’, ‘Baahubali – The Battle of the Bold’ depicts some untold events that had laid around the participation of Baahubali and Bhallaladeva in a tournament, which had happened well before the happenings that have been showcased in the film. Paperback version of the novel is also available for purchase in amazon.

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3. Launch of the animation series, ‘Baahubali: The Lost Legends’ on Amazon Prime Video India:

baahubali-animated-759 — **Launch of the animation series, ‘Baahubali: The Lost Legends’ on Amazon Prime Video India**

Around mid-April, inspired by the Baahubali film franchise, Arka Media Works and the director of the Baahubali film series, S.S.Rajamouli in collaboration with Graphic India and Amazon had launched the first episode of the animation series, ‘Baahubali: The Lost Legends’ in Amazon Prime Video’s India service. The second episode of the animated series was released on 19^th May 2017, with the other episodes to be made live in the upcoming weeks. ‘Baahubali: The Lost Legends’ seems to exhibit some fresh stories about the characters, which have already become popular among the audience, such as Baahubali, Bhallaladeva, Kattappa and Sivagami and portray few more new characters and their respective stories.

4. Optimization of the hashtag, #WKKB in social media posts and on film posters:

Optimization of the hashtag, #WKKB in social media posts and on film posters

In India, when Twitter first brought in the plan of creating hashtags in regional languages, Rajamouli launched the first Telugu Hashtag, #బాహుబలివస్తున్నాడు (‘Baahubali Vasthunnadu’ meaning ‘Baahubali coming soon’) from his twitter handle for the promotion of ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’. Likewise, for ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’ too, the hashtag, #WKKB (WKKB is the abbreviation of ‘Why Kattappa Killed Baahubali’) was creating quite a revolution in the social media space. It was utilized in film posters too.

5. Leveraging Virtual Reality and 360 degree videos:

Baahubali-2-Movie-Shoots-With-BB360cc-VR-Camera — **Leveraging Virtual Reality and 360 degree videos**

In October 2016, ‘Radeon Technologies Group’, a part of US-based chip maker AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.) released the Virtual Reality (VR) video titled, ‘On The Sets of Baahubali’. It guided the viewers through a virtual tour on the sets of Baahubali. As a follow-up to this activity of leveraging the technological advancements, for marketing purposes, Arka Media Works by teaming with Radeon live streamed in 360° the Baahubali Pre-Release Event (which was held on March 26^th 2017 in Hyderabad) on the movie’s official YouTube channel. VR boxes were suggested to viewers to have a Virtual Reality experience of the event.

To top it all, the collaboration of Arka Media Works, Rajamouli and AMD Radeon Technologies Group came up with the teaser of the 10-min VR film, ‘The Sword Of Baahubali’, that is based on the characters from Baahubali. The teaser was shown to people in various malls, theatres and multiplexes across the states of Andhra and Telangana.

So, here ends my documentation on the 5 striking Digital Marketing strategies implemented by Arka Media Works for the Baahubali franchise but not the only strategies that have been implemented. There may be even more striking ones.

Feel free to let me know your comments on the article!