Young, enterprising, and full of determination, the all-girl team from the PR and social media marketing company Uptown Ideas enters its third year this week. And what better way to celebrate than with the raging success of two of the films they did the social media marketing for — O Kadhal Kanmani and Kanchana -2.
Working with Mani Ratnam for his huge project O Kadhal Kanmani was a dream-come-true for the girls. The promotions on Twitter and Facebook created a buzz around the film for weeks. Special movie merchandise was sold, and the team operated the Twitter handle along with Madras Talkies. The brainchild of Uptown Ideas — OKK Love Stories went viral, with couples from all walks of life sharing touching love stories of how they met, in keeping with the theme of the film.
Says Shruthi, the 25-year old founder of Uptown Ideas, “We initially met Mani Ratnam for handling the radio promotions, but we took up the social media marketing. Marketing OKK was a process that continued for over one-and-a-half months before its release and took a lot of brainstorming. We would keep sending ideas to Mani sir and his team, and if they were approved, we would launch them. We presented around 15 campaigns to him, and he had this amazing magical sense of what would work for his audience.”
Also handling the promotions for Kanchana-2 simultaneously, the girls spoke about how each social media campaign for a movie has to be different to suit the theme and the audience it caters to. Kanchana-2 being a film for the masses, the campaign had dubsmash contests, punch dialogue contests. Uptown Ideas also made a promo video which had people sharing their excitement about the movie, which worked wonders. “When a film we promote does well or flops, it affects us just as much as the makers because we become so emotionally invested in it,” says Abhinaya (26), the co-founder, relieved that both Kanchana-2 and OKK were hits.
Uptown Ideas has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception as an event management company in 2012. “Both of us were classmates in college, and decided to start our own event management company. Our friends and family really helped us by spreading the word. Looking back, we realise that we were really confident as we had no future projections like most start-ups do,” says Abhinaya, with a laugh.
Now, the venture is a full-fledged social media marketing company.
“Again, this wasn't planned. While talking to one of our clients, we wondered how we could maximise our reach, and the solution seemed pretty obvious — Facebook, Twitter and other social media. There were barely any companies dedicated to social media, which is such a big market today, so we decided to go for it,” says Abhinaya, who reiterates that they never wavered about where they wanted to take the company.
Uptown Ideas has grown into a team of four with the inclusion of Priyanka Ravindran (21) and Megha S. Dharan (25). So will social media continue to rule the roost for these girls? “Most people are on social media. It is convenient, has a wide reach and is the present and the future. We just want to do creative work that excites us in different industries, be it films or the corporate sector. Oh, yes! We would love to work with Director Shankar someday,” says the dynamic duo, also attributing their success to the trust they share at the workplace.
