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Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode




            Viral Fever of India


                Why this Kolaveri Di

         Submitted To: Professor Sridhar Guda


                      Submitted By:

                   Satyesh Singh Rajput
Contents
Background ........................................................................................................................... 2

Product ................................................................................................................................. 2

Promotion ............................................................................................................................. 5

Psychology............................................................................................................................. 6

Participation .......................................................................................................................... 7

Celebrity tweets ................................................................................................................... 16

Performance .........................................................................................................................17

Lessons on viral marketing from Kolaveri .............................................................................. 19

Open thoughts ..................................................................................................................... 20

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 20

Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................... 21

References........................................................................................................................... 21




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                                                            Page 1
Background


        On November 1st India’s cyberspace was hit by a viral bug called “Kolaveri” and since
then it has become a rage. The viral bug spread evenly to almost all parts of India and even
went on to capture the imagination of netizens in other parts of the world. Tanglish became
cool and adding a “u” at the end of a word became a fashion. The cult of Kolaveri became so big
that traffic police in Chennai,Bangalore and Delhi went on to spread awareness against road
rage by having big posters mentioning “Why this Kolaveri”. Kolaveri became the de-facto word
against all sort of anger be it against politician or against corruption or even against a small kid
(not in negative sense) who was making her parents keeping awake all the night.

        Kolaveri all of sudden caught imagination of all sort of people leading to lot of videos
inspired by “Kolaveri” being constantly uploaded in YouTube, be it Neevaan Nigam’s version, to
a video against corrupt politician from our neighboring country Pakistan, to a dance
performance on Kolaveri by Japanese. As of today a simple search on YouTube for Kolaveri
results in 14,000 videos, lot of these are inspired from original Kolaveri and some of these
inspired videos have been viewed by millions.

        Kolaveri in my opinion is the first social viral phenomenon which hit Indian cyberspace,
print media and electronic media by storm. The novelty and curiosity quotients of the song
coupled with some very smart marketing minds contributed in making Kolaveri a huge success.
Being a student of marketing management I could not resist myself from dissecting this viral
phenomenon. I have used my googling skills, watched lot of Kolaveri videos, read
articles/interviews related to Kolaveri. This blog is a simple attempt to understand the cult of
Kolaveri.


Product


    The product “Kolaveri” video had various aspects which makes it a perfect candidate for
viral marketing.




    1. Lyrics: Lyrics of Kolaveri song has been interpreted in many ways. From taking it just for
       fun, to anti-women, to just phony jumbled up words. The lyrics contain very simple

Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                        Page 2
words which even a school going kid can understand without much efforts. The words
        chosen are from day to life of modern world not only just India but also from rest of the
        world, making it easier for audience from rest of the world to connect as well.



    2. Engaging Introduction: The video has intriguing start with “Yo boys I am sing song, soup
       song, flop song”. The start of the song sets the tone of the video. Most of the listeners
       do not know what the phrase “soup song” means, so even before “Kolaveri” strikes the
       listener is intrigued by the phrase “soup song” mixed in broken English.



    3. Quirky words: Adding a “u” at the end of English words like “girl” , “heart” etc for
       example “White skin-u-girl-u-girl-u, Girl-u-heart-u-black-u” have been liked by lot of
       non-Tamil audience, who just want to laugh and enjoy the song without bothering
       about the meaning. The phonetic synchronization with lines like “you showed me
       bhouve-u” further enhances entertainment value of the song. It is the reason for this
       song being picked up by youth. Even children can hum this song with no efforts to know
       what exactly it is.



    4. English Titles: Though there are very few Tamil words in the entire song, but the way
       Dhanush pronounced English words were slightly different. Sony Music had plans to
       make the video attractive to non-Tamil audience so they added English sub-titles which
       made it very easy for non Tamil audience to understand and connect with the song.

        Sankalia from Sony Music India mentioned in one of the interview that “we decided to
        introduce sub-titles to make it accessible for the non-Tamil masses”.

        The subtitles made it easier for non-Tamil listeners contributing in spreading word of
        mouth spreading in north Indian states as well as listeners from various part of the
        world. Subtitles also helped imitators to create their own version of Kolaveri.

    5. Creators with audiences: With stars like Dhanush, Shruti hasan and Aishwarya
       Rajnikanth being part of the promotional video, Kolaveri had lot of takers to give the
       video initial momentum among fans of Tamil cinema. From there onwards extensive
       promotions by Sony and Juke in the box helped Kolaveri to exponentially grow the
       momentum gained in the early phase. With 3 big houses of Tamil cinema being part of
       the video helps in building lot of credibility among Tamil as well as non-Tamil audiences.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                      Page 3
6. Not overly produced Video: The Kolaveri video which was uploaded did not promote
       the movie ‘3’ until the very last second. So the audience did not view the video as a
       promotion video but more like a good song to listen to than to think of it as another
       promotional marketing gimmick. Sony Music made sure that the video appear more like
       a jam session and the entire setup was made to look like casual video. It is quite literally,
       just a jam session caught on tape that’s why the listener did not turn off (as user tend to
       turn off while watching marketing videos).

        Dhanush the actor, singer and the lyricist of the song adds on, “I am not a singer but
        Sony Music’s perseverance to ride on this same fact and give it a real feel is what I think
        has made it work.”

        Sony Music ensured that video looks like an accidental or jam session was to avoid the
        video being viewed as marketing/promotional videos. A slight hint of this being
        promotional activity could have turned off electronic / print media and shifted the
        attention from Kolaveri.

    7. Catchy Music: The simplicity and originality of the melody, lyrics has attracted people
       world over to the song. Within seconds the tune has already audience has started
       tapping his/her feet. Even if you are unfamiliar with Tamil accent, just a few sentences
       will have you caught onto the lyrics as well. While the rhythm is catchy, the lyrics are
       simple and identifiable.

        The song is very hummable and unlike most marketing messages which are so
        overloaded that they lose any humanity whatsoever. The lyrics in Kolaveri are nonlinear
        that it starts a conversation. Dhanush’s expressions and the way he has sung the song
        along with the casual way it’s been shot that has made a lot of people take notice.

        Sony Music India specially targeted at the online networking sites. “It was deliberately
        kept simple and informal just like the song itself. It has a raw making-of-a-video touch to
        it. Besides, we decided to introduce sub-titles to make it accessible for the non-Tamil
        masses,” Sankalia adds.

