Production houses have begun competing against each other online to grab eyeballs. While the teaser of Rajinikanth’s Kaala , which was about to be released on Thursday, was postponed to Friday owing to the passing away of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, the makers of Vishwaroopam II revealed on Thursday that the trailer will be released shortly.
In 2011, Dhanush’s worldwide hit Why this Kolaveri di had set a precedent on YouTube, with the song video going viral the world over. From single music videos to a minute-long short teasers, producers are now tapping into popular meme pages on Facebook. “For film promotions, social media is the most economical medium, which can also be used to gauge the pulse and sentiments of the audience. There have been instances where songs have been re-shot and films have been altered based on the reactions to promotional content,” explained Arun Rajagopalan, a social media consultant who has worked on movie promotions with corporate studios.
Recalling an instance, Mr. Arun said the promotional team began to get calls from distributors and exhibitors within a few hours of a movie teaser’s release online after it received an overwhelmingly positive response.
S. Sashikanth, whose production house, Y NOT Studios, is bankrolling Tamil Padam 2 , said 80% of the marketing for a spoof film would have to be done on social media networks.
“The memes are shared across social media platforms. So, much of our marketing effort will be focussed there. The data from smaller ecosystems will be mined to figure out trends and determine what the user really wants,” he said.
