ALTBalaji experiments with horror-comedy; taps TV showrooms for new series

ALTBalaji is in the midst of promotions for its latest OTT original, ‘Boo – Sabki Phategi’, starring Tusshar Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Krushna Abhishek, Sanjay Mishra, and Kiku Sharda. The show is a horror comedy web series that began streaming on the platform from June 27, 2019.

The digital platform has devised a 360-degree marketing campaign encapsulating social media, digital, television, on-ground activations, radio and the print medium, along with OOH and offline campaigns to spread the word on the show.

What is noteworthy is that ALTBalaji has partnered with electronics retail store chain Vijay Sales for in-store branding of the series. The trailer of ‘Boo – Sabki Phategi’ will be playing on 100 screens at each of the 80+ Vijay Sales stores across metros. This strategic alliance makes ALTBalaji the first-ever OTT platform to explore in-store branding for a web-series.

Leveraging the strong in-store traffic by the electronics chain, ALTBalaji is creating awareness of the show to an already engaged audience. According to Divya Dixit, Senior VP and Head - Marketing, ALTBalaji, “It’s a simple logical strategy of targetting captive high networth audience interested in entertainment. Anyone buying a television is bound to spend a few minutes surveying the various models and is obviously someone who is interested in watching content. So, with the intention of better product recall and ROI we did the first ever initiative of a web series tie-up with a white goods consumer retail chain.”

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There are 43 stores in Maharashtra – Mumbai (16 Stores), Thane (15 Stores) and Pune (12 Stores); 15 stores in Gujarat – Ahmedabad (10 Stores), Surat (3 Stores) and Baroda (2 Stores); and 24 stores across Delhi NCR – Delhi (15 Stores), Haryana (5 Stores) and Noida (4 stores) that have been roped in for ALTBalaji’s promotion initiative.

The platform not only has gone all guns blazing with its promotions, but has also chalked up an interesting 360- degree awareness campaign that has grabbed eyeballs aplenty.

‘Boo – Sabki Phategi’ became the first ever web series to be promoted on the popular ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’. With an extensive media push across mediums, the poster of the series grabbed the attention of viewers through multiple billboards placed across the metro cities.

The campaign also included extensive television promotions tapping into the music and news genres widely. As a part of this campaign, the series pioneered unique associations with broadcast channels like India TV to catch the pulse of the Hindi heartland; 9XM music to tap into the youth-based audience. With an intent to further extend the reach of the brand-new show and engage with local audiences, ALTBalaji also roped in cable TV operators across Tier 2 and 3 cities of India to air the trailer of the web-series.

Engaging with millennial audiences on their preferred platforms, ALTBalaji collaborated with content creators across Instagram and TikTok to drive audience engagement on funny dialogues and moments. The tactic has gone viral and is now being picked up organically by multiple influencers.

Commenting on the unique marketing strategy, Divya Dixit said, “This is the first time we at ALTBalaji have explored the horror comedy genre, which has never been done before for an Indian web-series on the OTT space. ‘Boo – Sabki Phategi’ is a series which marks its foray into a whole lot of firsts. From being a digital debut for two fine actors, like Tusshar Kapoor and Mallika Sherawat, to being the first series to integrate with ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’ and in-store branding association with Vijay Sales, it has seen it all. Ensuring it receives the required uptake from our audience, we sketched out a robust marketing strategy that penetrates masses of our country. It is good to see audiences appreciating the approach and the show.”