    8. Well indexed by YouTube, search engines and social sites: Kolaveri videos and related
       content are very well indexed by sites like Google, YouTube and Facebook. It takes just
       two alphabets “ko” to search for Kolaveri related content. The ease of access to Kolaveri
       and related videos and certainly played its role in making the video a viral phenomenon
       and the credit for this goes to the marketing team of Sony and Juke in the Box.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                         Page 4
Promotion


    According to the official case study by Juke in the box they adapted 3 steps strategy for
Kolaveri were Intrigue, Play and Share.

    1. Intrigue: According Juke in the box they created dahashtag called #whythiskolaveridi on
       twitter and started posting quirky lines like “Ice land has not heard #whythiskolaveridi”,
       “Not called for 2days #whythiskolaveridi”, etc., with the YouTube link to the video. This
       intrigued people on twitter who didn’t understand what Kolaveri Di meant. So
       questions started being asked and as a natural impulse, people started clicking on the
       link. According to Social Hues in case of Kolaveri’ most traffic was driven by Facebook,
       which accounted for nearly 80% of social media mentions of the song, followed by
       Twitter and YouTube.

    2. Play: Once user of social networking sites starts getting curios about Kolaveri, the
        YouTube link shared by peer network helped user to watch Kolaveri video at the click of
        mouse. Extensive promotion and mentions of Kolaveri on social platform resulted in
        exponential growth of cult of Kolaveri.

    3. Beta Test: Between 1 and 10 November leaked version (even before the official launch
       of the video), there were 43,800 mentions of Kolaveri in the US, 7,000 in France and
       4,000 from the UAE.

    4. Official Kolaveri Video: The attention received by leaked version received was great and
       set the stage for official version. According to Parwani from Sony Music “the video
       accompanying the song was recorded at 2am, the night before the release on the 16
       November, and edited the next morning.”

            He insisted that insisted that “we wanted this song to go viral in cyberspace. We
        marketed aggressively to make the song a national rage”. Parwani said that “his team
        had been posting the song on Tamil, Hindi and international Facebook pages to drive
        traffic”.



    5. Seeding on to Social sites: According to Social Hues, the rate of Twitter mentions of
       Kolaveri increased by nearly 200% every day, starting at 179 and peaking a week later at


Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                         Page 5
14,907 tweets on 24 November—the day after it became the first Tamil film song to be
        played on MTV followed by Amitabh Bachchan’s admiration for the tune on tweeter.



    In case of Kolaveri it is the combination of online seeding, main stream PR, influencer
    engagement and huge user participation that along with a song everyone could identify
    with shot in a non posed non cinema way.


Psychology


    It is the combination of “intrigue” and “emotional connect” which created curiosity in the
minds of people who saw/heard the phrase "Kolaveri".

    1. What is this “Kolaveri”: The curiosity begins before the clicking on a link to YouTube
       video and curiosity is “what is this Kolaveri” for non-Tamil listener. A facebook update
       or a tweet with phrase “Kolaveri” first makes user to find out the meaning of the word
       “Kolaveri” after knowing the meaning of “Kolaveri” as “murderous rage” the first
       curiosity of listener is answered.

    2. What is “soup song”: One another level of curiosity that the song triggers is about soup
       song. In the first stanza itself Dhanush starts the song with phrase “Soup Song” to many
       listener even this phrase generates curiosity in the minds of listener to find out what
       does the soup song means. Usually non-English audience is not aware of the phrase
       “soup song” so the phrase generates curiosity in the mind of users to find out what
       actually a soup song is.

    3. Why this “Kolaveri”: Having found out the meaning of the phrase “Kolaveri” now the
       listener is intrigued to know “why this kolaveri”. The curiosity of listener is answered in
       next four minutes. By the time four minutes are over curiosity is satisfied but it is too
       late, as foot tapping music, catchy words, catchy phrases and a jam session type video
       has mesmerized the listener. According to social hues twelve per cent of all
       conversations on Kolaveri were about the meaning of the word, generally translated as
       murderous rage.

    4. Emotional Connect: How many love stories you know in which the boy is in love with a
       girl. But she is not. He is not so handsome, but she is very beautiful just like sultry Shruti
       Hasan. The rejection makes him to take to liquor. He wonders how she can be happy


Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                         Page 6
when he is sad. Reflect back in your life you will find examples from your life or from the
        lives of near and dear friends/colleagues/acquaintances. The song takes you back to the
        time when you experienced “Kolaveri” or you saw some one close to you going being
        “kolaveried”. This song especially resonates with those who have been recently
        dumped.

        Dhanush says that “one of the reasons the song was such a big hit was since it spoke of a
        jilted lover, and who hasn't had a broken heart?”

            It is this universal emotion, which the audience from across globe could connect
        instantly. The song describes love in the perspective of a boy but girls can equally
        resonate with the song and that has played very important role in the success of this
        song.


Participation


    There is no other social viral phenomenon (at least from India) in which user participation is
as high as kolveri. Perhaps Kolaveri is the only YouTube video song with such a huge user
participation (if not the worldwide definitely not any Indian). User participation for kolaveri is
unprecedented. A simple search on YouTube gives more than 14,000 results with version in
almost all major Indian languages from Malayalam to Gujarati to Sindhi.



    1. Regional versions: As the popularity of Kolaveri increased YouTube was flooded by
       regional versions of kolaveri. So there was kolaveri in Telugu, Marathi, Sindhi, Punjabi,
       Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali, well almost in all Indian language. And it just does not end
       here you will find more than one version of kolaveri in all regional languages. People
       from all walks of life be it a kid or a professional working in IT company or bunch of
       guys/girls from school/college, creating their own version of kolaveri and uploading it in
       YouTube. As kolaveri song is mostly perceived as fun song, people did not pay much
       attention to the nitty-gritty so they just went by instinct i.e. sing, shoot and upload.
       These regional version themselves went on to make headlines in newspapers and
       electronic media.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                        Page 7
2. Kolaveri against politicians: The song kolaveri came in the year, which saw large scale
       anti corruption protest in all part of India. Post kolaveri’s release journalists,
       cartoonists, and common people started using the phrase “Why this Kolaveri” in order
       to vent their frustration/ to express their anger/ to mock politicians.

            Just when kolaveri was becoming a buzz word in online space, agriculture minister
        Sharad Pawar got slapped by a sikh youth 25 November, anti politician social users
        cheered the slap, followed by a punjabi version of the song known as the Sharad Pawar
        slap song appeared on YouTube on the same day. It has logged over 1.5 million views till
        30 December 2011.




