MUMBAI: ‘Bewakoofiyaan’ is an upcoming romantic comedy film, directed by Nupur Asthana, written by Habib Faisal and produced by Aditya Chopra under the banner of Yash Raj Films. VP – Digital, Yash Raj Films Anand Gurnani, talks about the digital strategies adopted for the promotion of the movie.
What are the biggest strategies adopted for promoting ‘Bewakoofiyaan’?
The communication strategy for this movie was the tagline ‘Love Mein Thhoda Stupid’ and the promotions were shaped to create hype about the movie around the same. Have you heard about this? ‘Pyaar mein Bewakoofiyaan chalengi lekin career mein nahi’. Since the male protagonist Mohit, loses his job in the movie we came up with a contest idea – ‘Get a job @ YRF’. We will be hiring a Senior Marketing & Communications Executive in Mumbai, same designation as that of Mohit Chaddha.
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This announcement was made at a B-School press event attended by working students, Ayushmann Khurrana (Mohit Chaddha) and Sonam Kapoor (Mayera Sehgal). The only criteria to get the job at the marketing department of YRF would be to impress the lead actors Sonam Kapoor and Ayushmann Khurrana. While Sonam will conduct the interview on the grounds of personnel presentation, Ayushmann, who essays the role of a marketing professional in the film, would judge the candidates on the basis of their marketing strategy. Those interested can apply for the job. A video was also shot with the lead actors to create buzz for this activity.
Interviews for the job are scheduled for 12th March 2014 and one lucky person will leave the YRF premises with an appointment letter in their hands.
Hire Mohit for a day: On the other hand, Ayushmann Khurrana (Mohit Chaddha) performed in the streets of South Mumbai with a signboard, saying ‘Hire Mohit’. He sang and danced in the busy streets of Nariman Point outside a popular restaurant.
While planning the activity, we decided to have it around this area as it was in synchronisation with the content of the film. Ayushmann plays a person working in a corporate setup and someone who is removed from his job. Hence, we picked an office location for the flash mob.
Bewakoofiyaan @Promotions video series: We shot a set of videos with Sonam Kapoor and Ayushmann Khurrana on a daily basis during the promotions of the film. These videos were edited and published in less than 24 hours on our social platforms. Sonam Kapoor shared the videos regularly on her social networks. Since it was Sonam Kapoor and Ayushmann Khurrana at their candid best during Bewakoofiyaan promotions, all the videos are highly engaging.
What are the other digital strategies planned for the promotion of the film?
The first look poster was the first asset which was released on our social platforms with the focus on the tagline of the movie ‘Love Mein Thhoda Stupid’.
We created anticipation for the trailer launch with a countdown that started on 6 February 2014 and within two three days of the launch the trailer crossed 1 million views (with currently over two million views on the trailer and still counting). After the release of the trailer we hosted an interactive contest on our social platforms which helped in garnering more attention.
To introduce the characters and make the audience familiar with them, we created a character sketch for Mayera, Mohit and Mr. V.K Sehgal. These images received a lot of interaction on the page as audiences instantly connected with the characters.
The first video to be released thereafter was the show shah se bhare ‘Gulcharrey’ song which was populated across all digital and social media platforms to maximise its online traction. Music of ‘Bewakoofiyaan’ was launched on 21 February 2014. The second and the third songs to release were ‘Khamakhaan’ and ‘Bewakoofiyaan- Title song’. We created an ‘Own the Music’ destination page wherein, users could download and listen to the songs and set songs from Bewakoofiyaan as their Caller Tunes.
We are also hosting a number of interactive activities/contests across all our social media properties, which will continue until the release of the film. Other interesting video assets like making of the songs and dialogue promos are being released to create maximum social buzz for the film, which is releasing worldwide on 14 March 2014.
Here is a brief summary of all the Bewakoofiyaan digital activities being undertaken across all the official digital touch points, viz. Mobile
MrSehgalSays: We created a Twitter handle by the name of V.K. Sehgal. His Twitter bio says ‘Honest Sarkari Officer. Believes ‘Pyaar se kuch nahi hona hai’. @MrSehgalSays regularly tweets about his irritations towards the new generation. His handle regularly interacts with the Bewakoofiyaan social properties and takes a dig at any tweet/post on Mohit. We have created a series of memes called ‘Mr. Sehgal Says’ which are smart and engaging.
#LoveMeinThhodaStupid: To create buzz around the tagline of the movie we hosted an activity where we asked users to share the stupid things they have done in love. This activity was well received by the fans. We also picked up few interesting “movie related” #LoveMeinThhodaStupid moments and started sharing them with the movie stills on our social properties.
Bewakoofiyaan Is: To define #BewakoofiyaanIs and to increase engagement amongst the fans we created a series of doodles, which are comical and visually appealing. Fans are relating to these doodles, and the share ability of these posts are higher. We also hosted a Twitter contest using the same hashtag and we trended in India at 4th position.
Kiss Ya Miss: A Facebook application where Mohit expresses his love for Mayera. But Mr. Sehgal is trying to block all his attempts. This is a level based game and users have to blow maximum kisses to Mayera to win. 10 winners will be picked on the basis of their scores.
#ThingsMyFatherHates: An engagement activity where users shared things their fathers hate. This was an interactive activity which helped in increasing our follower base as well as interaction on our social pages.
Bewakoofiyaan Trivias:
We created and released exclusive trivias from the film across Bewakoofiyaan and Yash Raj Films social pages. These trivias are shared regularly on our social properties and have been appreciated by our fans.
Bewakoofiyaan Mobile Download page:
Bewakoofiyaan’s mobile assets like wallpapers, ringtones, and videos etc. which have been deployed worldwide across the Telco ecosystem. Users can also set the songs of Bewakoofiyaan as their Caller Tunes.
Bewakoofiyaan Website: It is a responsive website with innovative video integration. The website is the one stop destination for all the details about the movie. We highlighted the promotional videos, Kiss Ya Miss application, hashtags used for our contests on the website.
Relationship Secrets from Sonam Kapoor: We conducted a missed call activity, where-in a user had to place a missed call and would receive an SMS with a link to the audio. On clicking the link, user gets access to exclusive relationship secrets shared by Sonam Kapoor.
