1. Rhythm correct
How Kolaveri Di went from just another song to
YouTube sensation and the lessons it holds for marketers
An analysis by

2. Flop song... Not quite!
On November 17, 2011, ‘Kolaveri’, was added to the There was more proof that India had found a new
lexicon of commonly used Indian words. Meaning pop anthem. Within 18 days, Kolaveri Di became
‘murderous rage’, it was the title of a ‘Tanglish’ India’s most downloaded song on mobile phones
(Tamil-English) song written and sung by actor (2,10,000 downloads) and on November 24 it
Dhanush for his film 3. became the first Tamil film song to be premiered on
a national music channel, MTV India.
A video of the song being recorded in a studio was
uploaded at precisely 12.53 am that day on YouTube Imitators played the role of flatterers as versions
by Sony Music, which held the music rights for 3, of Kolaveri in various Indian languages sprang up.
and its agency, Jack In The Box Worldwide. There was even a female
version and one about
This was followed by aggressive promotion on
the slapping of Indian
Facebook and Twitter. On the latter, the hashtag
Agriculture Minister
#whythiskolaveridi was created and the agency
Sharad Pawar. Kolaveri
started posting quirky lines like “Iceland has not
found a mention in Time
heard #whythiskolaveridi”, “Not called for 2 days
magazine and even on the
#whythiskolaveridi”, etc, with the YouTube link. Kolaveri Di female version more conservative BBC,
Most people didn’t understand what ‘Kolaveri’ even as the Indian Institutes of Management cited it
4
meant and clicked on the link to find out. as a viral marketing case study.
The combination of a catchy song, a video that Even the prime minister was bowled over. Dhanush
wasn’t staged and online ‘seeding’ worked. and his wife Aishwarya – incidentally, she’s the
daughter of Tamil screen icon Rajnikanth and the
By the evening of November 21, the hashtag producer of 3 – found themselves part of a state
#kolaveri had topped Indian Twitter trends. Within dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
a week of the video going live, it received more for his Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda.
than 1.3 million views on YouTube and more than
1 million shares on Facebook. By December 5, Kolaveri found another unlikely admirer in the
it had become a rage, crossing 16 million views reticent Ratan Tata, who heads the salt-to-steel Tata
on YouTube. And it wasn’t just Tamilians driving conglomerate. He invited Dhanush over for a meal.
the traffic – the song had become a pan-Indian Soup song, anyone?
phenomenon.
Photo credit: youtube

3. Super mama ready... How Kolaveri went viral
Here’s how big Kolaveri became – even a month Soon, the lyrics began to be tweeted around the
after its release, it got more air time than Anna globe – between November 1 and 10, there were
Hazare, who was spearheading an agitation for a 43,800 mentions of Kolaveri in the US, 7,000 in
strong anti-corruption law and was being supported France and 4,000 in the UAE. Tamil movie diehards
by a mammoth cross-section of ordinary Indians. and non-resident Indians drove most of the traffic
in the US and the Gulf, while Indian students
All the noise eventually led to a debate over
accounted for most of the mentions in Europe.
how exactly the song achieved such a meteoric
rise. Various reasons were attributed to it – from Kolaveri was well on its way to becoming a buzzword
the irreverent Tanglish to the music video to an long before the official video was uploaded.
overzealous media, which, spotting an opportunity
for eyeballs, blew it out of proportion. Licking the leak
Aishwarya said she got to know of the leak via
The social connection
Twitter. “I do not know the source [of the leak],”
It all began with a rough cut of the video being she said in Mint. “Initially, I was upset, but I felt
leaked on YouTube. However, its subsequent that people needed to hear the right version, so I
success was anything but a fluke. If it was a leak, wanted to bring out an official video. In two weeks,
5
as Aishwarya claimed, it was quickly turned into we put together the video as there was no time for
a marketing masterstroke by Sony and the film’s CD covers or publicity. Something of this magnitude
makers. cannot be planned. It just happens.”
Social Hues, a social media analytics firm, found
out that Kolaveri was being talked about two weeks
before the video appeared on YouTube, reported
the business daily Mint. It was a fan from Chennai,
@arundanush, who told Dhanush’s sister-in-law
Geetanjali Selvaraghavan and the composer
Anirudh that the song was online on October 31,
long before the official upload on November 17.
Whether you believe that the leak was planned
or not, Sony Music India was quick to seize the
opportunity. Ashok Parwani, associate director of
Sony Music, said their team recorded the song
at 2 am on November 16 and edited it that same
morning. “We wanted this song to go viral... We

