Mr.Chandramouli movie poster (Image Source: BOFTA Media Works India Pvt Ltd and Creative Entertainers Production)
On 25th April 2018, I attended the audio launch of the movie, Mr.Chandramouli at Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. It was my first visit to an event of this kind. The producers of the movie, Mr. Dhananjayan G, Mr. S. Vikram Kumar and Mrs. Lalitha Dhananjayan had rendered a grand and a colorful event. As a marketing enthusiast, I found a lot of takeaways from the event and its preludes. In this article, I share my observations.
1. Leveraging technology to boost attendance to the event:
I found an invite from the website, Behindwoods, which it had posted in its social media. Invite was for the audio launch of the movie, Mr.Chandramouli. The invite encouraged people to send their name to the Whatsapp mobile number present in it. After sending the message, the sender received a message with two entry passes to the event.
I find this approach to be an effective one in reaching out to the potential attendees of an event. Also, it appeared to be less invasive. Yet another point to note here is that the invite isn’t limited to certain audience as it is shared in social media.
2. Choosing contents appropriate to the event:
In an event, it is important to choose contents that aligns with your target audience. The producers of Mr.Chandramouli had chosen contents for the event by keeping in mind its target audience.
Attendees of the event got a chance to take a look at the trailer of the movie. A couple of video songs from Mr.Chandramouli were also showcased. And, the makers had got speakers for the event… speakers who are well known in the industry and who have experiences to share to the audience.
Marketing Journo
3. Engaging audience who have missed the event:
Makers of the movie, ensured that people who couldn’t attend the event also felt engaged. So, certain sessions of the event were live streamed in social media. Also, the trailer was shared in social media later in the evening.
Conclusion:
The above mentioned approaches seem to be in practice for a while. Since, this is my first visit to an event of this scale, I have documented my observations. And, as a fan of movie marketing, I look forward to more of innovative ideas enhancing the regional movie audio launch events.
Now, let me know your perceptions about the event in the comments!
What YouTube Marketing Lessons can one learn from ‘DC’ and ‘Marvel’
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.
Marketing Journo
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!
What Black Panther teaches about ‘Grassroots Marketing on Social Media’
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
If you want to buy tix for people who can’t afford to see #BlackPanther at the moment, comment below. If you are in need of tix, reach out to the angels who have commented below #payitforward Enjoy the movie everyone!
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’.
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’.
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
Marketing Journo
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.
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.
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
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:
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.
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:
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.
So, this is a good example of how to use the Facebook page’s CTA feature to promote a varsity’s primary initiative.
Marketing Journo
3. 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.
You can add the YouTube tab to your Facebook page using Woobox application.
4. 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.
5. 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).
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
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’:
‘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.
Marketing Journo
2. ‘Jurassic World’ camera effect on Facebook:
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’:
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!
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
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.
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.
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!
Marketing Journo
Creepy ‘Insidious‘ mazes in ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ at ‘Universal Studios Hollywood’:
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.
‘Into The Further A 4D Experience’ mobile tour for ‘Insidious Chapter 3’:
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’.
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 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’
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. A 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’. Another 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.
‘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.
‘Cooliekkara kuppam’ set located inside Prasad Labs at Vadapalani in Chennai
Marketing Journo
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.
‘#ThatsWhereITLives’ hashtag in the tweet from the official Twitter page of ‘IT Movie‘‘#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.
Reminding visitors of the hashtag, ‘#ThatsWhereITLives‘ at ‘Neibolt House‘ in Los AngelesReminding 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 has 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.
‘IT‘ Director Andrés Muschietti with the cast at ‘Neibolt House‘ in Los Angeles‘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 STUDIOS’ 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!
With ‘Sarahah’ – a self-development tool that allows people to receive constructive feedback – being in news for various reasons, I decided to write this article to jot down my learning, pertaining to Marketing, from the journey of Sarahah. Let us have a look at my learning (which I claim as ‘Marketing Lessons’):
5. Manage the controversies around the product:
Despite Zainab letting people know the actual intentions behind the ‘Sarahah’ app, as far as my knowledge is concerned, the constructive utilization of the app has been very minimal. With respect to the same argument, the app has been in news for wrong reasons such as cyber bullying for quite some time. Also, rumours were rife that the makers of Sarahah were planning to expose the identities of the senders on August 1, 2017. But, the people behind Sarahah were prepared to manage the controversies circling the app.
In order to thwart cyber bullying, facility to block senders has been incorporated to the app. From Sarahah’s official Twitter account, it was clarified that the rumours regarding the plan to expose the senders’ identities are fake.