    Later on when Jayalalitha increased price of milk, electricity in Tamilnadu people in
    Tamilnadu cartoonist created poster asking Jayalalitha “why this Kolaveri di”.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                       Page 8
When Loklpal was tabled in lower house of parliament here is what cartoonist Manjul
expressed the anguish of ruling party with cheesy cartoon.




       Supporters of anti-corruption crusader Anna hazare also created several version of
    Kolaveri to support Anna’s fight against corruption as well. Kolveri became a standard


Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                    Page 9
phrase for bashing politicians. For all the political incidents that has taken place since the
    launch of kolaveri it is easy to find a YouTube video, a cartoon, a poster or an article
    mentioning kolaveri and asking respective politician “why this kolaveri”.

    3. Animated and Funny Versions: Cult of kolaveri was not restricted to serious imitation
       and expression of anger against politicians alone. People went on to create funny
       versions of their own. Bunch of students created exam version, few others danced in
       funny way. Student recording their own version of Kolaveri and uploading it to YouTube
       to express themselves. Kolaveri became a means to express themselves in all possible
       ways. Some to look funny, others to showcase their talent.




                Exam Version




                        Students dancing on Kolaveri tune in funny way


Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                         Page 10
Kolaveri fans went on to animate Tom & Jerry, Chipmunks, Talking Toms, Mr. Bean to
    the tune of Kolaveri. Even angry bird was not spared from Kolaveri fever.




    4. Traffic Police Departments: The popularity of Kolaveri was ever increasing since the
       launch and it became youth anthem of nation in short time, noticing this traffic
       department of various cities used “Kolaveri” to ask motorists to remain calm on road
       and avoid road rage. Chennai Police brought out posters asking 'why this anger' with the
       words 'Kolaveri Di'. Delhi Police's added it to their Facebook page.

            The idea behind all this was if Kolaveri Di is visible at important junctions and cross
        roads with instructions to avoid rage, may succeed in cooling the frayed tempers. Why
        this kolaveri? Just drive without anger. The initiatives by well received from youngsters
        praising Chennai and Delhi police.




           Taking cues from Chennai traffic police and Delhi traffic police, Kolkata has recently
        launched a new campaign to encourage bikers to wear a helmet. Kolkata city police



Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                       Page 11
launched a unique campaign on Christmas eve, which will run till January 1, 2012, seeks
        to warn the bikers of the perils of riding without a helmet.




            They police brought out huge posters and hoardings carrying the punchline "Why
        this hero giri, hero giri, hero giri, di?" with a cartoon and a warning with text: 'Drive
        Safe, Use Helmet'.

              The hoardings have been put up at various traffic junctions to educate the
        youngsters who often ride without wearing a helmet, especially during Christmas and
        New Year celebrations.

                "We have chosen this song as everyone is aware of its lyrics. It is catchy and we
        can easily reach out to the maximum number of people. Moreover, the youngsters can
        relate to this when they see the hoardings at traffic signals," Kolkata Police deputy
        commissioner Dilip Banerjee said.



    5. Cashing on Kolaveri Phenomenon: The cult of kolaveri became so big that marketers
       could not resist themselves from riding the kolaveri wave. From well known brand like
       “Amul” which long been known for simple and funny advertisements. Amul, which is
       known for creating advertisement on contemporary topics to promote its products,
       came up with “Amul Khalo Every advertisement” in the print ad. It shows traditional
       Amul’s mascot, the little girl enjoying a slice of buttered bread with a friend with tag line
       reading, ‘Why This, Try This, Buy This’.



Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                        Page 12
Online shopping portal too jumped in the game to en-cash cult of kolaveri and came up
        with kolaveri t-shirts. The portal 600024.com started offering t-shirts with heart and
        devil horns - with "Why this Kolaveri Di?" scribbled above and beneath. They also have
        T-shirts featuring Dhanush's song as the words below say, "Yo Boys, I am a sing song"
        and various improvements like “Why this Kolaveri boss?”

                 Another website X tees choosed selected lines like “White-a skin-u, girl-u. heart-
        u, black-u" and "God I am dying now, she is happy, how?" and sold it online. Later on
        good number of online portal like eBay.in, seventymm.com, zeole.com,zazzle.com,
        tshirts.in, xtees.com had kolaveri t-shirts available for sell.

        According to Manjo Kumar the CEO of X Tees "The demand has been amazing, In fact, in
        my 12 years of online T-shirts I have never seen any t-shirt selling like this.”




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                      Page 13
A fruit shop in Chennai (http://fruitshopongreamsroad.in/) came with a poster
    encouraging customer to avoid “Cola” and encourage fruit cosumption.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                  Page 14
It does not end here a lesser known company wookpecker furniture
    (http://woodpeckerfurniture.com/home.htm ) from chennai came with banner having bold
    letters “KOLA-VERI PRICING” as depicted below.




        Naukari’s Hari Sadu advertisement was also converted to ride the kolaveri wave.




        Kolaveri’s growing popularity led marketers to create advertisements of their products
    to be linked to kolaveri. These advertisements helped marketers to break the cluster for
    short while.

    6. Global Participation: The success of Kolaveri was not limited to Indian cyberspace alone.
       It went viral in other parts of the world as well.

            a. YouTube videos of Japanese dancing to the tune of Kolaveri became famous.

Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                     Page 15
b. Auckland flash mob danced on Kolaveri to create news. The English version of
               Kolaveri created by Arjun has so far logged 2.2 million views.

            c. People from our neighboring country created their own version “Democracy di”
               to vent anger against politician and current affairs in Pakistan, and so did our
               neighbor from Sri Lanka.

            d. Few Egyptians created their own version of Kolaveri.

            e. Indians in USA/Canada created Highway version, rap versions.

            f. Tamils in Malaysia doing their bit on Kolaveri.

            g. There is an Arabic and French version as well.

           One can easily find kolaveri or its parody videos from various part of the world.
        These videos or either created by native fans of Kolaveri or people from Indian origins
        doing their bit in serious or funny way to enjoy the songs.


Celebrity tweets

        Celebrity tweets played an important role in the success of Kolaveri’s bandwagon of
celebs appreciating Kolaveri was triggered by Amitabh Bachhan.


    1. Abhitabh Bachhan tweeted “Just heard #Kolaveri after much talk on it ... its so original
       and catchy ..congrats Dhanush and Aishwarya(Rajni's daughter) .. love.'”

    2. Shruti Hasan tweeted “Everyones on the kolaveri trip and how!!!indias got kolaveri :p
       yay team 3 and congrats the our poetu :D I meant to our poetu hahaha ive been singing
       along too much methinks!sentence construction kolaverified :p”.

