Viral challenges on social media to promote films – Do they work?

“We are the movies and the movies are us,” well-known US film critic David Ansen had said to highlight the key role that movies play in people’s lives. And it couldn’t be more true in the case of India, where people live and breathe cinema. This is reflected in the number of films released in the country every year across languages and genres. 

Along with the film’s release, the launch of a film’s promotion campaign has become as momentous an occasion as the film hitting the silver screen. While earlier, the trailer usually hit the screens a few weeks before the film’s release in theatres, today the films’ producers and directors have become more marketing savvy. Thus, we see a sustained interest being created throughout the journey of the film’s making to its theatre release. There is the release of the ‘first look’, then poster/ motion poster release, shots from the film’s sets, short videos on the behind-the-scenes activities, release of a teaser trailer, song release, release of the film’s trailer, promotion on some popular TV show by the film’s lead actors and then finally the film is released in theatres. 

Various media platforms are used to promote the film and engage the viewers. Thus, huge budgets are allocated for the film’s marketing. Innovation is the name of the game here. 

For some time now, we have see actors of a film throwing up some kind of ‘challenge’ for their peers in the film industry or even their fans on social media. Some time back, we saw Tiger Shroff doing some signature dance moves from his song ‘Beat Pe Booty’ from the film ‘Flying Jatt’ and asking his friends from the industry and fans to match him step for step and post their videos on social media. This spread like wildfire. 

Then we had the film fraternity posing while holding a sanitary napkin as part of the ‘Padman’ challenge for the Akshay Kumar starrer. This challenge was widely reported in media as well and helped spread an important social message along with promoting the film. 

Television czarina, Ekta Kapoor is also nominating other celebrities for a riveting challenge as part of the promotions for Balaji Telefilm’s new web series, ‘Home’. 

Prerna Singh
Prerna Singh
Speaking on this phenomenon, Prerna Singh, CMO, Eros International, explained, “Marketing films is all about generating conversations. A film campaign’s job is to get people talking about the film before the release. Everything you see of a film in its shape and form is designed to get people talking about it and leading the crowd in theatres. The objective is always to reach the masses with our communication. Many films lend themselves to larger topics; ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha’ beautifully navigated the conversation from the being a film that the censor wouldn’t allow to release to a film that women in all age groups wanted to watch. ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ spoke of a larger problem with the love story as the backdrop.” 

Ashish Patil
Ashish Patil
Ashish Patil, Business & Creative Head for Y-Films, Brand Partnerships and Talent at YRF (Vice President, Yash Raj Films), noted, “The trend started start with Hrithik Roshan’s film ‘Bang Bang’ and then Akshay Kumar, and latest classic challenge we have seen is the KiKi Challenge. The simpler, more fun and more doable it is, the more likely it is to travel. And of course, when celebrities get in to push it, it flies more. Also, some brands have tried it too, but often had to pay to make it happen, which is pretty lame. Wish we could use it more often for good causes like raising awareness for the right reasons.” 

At the same time, Patil maintained that such ‘challenge’-based promotions are done to create virality to get it to spread by engaging celebrities and then the common people. 

Cyrus Oshidar
Cyrus Oshidar
In a similar vein, Cyrus Oshidar, Managing Director, 101 India, said, “It is just a typical marketing stunt to make some noise about any movie or upcoming show for that matter. It’s a way to get public attention and to create awareness about the movie.” 

At the same time, Oshidar said that he was not a big fan of such activities. “I don’t think that it provides any kind of boost, all it does is that it makes it more specific and captures the imagination of the people. If a challenge itself is something which catches attention, then it works, but if it is something random which has no meaning, then it’s just a crap for me.”

Marketing
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Marketing