how kolaveri went viral, and what marketers can learn from it
TRANSCRIPT
An analysis by
How Kolaveri Di went from just another song to YouTube sensation and the lessons it holds for marketers
Rhythm correct
On November 17, 2011, ‘Kolaveri’, was added to the
lexicon of commonly used Indian words. Meaning
‘murderous rage’, it was the title of a ‘Tanglish’
(Tamil-English) song written and sung by actor
Dhanush for his film 3.
A video of the song being recorded in a studio was
uploaded at precisely 12.53 am that day on YouTube
by Sony Music, which held the music rights for 3,
and its agency, Jack In The Box Worldwide.
This was followed by aggressive promotion on
Facebook and Twitter. On the latter, the hashtag
#whythiskolaveridi was created and the agency
started posting quirky lines like “Iceland has not
heard #whythiskolaveridi”, “Not called for 2 days
#whythiskolaveridi”, etc, with the YouTube link.
Most people didn’t understand what ‘Kolaveri’
meant and clicked on the link to find out.
The combination of a catchy song, a video that
wasn’t staged and online ‘seeding’ worked.
By the evening of November 21, the hashtag
#kolaveri had topped Indian Twitter trends. Within
a week of the video going live, it received more
than 1.3 million views on YouTube and more than
1 million shares on Facebook. By December 5,
it had become a rage, crossing 16 million views
on YouTube. And it wasn’t just Tamilians driving
the traffic – the song had become a pan-Indian
phenomenon.
4
There was more proof that India had found a new
pop anthem. Within 18 days, Kolaveri Di became
India’s most downloaded song on mobile phones
(2,10,000 downloads) and on November 24 it
became the first Tamil film song to be premiered on
a national music channel, MTV India.
Imitators played the role of flatterers as versions
of Kolaveri in various Indian languages sprang up.
There was even a female
version and one about
the slapping of Indian
Agriculture Minister
Sharad Pawar. Kolaveri
found a mention in Time
magazine and even on the
more conservative BBC,
even as the Indian Institutes of Management cited it
as a viral marketing case study.
Even the prime minister was bowled over. Dhanush
and his wife Aishwarya – incidentally, she’s the
daughter of Tamil screen icon Rajnikanth and the
producer of 3 – found themselves part of a state
dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
for his Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda.
Kolaveri found another unlikely admirer in the
reticent Ratan Tata, who heads the salt-to-steel Tata
conglomerate. He invited Dhanush over for a meal.
Soup song, anyone?
Photo credit: youtube
Flop song... Not quite!
Kolaveri Di female version
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Here’s how big Kolaveri became – even a month
after its release, it got more air time than Anna
Hazare, who was spearheading an agitation for a
strong anti-corruption law and was being supported
by a mammoth cross-section of ordinary Indians.
All the noise eventually led to a debate over
how exactly the song achieved such a meteoric
rise. Various reasons were attributed to it – from
the irreverent Tanglish to the music video to an
overzealous media, which, spotting an opportunity
for eyeballs, blew it out of proportion.
The social connection
It all began with a rough cut of the video being
leaked on YouTube. However, its subsequent
success was anything but a fluke. If it was a leak,
as Aishwarya claimed, it was quickly turned into
a marketing masterstroke by Sony and the film’s
makers.
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.
Super mama ready... How Kolaveri went viral
Soon, the lyrics began to be tweeted around the
globe – between November 1 and 10, there were
43,800 mentions of Kolaveri in the US, 7,000 in
France and 4,000 in the UAE. Tamil movie diehards
and non-resident Indians drove most of the traffic
in the US and the Gulf, while Indian students
accounted for most of the mentions in Europe.
Kolaveri was well on its way to becoming a buzzword
long before the official video was uploaded.
Licking the leak
Aishwarya said she got to know of the leak via
Twitter. “I do not know the source [of the leak],”
she said in Mint. “Initially, I was upset, but I felt
that people needed to hear the right version, so I
wanted to bring out an official video. In two weeks,
we put together the video as there was no time for
CD covers or publicity. Something of this magnitude
cannot be planned. It just happens.”
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
6
marketed aggressively to make the song a rage,” he
told NDTV.
The Sony team posted the song on Tamil, Hindi and
international Facebook pages to generate interest.
The results were stunning – Social Hues reported
that the rate of Twitter mentions rose 200% every
day, starting at 179 and peaking a week later at
14,907 on November 24, the day it was aired on MTV
and screen icon Amitabh Bachchan tweeted about
it.