    3. Ranvir Shorey tweeted “Yes, I did get some relief with #Kolavari. But not really long
       lasting,”.

        The tweet exchange between Dhanush & Bachchan family also made lot of news in print
media, electronic media and film magazines. Lot of celebs, journalists, industrialists and famous
people tweeted with hashtag #kolaveri and this created lot of buzz in tweeter about Kolaveri
helping kolaveri becoming popular.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                     Page 16
Performance

        Kolaveri was run away hit among the netizens, its viral success is unparalleled with none
in recent history. Some of the highlights of its success is listed below:


    1. More than 40 millions views of Kolaveri and related videos.

    2. Views on YouTube (Official Sony Channel): 30,031,106.

    3. Likes on YouTube (Official Sony Channel): 198,280.

    4. YouTube has given the video a gold medal for the most popular video and a silver medal
       for trending.

    5. First ever Tamil song to play on FM in Bangalore.

    6. First ever Tamil song to be aired on MTV.

    7. The track is also the first regional language (Tamil) song ever to see a high rotation on
       mainstream music Channels - play listed on 43 Radio Stations Pan-India.

    8. It has become top downloaded track on mobile with a score of 2,10,000 music
       downloads within 18 days of launch beating previous records.

    9. The video has also achieved over 3.6 million Facebook shares and #Kolaveri (a popular
       slang term amongst Tamil youth meaning ‘murderous rage’) has been trending on
       Twitter since its launch.

    10. Most searched song on YouTube.

    11. Only Indian Song featured in TIME Magazine after “Roja”.

    12. Best Song of the year 2011 contender on CNN.

    13. Featured in BBC UK.

    14. 22,000 Downloads on WAP in span of less than 5 days.

    15. More than 3.6 million Facebook shares on Facebook.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                      Page 17
16. Twitter trends




    17. Break-up of chatter across social media channels.




    18. Top Discussions in cyberspace




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                       Page 18
19. Comparison with other Kolaveri imitation and parody.




Lessons on viral marketing from Kolaveri

    1. Keep it ultra simple.
    2. Use universal language English.
    3. Touch emotional cord of target audience.
    4. Tacitly encourage user participation.
    5. Generate curiosity not only in promotion but also in content.
    6. The content should not look as professionally prepared but rather natural outcome.
    7. Manage PR and influencers carefully and neatly.
    8. Make sure that it does not look like an attempt “to market”.
    9. Manage viral life cycle carefully at all stage.
    10. Combination of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social platform synchronously
        helps in building, growing &spreading.
    11. PR and influencer management on social platform assist in building credibility.




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                     Page 19
Open thoughts

         Having analyzed elements behind success of Kolaveri, there are still few thoughts which
I could not analyze further due to lack of time, resources and lack of contacts so I am listing
them below:


    1. Celeb tweets helped Kolaveri to spread like wild fire. Were all tweets genuine or some
         of them were influenced (or PR attempt) by marketing team of Sony and Juke in the
         Box?
    2. Extensive coverage by electronic and print media also raises the same question. How
         much of electronic and print media was sponsored (or PR attempt) or influenced?
    3. Hoarding by traffic police. Was this part of promotion by Sony and Juke in Box?


    By posing these questions I do not want to be skeptical but rather objective. In my opinion
celeb tweets and extensive coverage by media played an important role in the success of
Kolaveri and having seen Kolaveri team in almost all news channel regional, national, Hindi
channel covering Kolaveri rings bell in my mind “How much of this was part of PR campaign by
Sony?”


Conclusion

         Kolaveri is a “social viral marketing phenomenon”. It was planned and executed well,
however I do not think that people involved in production or marketing, would have thought it
to become as successful as it is today.


         It is easy to do the postmortem, analyze things thread bare but very difficult to pick up
something and replicate the phenomenon like Kolaveri.


         While the Kolaveri phenomenon is going strong with each passing day, it also marks
the beginning of India's social viral moments on YouTube, Facebook, and Tweeter. Kolaveri's
viral success will definitely make marketing professional in India to emphasize more on viral and
social marketing space. With low risk and very high reward success of viral marketing
Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                       Page 20
phenomenon will continue to intrigue marketing professionals in times to come and especially
in web 2.0 world. Don't be surprised if Indian cyberspace is hit by another viral fever in coming
time.


Acknowledgement

        Thanks to marketing department of IIM Kozhikode for teachings and explanation of
marketing management concepts in various classes, without which it would have been difficult
for me to analyze, interpret this marketing phenomenon.


References

1. http://www.innoplexus.com/why-this-kolaveri-di/

2. http://www.socialsamosa.com/2011/12/why-this-kolaveri-a-rage-u-on-social-media/

3. http://www.medianama.com/2011/11/223-why-this-kolaveri-di-gets-it-right-on-youtube/

4. http://umeshpatil.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/why-this-kolaveri-di/

5. http://www.desimag.co.uk/music/5156.html

6. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/a-viral-hit/458038/

7. http://www.slideshare.net/jackintheboxww/kolaveri-di-official-case-study

8. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/media/entertainment-
   /entertainment/dhanushs-kolaveri-di-very-popular-in-b-schools/articleshow/11105266.cms

9. http://www.andhrafriends.com/topic/233671-lolga-gaadi-analysis-on-why-this-kolaveri-di/

10. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Traffic-police-capitalize-on-Kolaveri-
    rage/articleshow/10964255.cms




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                      Page 21
11. http://www.merinews.com/article/rage-of-kolaveri-di-will-be-channelized-to-counter-road-
    rage/15862023.shtml

12. http://truthdive.com/2011/12/01/kolaveri-di-the-dark-side-of-a-man.html

13. http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1047789&c=1

14. http://bollyspice.com/33531/the-kult-of-kolaveri-song-hits-15-million-views-in-just-2-weeks

15. http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/9244/so-whats-this-kolaveri-di-anyway/

16. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/11/30/nonsensical-semi-english-music-video-goes-viral-in-
    india/

17. http://umeshpatil.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/why-this-kolaveri-di/

18. http://vsubhash.blogspot.com/2011/12/kolaveri-di-hoax-annals-of-human.html

19. http://business.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279305

20. http://www.blog.webfluenz.com/2011/12/social-media-frenzy-over-kolaveri-di/

21. http://www.slideshare.net/SocialHues/kolaveri-di-dec-2011ppt

22. http://www.slideshare.net/Webfluenzintelsys/social-media-frenzy-over-kolaveri-di

23. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/errant-motorists-kolkata-cops-launch-kolaveri-
    campaign/1/165906.html

24. http://www.moviecrow.com/News/361/how-kolaveri-stacks-up-to-most-popular-videos

25. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-12/news-
    interviews/30508228_1_shirts-song-dhanush

26. http://www.manjul.com/index.php/2011/12/23/lokpal-bill-tabled-in-lok-sabha-mps-give-it-
    to-anna-left-right-centre/#.Tv7yqlbCPtQ




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                   Page 22
27. http://www.manjul.com/index.php/2011/12/23/lokpal-bill-tabled-in-lok-sabha-mps-give-it-
    to-anna-left-right-centre/#.Tv74ClbCPtR

28. http://capitalistdesi.com/116/india/kolaveri-di-vs-anna-hazare-viral-success-for-sony




Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di                                                   Page 23

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Kolaveri

  • 1. Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode Viral Fever of India Why this Kolaveri Di Submitted To: Professor Sridhar Guda Submitted By: Satyesh Singh Rajput
  • 2. Contents Background ........................................................................................................................... 2 Product ................................................................................................................................. 2 Promotion ............................................................................................................................. 5 Psychology............................................................................................................................. 6 Participation .......................................................................................................................... 7 Celebrity tweets ................................................................................................................... 16 Performance .........................................................................................................................17 Lessons on viral marketing from Kolaveri .............................................................................. 19 Open thoughts ..................................................................................................................... 20 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 20 Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................... 21 References........................................................................................................................... 21 Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 1
  • 3. Background On November 1st India’s cyberspace was hit by a viral bug called “Kolaveri” and since then it has become a rage. The viral bug spread evenly to almost all parts of India and even went on to capture the imagination of netizens in other parts of the world. Tanglish became cool and adding a “u” at the end of a word became a fashion. The cult of Kolaveri became so big that traffic police in Chennai,Bangalore and Delhi went on to spread awareness against road rage by having big posters mentioning “Why this Kolaveri”. Kolaveri became the de-facto word against all sort of anger be it against politician or against corruption or even against a small kid (not in negative sense) who was making her parents keeping awake all the night. Kolaveri all of sudden caught imagination of all sort of people leading to lot of videos inspired by “Kolaveri” being constantly uploaded in YouTube, be it Neevaan Nigam’s version, to a video against corrupt politician from our neighboring country Pakistan, to a dance performance on Kolaveri by Japanese. As of today a simple search on YouTube for Kolaveri results in 14,000 videos, lot of these are inspired from original Kolaveri and some of these inspired videos have been viewed by millions. Kolaveri in my opinion is the first social viral phenomenon which hit Indian cyberspace, print media and electronic media by storm. The novelty and curiosity quotients of the song coupled with some very smart marketing minds contributed in making Kolaveri a huge success. Being a student of marketing management I could not resist myself from dissecting this viral phenomenon. I have used my googling skills, watched lot of Kolaveri videos, read articles/interviews related to Kolaveri. This blog is a simple attempt to understand the cult of Kolaveri. Product The product “Kolaveri” video had various aspects which makes it a perfect candidate for viral marketing. 1. Lyrics: Lyrics of Kolaveri song has been interpreted in many ways. From taking it just for fun, to anti-women, to just phony jumbled up words. The lyrics contain very simple Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 2
  • 4. words which even a school going kid can understand without much efforts. The words chosen are from day to life of modern world not only just India but also from rest of the world, making it easier for audience from rest of the world to connect as well. 2. Engaging Introduction: The video has intriguing start with “Yo boys I am sing song, soup song, flop song”. The start of the song sets the tone of the video. Most of the listeners do not know what the phrase “soup song” means, so even before “Kolaveri” strikes the listener is intrigued by the phrase “soup song” mixed in broken English. 3. Quirky words: Adding a “u” at the end of English words like “girl” , “heart” etc for example “White skin-u-girl-u-girl-u, Girl-u-heart-u-black-u” have been liked by lot of non-Tamil audience, who just want to laugh and enjoy the song without bothering about the meaning. The phonetic synchronization with lines like “you showed me bhouve-u” further enhances entertainment value of the song. It is the reason for this song being picked up by youth. Even children can hum this song with no efforts to know what exactly it is. 4. English Titles: Though there are very few Tamil words in the entire song, but the way Dhanush pronounced English words were slightly different. Sony Music had plans to make the video attractive to non-Tamil audience so they added English sub-titles which made it very easy for non Tamil audience to understand and connect with the song. Sankalia from Sony Music India mentioned in one of the interview that “we decided to introduce sub-titles to make it accessible for the non-Tamil masses”. The subtitles made it easier for non-Tamil listeners contributing in spreading word of mouth spreading in north Indian states as well as listeners from various part of the world. Subtitles also helped imitators to create their own version of Kolaveri. 5. Creators with audiences: With stars like Dhanush, Shruti hasan and Aishwarya Rajnikanth being part of the promotional video, Kolaveri had lot of takers to give the video initial momentum among fans of Tamil cinema. From there onwards extensive promotions by Sony and Juke in the box helped Kolaveri to exponentially grow the momentum gained in the early phase. With 3 big houses of Tamil cinema being part of the video helps in building lot of credibility among Tamil as well as non-Tamil audiences. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 3