4. marketed aggressively to make the song a rage,” he The big push
told NDTV.
For a video to go viral, it’s not enough to tweet about
The Sony team posted the song on Tamil, Hindi and it. All forms of social media must be leveraged and
international Facebook pages to generate interest. complemented by traditional marketing.
The results were stunning – Social Hues reported
that the rate of Twitter mentions rose 200% every It was Facebook that emerged as the main driver
day, starting at 179 and peaking a week later at for Kolaveri, accounting for 80% of social media
14,907 on November 24, the day it was aired on MTV mentions, followed by Twitter and YouTube,
and screen icon Amitabh Bachchan tweeted about according to Social Hues.
it.
With the objective of making the song a national
That apart, the word ‘Kolaveri’ was intriguing – 12% rage achieved, Sony Music decided it now needed
of all conversations centred on its meaning. to make money off it. The company inked a content
partnership with YouTube on November 30, taking
50% of the revenue generated by the video since
Luck by chance
then.
One man’s fortune is another’s misfortune. This
Ironically, YouTube wasn’t Sony’s first choice.
6 was never more true than for what happened on
Shridhar Subramaniam, president of Sony Music
November 25 – Union Agriculture Minister Sharad
Entertainment India, told Mint: “We initially wanted
Pawar was slapped by a Punjabi youth in Delhi.
to release it through Vevo, a video platform owned
Soon, a Punjabi version by Sony. But there was a delay because of the
of Kolaveri hit YouTube, Thanksgiving weekend, so we decided to release it
logging more than a on YouTube.”
million views of its own.
It might seem that Sony acted fast, sealing the deal
Suddenly, there was more
within 13 days of the video’s upload. But, by then,
than one reason to look
the song had already clocked 9 million views. Had
up the #kolaveri hashtag.
Sony managed to monetise those views, it would
Kolaveri Di Punjabi version
The song was now an have made an additional $4,000 (Rs 2 lakh), based
international phenomenon. It was played on BBC on YouTube’s $1 cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM).
Radio 94.9 and the Huffington Post quipped on On Vevo, Subramaniam said, the yield would have
Twitter: “Adding a ‘u’ sound to the end of English been $40 (Rs 2,000) CPM.
words is the latest trend in India.”
First on the bandwagon
Kolaveri was not the first song or movie to be
launched/promoted on social media.
Sheila Ki Jawani, from Tees Maar Khan, first made an
appearance on YouTube. Makers of the film Peepli [Live]
and the band Euphoria have released parts of their Sheila Ki Jawani Peepli [Live] Euphoria
work on Facebook and other social networks.

5. Holy cow-u... Lessons for marketers
An anthem for
managers?
» Money isn’t everything: Kolaveri is a great example of how promoting a
song – and by extension a product or service – need not always involve
The renowned Indian Institutes
huge budgets. Don’t be surprised if social media now finally takes its place
of Management (IIMs) are
as a mainstream option alongside TV and radio. “If something is a hit on studying Kolaveri as an
social media, then your fans become your ambassadors and it goes viral in example of successful viral
no time,” said Jehil Thakkar, executive director, KPMG India, in Mint. marketing. IIM-Ahmedabad
(IIM-A) planned a session
» Have a great product: It could have had the best marketing plan, but if
on the song as part of its
Kolaveri wasn’t entertaining, it would have flopped. Social media is not a
7 Contemporary Film Industry: A
magic wand – if your product isn’t great, it won’t succeed. Business Perspective course.
» Keep it simple, stupid: The video is unpretentious, not bothering with The song, which all of India is
the melodrama and kitsch associated with most Indian films. Brent Coker, singing along to, was played
a marketing professor at the University of Melbourne, pointed out that during classes by professors in
videos or images “congruent with our existing notion of the brand” are well the IIMs of Bangalore, Rohtak
received. In the case of Kolaveri, Dhanush, known for his boy-next-door and Lucknow, and its marketing
image, sang the song as an innocent, heartbroken lover. And it worked. strategy discussed threadbare.
» Touch hearts: Croker says that ideas with strong emotional appeal do Rajeev Kumra, a professor of
better than others. Kolaveri was about an emotion we’ve all experienced marketing at IIM-Lucknow, was
– heartbreak. Besides, the song was fun. The nonsensical lyrics and the quoted as saying: “Companies
have to be serious about viral
foot-tapping beat had people hooked.
marketing now... We were
» Have an idea that connects: Apart from talking about a familiar emotion, discussing in class how the
the song used words that are used by young people every day. ‘Soup boys’ strategy used by Kolaveri
(those who failed in love), ‘bouw-u’ (rejection) and ‘life reverse gear’ were can be used by a company
to leverage its marketing
part of South Indian slang. Now, the words are pan-Indian.
activities...”
» Use all social media channels: Sharing is critical and the viral ‘surface
The students are taking it
area’ should be all the channels available. Tweets and likes are akin to
pretty seriously too. Sajal
viral currency; eventually, you can charge for traffic that they drive to your Kumar, a first-year post-
content. The great advantage with social media is that it makes content graduate student at IIM-
easy to consume and, more importantly, easy to share. Finally, take Kozhikode, did a case study
ownership of your content. Kolaveri generated a buzz when it was leaked, on the song, sending out an
but it really took off once the official video was uploaded and a sustained online survey and analysing its
marketing effort followed. Don’t forget, quality content is always in demand marketing success.
– if you have it, people will always want more.

