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DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION
INM VOLUME 9
Lesson 1-Unique Promotion Strategy: The makers of the film did not promote the film as it promoted usually today. There were no audio launches, press conferences, visits to reality shows or other promotional activities. Instead, a 67 second teaser video was released on social media. The teaser went viral capturing 25 million views on YouTube, the highest views for any Asian movie. Why was it such a success? Let us deep dive into some brand management theory to understand the reason.
Brands can be broadly divided into four categories based on their popularity and momentum: 1. Superstars- Brands of HUL like Lifebuoy and Surf Excel are superstars as they have a high popularity and high momentum in terms of sales volumes. In the cine field, actors like Rajinikanth and Salman Khan fall under this category 2. Rising Stars- Patanjali products fall under this category. The brand has gained impressive momentum but is still low in terms of overall popularity. An actor like Ranveer Singh can be an example in the cine field 3. Settled Greats- Highly popular brands but low on momentum. A brand like Complan can be an example. In cine field, actors like Hrithik Roshan can be called settled greats. 4. Former Glories- Less popular brands with low momentum. Bunge India’ s brand Dalda( cooking oil) is an example. In cine field, an actor like Bobby Deol can be an example. Superstar brands have a high brand visibility and do not need much advertising. This was what essentially followed by the Kabali’ s promotion team and they were successful in leveraging Rajni’ s Superstar brand status. However, this cannot be applied for all brand categories. A rising star like Ranveer, though have gained momentum in Bollywood, cannot afford not to engage in conventional promotion as his popularity is not as much as that of a Superstar.
Lesson 2-Elusiveness in Endorsements: Many brands like Amazon, Air Asia, Airtel, Cadbury Five Star, Muthoot Fincorp and ShopCJ associated themselves with the Kabali movie. But none of these brands were endorsed by the protagonist himself in the movie. Say for instance Muthoot Fincorp introduced silver coins bearing images of Kabali and so did Air Asia’ s flights carrying Thaliva Rajini’ s huge images. A marketing example would be that of Servo lubricant brand of Indian Oil. Servo associates itself with all major cricket tournaments featuring India. But no cricketer explicitly endorses the brand. Servo‘ s association with Indian cricket( a Superstar brand) adds value to its brand image and also helps it retain elusiveness. Lesson 3- Ambush Marketing in Social Media Social media has become a part and parcel in the life of every consumer today. Kabali exploited Rajinikanth’ s image well known for jokes and memes. Many posts trolling Rajini appeared on the social media platform added to the hype of the movie and created massive awareness. In marketing terminology, leveraging a company’ s existing campaign by a second company is called Ambush Marketing. Rajinikanth’ s Kabali ran a very successful ambush marketing campaign by leveraging success of Superstar brands like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan. After many IT firms declaring a holiday for first day release of Kabali, the following ambush marketing campaign message flooded all social media pages. SRK:” I release a movie on Diwali because it is a
Holiday”
Salman:” I release a movie on Eid because it is a
Holiday”
Rajini:“ I release a movie and it becomes a Holiday!!!” Many companies have successfully used ambush marketing on social media platforms. A recent example of ambush marketing is that of Snapdeal. The e-commerce company took advantage of Flipkart’ s’# AchhaKiya’( Welldone) campaign.