  • 5. 6. Not overly produced Video: The Kolaveri video which was uploaded did not promote the movie ‘3’ until the very last second. So the audience did not view the video as a promotion video but more like a good song to listen to than to think of it as another promotional marketing gimmick. Sony Music made sure that the video appear more like a jam session and the entire setup was made to look like casual video. It is quite literally, just a jam session caught on tape that’s why the listener did not turn off (as user tend to turn off while watching marketing videos). Dhanush the actor, singer and the lyricist of the song adds on, “I am not a singer but Sony Music’s perseverance to ride on this same fact and give it a real feel is what I think has made it work.” Sony Music ensured that video looks like an accidental or jam session was to avoid the video being viewed as marketing/promotional videos. A slight hint of this being promotional activity could have turned off electronic / print media and shifted the attention from Kolaveri. 7. Catchy Music: The simplicity and originality of the melody, lyrics has attracted people world over to the song. Within seconds the tune has already audience has started tapping his/her feet. Even if you are unfamiliar with Tamil accent, just a few sentences will have you caught onto the lyrics as well. While the rhythm is catchy, the lyrics are simple and identifiable. The song is very hummable and unlike most marketing messages which are so overloaded that they lose any humanity whatsoever. The lyrics in Kolaveri are nonlinear that it starts a conversation. Dhanush’s expressions and the way he has sung the song along with the casual way it’s been shot that has made a lot of people take notice. Sony Music India specially targeted at the online networking sites. “It was deliberately kept simple and informal just like the song itself. It has a raw making-of-a-video touch to it. Besides, we decided to introduce sub-titles to make it accessible for the non-Tamil masses,” Sankalia adds. 8. Well indexed by YouTube, search engines and social sites: Kolaveri videos and related content are very well indexed by sites like Google, YouTube and Facebook. It takes just two alphabets “ko” to search for Kolaveri related content. The ease of access to Kolaveri and related videos and certainly played its role in making the video a viral phenomenon and the credit for this goes to the marketing team of Sony and Juke in the Box. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 4
  • 6. Promotion According to the official case study by Juke in the box they adapted 3 steps strategy for Kolaveri were Intrigue, Play and Share. 1. Intrigue: According Juke in the box they created dahashtag called #whythiskolaveridi on twitter and started posting quirky lines like “Ice land has not heard #whythiskolaveridi”, “Not called for 2days #whythiskolaveridi”, etc., with the YouTube link to the video. This intrigued people on twitter who didn’t understand what Kolaveri Di meant. So questions started being asked and as a natural impulse, people started clicking on the link. According to Social Hues in case of Kolaveri’ most traffic was driven by Facebook, which accounted for nearly 80% of social media mentions of the song, followed by Twitter and YouTube. 2. Play: Once user of social networking sites starts getting curios about Kolaveri, the YouTube link shared by peer network helped user to watch Kolaveri video at the click of mouse. Extensive promotion and mentions of Kolaveri on social platform resulted in exponential growth of cult of Kolaveri. 3. Beta Test: Between 1 and 10 November leaked version (even before the official launch of the video), there were 43,800 mentions of Kolaveri in the US, 7,000 in France and 4,000 from the UAE. 4. Official Kolaveri Video: The attention received by leaked version received was great and set the stage for official version. According to Parwani from Sony Music “the video accompanying the song was recorded at 2am, the night before the release on the 16 November, and edited the next morning.” He insisted that insisted that “we wanted this song to go viral in cyberspace. We marketed aggressively to make the song a national rage”. Parwani said that “his team had been posting the song on Tamil, Hindi and international Facebook pages to drive traffic”. 5. Seeding on to Social sites: According to Social Hues, the rate of Twitter mentions of Kolaveri increased by nearly 200% every day, starting at 179 and peaking a week later at Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 5
  • 7. 14,907 tweets on 24 November—the day after it became the first Tamil film song to be played on MTV followed by Amitabh Bachchan’s admiration for the tune on tweeter. In case of Kolaveri it is the combination of online seeding, main stream PR, influencer engagement and huge user participation that along with a song everyone could identify with shot in a non posed non cinema way. Psychology It is the combination of “intrigue” and “emotional connect” which created curiosity in the minds of people who saw/heard the phrase "Kolaveri". 1. What is this “Kolaveri”: The curiosity begins before the clicking on a link to YouTube video and curiosity is “what is this Kolaveri” for non-Tamil listener. A facebook update or a tweet with phrase “Kolaveri” first makes user to find out the meaning of the word “Kolaveri” after knowing the meaning of “Kolaveri” as “murderous rage” the first curiosity of listener is answered. 2. What is “soup song”: One another level of curiosity that the song triggers is about soup song. In the first stanza itself Dhanush starts the song with phrase “Soup Song” to many listener even this phrase generates curiosity in the minds of listener to find out what does the soup song means. Usually non-English audience is not aware of the phrase “soup song” so the phrase generates curiosity in the mind of users to find out what actually a soup song is. 3. Why this “Kolaveri”: Having found out the meaning of the phrase “Kolaveri” now the listener is intrigued to know “why this kolaveri”. The curiosity of listener is answered in next four minutes. By the time four minutes are over curiosity is satisfied but it is too late, as foot tapping music, catchy words, catchy phrases and a jam session type video has mesmerized the listener. According to social hues twelve per cent of all conversations on Kolaveri were about the meaning of the word, generally translated as murderous rage. 4. Emotional Connect: How many love stories you know in which the boy is in love with a girl. But she is not. He is not so handsome, but she is very beautiful just like sultry Shruti Hasan. The rejection makes him to take to liquor. He wonders how she can be happy Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 6
  • 8. when he is sad. Reflect back in your life you will find examples from your life or from the lives of near and dear friends/colleagues/acquaintances. The song takes you back to the time when you experienced “Kolaveri” or you saw some one close to you going being “kolaveried”. This song especially resonates with those who have been recently dumped. Dhanush says that “one of the reasons the song was such a big hit was since it spoke of a jilted lover, and who hasn't had a broken heart?” It is this universal emotion, which the audience from across globe could connect instantly. The song describes love in the perspective of a boy but girls can equally resonate with the song and that has played very important role in the success of this song. Participation There is no other social viral phenomenon (at least from India) in which user participation is as high as kolveri. Perhaps Kolaveri is the only YouTube video song with such a huge user participation (if not the worldwide definitely not any Indian). User participation for kolaveri is unprecedented. A simple search on YouTube gives more than 14,000 results with version in almost all major Indian languages from Malayalam to Gujarati to Sindhi. 1. Regional versions: As the popularity of Kolaveri increased YouTube was flooded by regional versions of kolaveri. So there was kolaveri in Telugu, Marathi, Sindhi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali, well almost in all Indian language. And it just does not end here you will find more than one version of kolaveri in all regional languages. People from all walks of life be it a kid or a professional working in IT company or bunch of guys/girls from school/college, creating their own version of kolaveri and uploading it in YouTube. As kolaveri song is mostly perceived as fun song, people did not pay much attention to the nitty-gritty so they just went by instinct i.e. sing, shoot and upload. These regional version themselves went on to make headlines in newspapers and electronic media. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 7