4. Leverage influencers:
In the fall of 2016, Zainab Alabdin Tawfiq had launched the website, Sarahah and shared it within his group of friends, expecting 1000 messages to be shared in the site. But, by the end of 2016, only a couple of hundred messages were shared. So, Zainab decided to share the application with his friend whom he considered to be a major influencer. After sharing Sarahah with his influencer friend, the reach of the website became manifold. Post the sharing, the application spread across other Arabian countries too.
Hence, it was the utilization of an influencer by Zainab that brought in a sea change in the Sarahah’s outreach.
Marketing Journo
3. Optimize the product for mobile platforms:
Following Sarahah’s outreach in Arab countries, Zainab had decided to create a mobile app for Sarahah. By hiring a third-party company, Zainab had created the mobile app and launched the same in the App Store on June 13, 2017. For the first time, Sarahah was available in English when it went live in the App Store. With its availability in the App Store in English, Sarahah went on to garner the people’s attention from Western Countries as well. The app has been made available for download from Google’s Play Store as well.
Zainab’s efforts to optimize his product for mobile platforms, such as to create an app version of Sarahah; cater the app to the universal audience by making it available in English; choosing the channel, App Store to distribute the app, have paid dividends to him.
2. Make a ‘Simple to use’ product:
As far as the ‘Sarahah’ application is concerned, you get to see minimal features in it and the navigation within the app tends to be uncomplicated. In order to use an application of this sort, one doesn’t necessarily be a tech-savvy. Also, for a person to send a message to a Sarahah user, it is not necessary for the sender to get the app installed.
All the above mentioned factors pertaining to the ‘Sarahah’ application have made it to be a ‘Simple to use’ product.
1. Incorporate a feature to your product that resonates with its target audience:
Be it in the workplace or family or friends, there have always been barriers (due to various factors) that have been preventing people from speaking openly. Under such prevailing circumstances, think of people getting a platform to share their opinion to the person they wish to and yet not reveal their identity. Wouldn’t such people feel excited or relieved with an opportunity of this kind? This is the point where Sarahah has been striking a chord with the people. It is the app’s ‘anonymous messaging’ feature that has been resonating well with its target audience.
What are your Marketing Lessons from Sarahah? Let me know in the comments below!
Life Lessons from Gregor Johann Mendel, the ‘Father of Modern Genetics’
Whenever people, on an extensive scale, discuss deeply or even initiate and engage in propaganda to promote the contributions or ideals of certain personalities in some sort of public platforms, I automatically get these thoughts: Why, all of a sudden, are most people talking about a personality who long back had passed away? Why weren’t the contributions or ideals celebrated as they are being now than when the respective individuals were alive? What kinds of circumstances are making most people hand-pick such persons, regard them in high esteem, debate their works and eventually term them to be momentous?
Of late, by chance, I revisited the news of exposition of Gregor Johann Mendel’s paper on genetics, ‘Experiments on plant hybridization’, which many of us would still be remembering of having a brief outlook, on this greatest path-breaking experiment, in our school studies. For me, by then in my schooldays, the chapters comprising Mendel’s works in my Botany book were a piece of information meant for knowledge acquisition and of course, to effectively reproduce my comprehensions in the examinations. But now with my view, which I have garnered reading the societies’ behavior in recognizing the contributions or discoveries of individuals, it appears apparently to me that rather than primarily focusing on one’s deeds with an intention of receiving instant recognition, one’s active and an honest participation in one’s own passion is what that counts a lot.
If not Mendel’s passionate pull towards his experimentation, amidst his pastoral duties in church, related to plant hybridization then there wouldn’t have been presentations about his findings as a paper, ‘Experiments on plant hybridization’ at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brno in Moravia in 1865. As an immediate follow-up to the presentation, despite the recognition being minimal, reports in local newspapers showcased his discovery. Thereby, in 1990, independent rediscoveries of Mendel’s works on genetics by Erich Von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and William Jasper Spillman conceded Mendel’s priority. At a later time, the scientific fraternity went on to claim Mendel as the ‘Father of Modern Genetics’. These historical events clearly suggest that Gregor Johann Mendel was indeed phenomenal in ensuring a breakthrough in his topmost priority i.e. his work related to genetics, and keeping secondary the process of promoting his research, which was not noticed significantly then. Likewise, one’s passion should be fed by providing well defined results driven by an uncompromising effort by the corresponding person. If not an instant recognition, there are high chances for the outcome to gain prominence when a need arises for the value of the content at some point of time, in future.
‘Sri Thenandal Films’ pushes the envelope with Digital Marketing for ‘Mersal’
‘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 100th movie ‘Mersal’, in pipeline for a grand audio launch on 20th 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 100th 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. 15th 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!