6. Maintain, please... The Kolaveri story
Composer Anirudh and producer Aishwarya at the Kolaveri recording
October 31, 2011 A fan from Chennai, @arundanush, tells Dhanush’s sister-in-law Geetanjali Selvaraghavan and
8 composer Anirudh that the song has been leaked online.
November 1-10 43,800 mentions of Kolaveri in the US, 7,000 in France and 4,000 in the UAE
November 16 Song is recorded at 2 am in the studio and edited that same morning
November 17 Official video of the song uploaded at 12.53 am. Song posted on Tamil, Hindi and international
Facebook pages. #whythiskolaveridi hashtag created
November 21 The hashtag #kolaveri tops Indian Twitter trends. Video crosses 1.3 million views on YouTube
and 1 million shares on Facebook
November 24 Kolaveri becomes first Tamil film song to be premiered on a national music channel, MTV India
November 25 Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar slapped by Punjabi youth in Delhi. Punjabi version
of Kolaveri hits YouTube, logging more than one million views of its own. The song becomes
an international phenomenon, is played on BBC Radio 94.9 in the subsequent days and the
Huffington Post tweets about it
November 30 Sony Music inks content partnership with YouTube, taking 50% of the revenue generated by
the video since then
December 5 Video crosses 16 million views on YouTube, becomes India’s most downloaded song on mobile
phones with 2,10,000 downloads
December 21 Dhanush is invited by reticent industrialist Ratan Tata for a private dinner. Kolaveri flash mobs
over the next few days in places as diverse as Mumbai’s Churchgate train terminus to a mall in
Auckland
December 28 Dhanush and his wife Aishwarya are special invitees to the state dinner hosted by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh for his Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda. Kolaveri crosses 29
million views on YouTube
January 11, 2012 Kolaveri crosses 34 million page views

7. Yo boys, I am singing song
Soup song... flop song
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Rhythm correct
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Maintain, please
Why this kolaveri... di
Distance la moon-u moon-u
Moon-u colour-u white-u
White background night-u night-u
Night-u colour-u black-u
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
White skin-u girl-u girl-u
Girl-u heart-u black-u
Eyes-u eyes-u meet-u meet-u
My future dark
And here’s Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
what you
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Maama notes eduthuko (take notes)
really wanted Apdiye kaila sax eduthuko (and the saxophone in your hand)
Pa pa paan pa pa paan pa pa paa pa pa paan
Sariya vaasi (play the music properly)
Super mama ready
Ready 1... 2... 3... 4...
Whaa wat a change over, mama
Ok mama, now tune change-u
Kaila glass... Only English...
Hand la glass-u
Glass la scotch-u
Eyes-u full-aa tear-u
Empty life-u
Girl-u come-u
Life reverse gear-u
Lovvu lovvu
Oh my lovvu
You showed me bouw-u
Cow-u cow-u, holy cow-u
I want u here now-u
God, I am dying now-u
She is happy how-u
This song for soup boys-u
We don’t have choice-u
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Flop song!

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