  • 9. 2. Kolaveri against politicians: The song kolaveri came in the year, which saw large scale anti corruption protest in all part of India. Post kolaveri’s release journalists, cartoonists, and common people started using the phrase “Why this Kolaveri” in order to vent their frustration/ to express their anger/ to mock politicians. Just when kolaveri was becoming a buzz word in online space, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar got slapped by a sikh youth 25 November, anti politician social users cheered the slap, followed by a punjabi version of the song known as the Sharad Pawar slap song appeared on YouTube on the same day. It has logged over 1.5 million views till 30 December 2011. Later on when Jayalalitha increased price of milk, electricity in Tamilnadu people in Tamilnadu cartoonist created poster asking Jayalalitha “why this Kolaveri di”. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 8
  • 10. When Loklpal was tabled in lower house of parliament here is what cartoonist Manjul expressed the anguish of ruling party with cheesy cartoon. Supporters of anti-corruption crusader Anna hazare also created several version of Kolaveri to support Anna’s fight against corruption as well. Kolveri became a standard Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 9
  • 11. phrase for bashing politicians. For all the political incidents that has taken place since the launch of kolaveri it is easy to find a YouTube video, a cartoon, a poster or an article mentioning kolaveri and asking respective politician “why this kolaveri”. 3. Animated and Funny Versions: Cult of kolaveri was not restricted to serious imitation and expression of anger against politicians alone. People went on to create funny versions of their own. Bunch of students created exam version, few others danced in funny way. Student recording their own version of Kolaveri and uploading it to YouTube to express themselves. Kolaveri became a means to express themselves in all possible ways. Some to look funny, others to showcase their talent. Exam Version Students dancing on Kolaveri tune in funny way Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 10
  • 12. Kolaveri fans went on to animate Tom & Jerry, Chipmunks, Talking Toms, Mr. Bean to the tune of Kolaveri. Even angry bird was not spared from Kolaveri fever. 4. Traffic Police Departments: The popularity of Kolaveri was ever increasing since the launch and it became youth anthem of nation in short time, noticing this traffic department of various cities used “Kolaveri” to ask motorists to remain calm on road and avoid road rage. Chennai Police brought out posters asking 'why this anger' with the words 'Kolaveri Di'. Delhi Police's added it to their Facebook page. The idea behind all this was if Kolaveri Di is visible at important junctions and cross roads with instructions to avoid rage, may succeed in cooling the frayed tempers. Why this kolaveri? Just drive without anger. The initiatives by well received from youngsters praising Chennai and Delhi police. Taking cues from Chennai traffic police and Delhi traffic police, Kolkata has recently launched a new campaign to encourage bikers to wear a helmet. Kolkata city police Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 11
  • 13. launched a unique campaign on Christmas eve, which will run till January 1, 2012, seeks to warn the bikers of the perils of riding without a helmet. They police brought out huge posters and hoardings carrying the punchline "Why this hero giri, hero giri, hero giri, di?" with a cartoon and a warning with text: 'Drive Safe, Use Helmet'. The hoardings have been put up at various traffic junctions to educate the youngsters who often ride without wearing a helmet, especially during Christmas and New Year celebrations. "We have chosen this song as everyone is aware of its lyrics. It is catchy and we can easily reach out to the maximum number of people. Moreover, the youngsters can relate to this when they see the hoardings at traffic signals," Kolkata Police deputy commissioner Dilip Banerjee said. 5. Cashing on Kolaveri Phenomenon: The cult of kolaveri became so big that marketers could not resist themselves from riding the kolaveri wave. From well known brand like “Amul” which long been known for simple and funny advertisements. Amul, which is known for creating advertisement on contemporary topics to promote its products, came up with “Amul Khalo Every advertisement” in the print ad. It shows traditional Amul’s mascot, the little girl enjoying a slice of buttered bread with a friend with tag line reading, ‘Why This, Try This, Buy This’. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 12
  • 14. Online shopping portal too jumped in the game to en-cash cult of kolaveri and came up with kolaveri t-shirts. The portal 600024.com started offering t-shirts with heart and devil horns - with "Why this Kolaveri Di?" scribbled above and beneath. They also have T-shirts featuring Dhanush's song as the words below say, "Yo Boys, I am a sing song" and various improvements like “Why this Kolaveri boss?” Another website X tees choosed selected lines like “White-a skin-u, girl-u. heart- u, black-u" and "God I am dying now, she is happy, how?" and sold it online. Later on good number of online portal like eBay.in, seventymm.com, zeole.com,zazzle.com, tshirts.in, xtees.com had kolaveri t-shirts available for sell. According to Manjo Kumar the CEO of X Tees "The demand has been amazing, In fact, in my 12 years of online T-shirts I have never seen any t-shirt selling like this.” Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 13
  • 15. A fruit shop in Chennai (http://fruitshopongreamsroad.in/) came with a poster encouraging customer to avoid “Cola” and encourage fruit cosumption. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 14
  • 16. It does not end here a lesser known company wookpecker furniture (http://woodpeckerfurniture.com/home.htm ) from chennai came with banner having bold letters “KOLA-VERI PRICING” as depicted below. Naukari’s Hari Sadu advertisement was also converted to ride the kolaveri wave. Kolaveri’s growing popularity led marketers to create advertisements of their products to be linked to kolaveri. These advertisements helped marketers to break the cluster for short while. 6. Global Participation: The success of Kolaveri was not limited to Indian cyberspace alone. It went viral in other parts of the world as well. a. YouTube videos of Japanese dancing to the tune of Kolaveri became famous. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 15
  • 17. b. Auckland flash mob danced on Kolaveri to create news. The English version of Kolaveri created by Arjun has so far logged 2.2 million views. c. People from our neighboring country created their own version “Democracy di” to vent anger against politician and current affairs in Pakistan, and so did our neighbor from Sri Lanka. d. Few Egyptians created their own version of Kolaveri. e. Indians in USA/Canada created Highway version, rap versions. f. Tamils in Malaysia doing their bit on Kolaveri. g. There is an Arabic and French version as well. One can easily find kolaveri or its parody videos from various part of the world. These videos or either created by native fans of Kolaveri or people from Indian origins doing their bit in serious or funny way to enjoy the songs. Celebrity tweets Celebrity tweets played an important role in the success of Kolaveri’s bandwagon of celebs appreciating Kolaveri was triggered by Amitabh Bachhan. 1. Abhitabh Bachhan tweeted “Just heard #Kolaveri after much talk on it ... its so original and catchy ..congrats Dhanush and Aishwarya(Rajni's daughter) .. love.'” 2. Shruti Hasan tweeted “Everyones on the kolaveri trip and how!!!indias got kolaveri :p yay team 3 and congrats the our poetu :D I meant to our poetu hahaha ive been singing along too much methinks!sentence construction kolaverified :p”. 3. Ranvir Shorey tweeted “Yes, I did get some relief with #Kolavari. But not really long lasting,”. The tweet exchange between Dhanush & Bachchan family also made lot of news in print media, electronic media and film magazines. Lot of celebs, journalists, industrialists and famous people tweeted with hashtag #kolaveri and this created lot of buzz in tweeter about Kolaveri helping kolaveri becoming popular. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 16
  • 18. Performance Kolaveri was run away hit among the netizens, its viral success is unparalleled with none in recent history. Some of the highlights of its success is listed below: 1. More than 40 millions views of Kolaveri and related videos. 2. Views on YouTube (Official Sony Channel): 30,031,106. 3. Likes on YouTube (Official Sony Channel): 198,280. 4. YouTube has given the video a gold medal for the most popular video and a silver medal for trending. 5. First ever Tamil song to play on FM in Bangalore. 6. First ever Tamil song to be aired on MTV. 7. The track is also the first regional language (Tamil) song ever to see a high rotation on mainstream music Channels - play listed on 43 Radio Stations Pan-India. 8. It has become top downloaded track on mobile with a score of 2,10,000 music downloads within 18 days of launch beating previous records. 9. The video has also achieved over 3.6 million Facebook shares and #Kolaveri (a popular slang term amongst Tamil youth meaning ‘murderous rage’) has been trending on Twitter since its launch. 10. Most searched song on YouTube. 11. Only Indian Song featured in TIME Magazine after “Roja”. 12. Best Song of the year 2011 contender on CNN. 13. Featured in BBC UK. 14. 22,000 Downloads on WAP in span of less than 5 days. 15. More than 3.6 million Facebook shares on Facebook. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 17
  • 19. 16. Twitter trends 17. Break-up of chatter across social media channels. 18. Top Discussions in cyberspace Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 18
  • 20. 19. Comparison with other Kolaveri imitation and parody. Lessons on viral marketing from Kolaveri 1. Keep it ultra simple. 2. Use universal language English. 3. Touch emotional cord of target audience. 4. Tacitly encourage user participation. 5. Generate curiosity not only in promotion but also in content. 6. The content should not look as professionally prepared but rather natural outcome. 7. Manage PR and influencers carefully and neatly. 8. Make sure that it does not look like an attempt “to market”. 9. Manage viral life cycle carefully at all stage. 10. Combination of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social platform synchronously helps in building, growing &spreading. 11. PR and influencer management on social platform assist in building credibility. Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 19
  • 21. Open thoughts Having analyzed elements behind success of Kolaveri, there are still few thoughts which I could not analyze further due to lack of time, resources and lack of contacts so I am listing them below: 1. Celeb tweets helped Kolaveri to spread like wild fire. Were all tweets genuine or some of them were influenced (or PR attempt) by marketing team of Sony and Juke in the Box? 2. Extensive coverage by electronic and print media also raises the same question. How much of electronic and print media was sponsored (or PR attempt) or influenced? 3. Hoarding by traffic police. Was this part of promotion by Sony and Juke in Box? By posing these questions I do not want to be skeptical but rather objective. In my opinion celeb tweets and extensive coverage by media played an important role in the success of Kolaveri and having seen Kolaveri team in almost all news channel regional, national, Hindi channel covering Kolaveri rings bell in my mind “How much of this was part of PR campaign by Sony?” Conclusion Kolaveri is a “social viral marketing phenomenon”. It was planned and executed well, however I do not think that people involved in production or marketing, would have thought it to become as successful as it is today. It is easy to do the postmortem, analyze things thread bare but very difficult to pick up something and replicate the phenomenon like Kolaveri. While the Kolaveri phenomenon is going strong with each passing day, it also marks the beginning of India's social viral moments on YouTube, Facebook, and Tweeter. Kolaveri's viral success will definitely make marketing professional in India to emphasize more on viral and social marketing space. With low risk and very high reward success of viral marketing Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 20
  • 22. phenomenon will continue to intrigue marketing professionals in times to come and especially in web 2.0 world. Don't be surprised if Indian cyberspace is hit by another viral fever in coming time. Acknowledgement Thanks to marketing department of IIM Kozhikode for teachings and explanation of marketing management concepts in various classes, without which it would have been difficult for me to analyze, interpret this marketing phenomenon. References 1. http://www.innoplexus.com/why-this-kolaveri-di/ 2. http://www.socialsamosa.com/2011/12/why-this-kolaveri-a-rage-u-on-social-media/ 3. http://www.medianama.com/2011/11/223-why-this-kolaveri-di-gets-it-right-on-youtube/ 4. http://umeshpatil.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/why-this-kolaveri-di/ 5. http://www.desimag.co.uk/music/5156.html 6. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/a-viral-hit/458038/ 7. http://www.slideshare.net/jackintheboxww/kolaveri-di-official-case-study 8. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/media/entertainment- /entertainment/dhanushs-kolaveri-di-very-popular-in-b-schools/articleshow/11105266.cms 9. http://www.andhrafriends.com/topic/233671-lolga-gaadi-analysis-on-why-this-kolaveri-di/ 10. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Traffic-police-capitalize-on-Kolaveri- rage/articleshow/10964255.cms Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 21
  • 23. 11. http://www.merinews.com/article/rage-of-kolaveri-di-will-be-channelized-to-counter-road- rage/15862023.shtml 12. http://truthdive.com/2011/12/01/kolaveri-di-the-dark-side-of-a-man.html 13. http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1047789&c=1 14. http://bollyspice.com/33531/the-kult-of-kolaveri-song-hits-15-million-views-in-just-2-weeks 15. http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/9244/so-whats-this-kolaveri-di-anyway/ 16. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/11/30/nonsensical-semi-english-music-video-goes-viral-in- india/ 17. http://umeshpatil.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/why-this-kolaveri-di/ 18. http://vsubhash.blogspot.com/2011/12/kolaveri-di-hoax-annals-of-human.html 19. http://business.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279305 20. http://www.blog.webfluenz.com/2011/12/social-media-frenzy-over-kolaveri-di/ 21. http://www.slideshare.net/SocialHues/kolaveri-di-dec-2011ppt 22. http://www.slideshare.net/Webfluenzintelsys/social-media-frenzy-over-kolaveri-di 23. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/errant-motorists-kolkata-cops-launch-kolaveri- campaign/1/165906.html 24. http://www.moviecrow.com/News/361/how-kolaveri-stacks-up-to-most-popular-videos 25. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-12/news- interviews/30508228_1_shirts-song-dhanush 26. http://www.manjul.com/index.php/2011/12/23/lokpal-bill-tabled-in-lok-sabha-mps-give-it- to-anna-left-right-centre/#.Tv7yqlbCPtQ Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 22
  • 24. 27. http://www.manjul.com/index.php/2011/12/23/lokpal-bill-tabled-in-lok-sabha-mps-give-it- to-anna-left-right-centre/#.Tv74ClbCPtR 28. http://capitalistdesi.com/116/india/kolaveri-di-vs-anna-hazare-viral-success-for-sony Viral Marketing: Why this Kolaveri Di Page 23