That apart, the word ‘Kolaveri’ was intriguing – 12%
of all conversations centred on its meaning.
Luck by chance
One man’s fortune is another’s misfortune. This
was never more true than for what happened on
November 25 – Union Agriculture Minister Sharad
Pawar was slapped by a Punjabi youth in Delhi.
Soon, a Punjabi version
of Kolaveri hit YouTube,
logging more than a
million views of its own.
Suddenly, there was more
than one reason to look
up the #kolaveri hashtag.
The song was now an
international phenomenon. It was played on BBC
Radio 94.9 and the Huffington Post quipped on
Twitter: “Adding a ‘u’ sound to the end of English
words is the latest trend in India.”
The big push
For a video to go viral, it’s not enough to tweet about
it. All forms of social media must be leveraged and
complemented by traditional marketing.
It was Facebook that emerged as the main driver
for Kolaveri, accounting for 80% of social media
mentions, followed by Twitter and YouTube,
according to Social Hues.
With the objective of making the song a national
rage achieved, Sony Music decided it now needed
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
then.
Ironically, YouTube wasn’t Sony’s first choice.
Shridhar Subramaniam, president of Sony Music
Entertainment India, told Mint: “We initially wanted
to release it through Vevo, a video platform owned
by Sony. But there was a delay because of the
Thanksgiving weekend, so we decided to release it
on YouTube.”
It might seem that Sony acted fast, sealing the deal
within 13 days of the video’s upload. But, by then,
the song had already clocked 9 million views. Had
Sony managed to monetise those views, it would
have made an additional $4,000 (Rs 2 lakh), based
on YouTube’s $1 cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM).
On Vevo, Subramaniam said, the yield would have
been $40 (Rs 2,000) CPM.
First on the bandwagonKolaveri 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 work on Facebook and other social networks.
Kolaveri Di Punjabi version
Sheila Ki Jawani Peepli [Live] Euphoria
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» 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
huge budgets. Don’t be surprised if social media now finally takes its place
as a mainstream option alongside TV and radio. “If something is a hit on
social media, then your fans become your ambassadors and it goes viral in
no time,” said Jehil Thakkar, executive director, KPMG India, in Mint.
» Have a great product: It could have had the best marketing plan, but if
Kolaveri wasn’t entertaining, it would have flopped. Social media is not a
magic wand – if your product isn’t great, it won’t succeed.
» Keep it simple, stupid: The video is unpretentious, not bothering with
the melodrama and kitsch associated with most Indian films. Brent Coker,
a marketing professor at the University of Melbourne, pointed out that
videos or images “congruent with our existing notion of the brand” are well
received. In the case of Kolaveri, Dhanush, known for his boy-next-door
image, sang the song as an innocent, heartbroken lover. And it worked.
» Touch hearts: Croker says that ideas with strong emotional appeal do
better than others. Kolaveri was about an emotion we’ve all experienced
– heartbreak. Besides, the song was fun. The nonsensical lyrics and the
foot-tapping beat had people hooked.
» Have an idea that connects: Apart from talking about a familiar emotion,
the song used words that are used by young people every day. ‘Soup boys’
(those who failed in love), ‘bouw-u’ (rejection) and ‘life reverse gear’ were
part of South Indian slang. Now, the words are pan-Indian.
» Use all social media channels: Sharing is critical and the viral ‘surface
area’ should be all the channels available. Tweets and likes are akin to
viral currency; eventually, you can charge for traffic that they drive to your
content. The great advantage with social media is that it makes content
easy to consume and, more importantly, easy to share. Finally, take
ownership of your content. Kolaveri generated a buzz when it was leaked,
but it really took off once the official video was uploaded and a sustained
marketing effort followed. Don’t forget, quality content is always in demand
– if you have it, people will always want more.
Holy cow-u... Lessons for marketers
An anthem for managers?
The renowned Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are studying Kolaveri as an example of successful viral marketing. IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) planned a session on the song as part of its Contemporary Film Industry: A Business Perspective course.
The song, which all of India is singing along to, was played during classes by professors in the IIMs of Bangalore, Rohtak and Lucknow, and its marketing strategy discussed threadbare.
Rajeev Kumra, a professor of marketing at IIM-Lucknow, was quoted as saying: “Companies have to be serious about viral marketing now... We were discussing in class how the strategy used by Kolaveri can be used by a company to leverage its marketing activities...”
The students are taking it pretty seriously too. Sajal Kumar, a first-year post-graduate student at IIM-Kozhikode, did a case study on the song, sending out an online survey and analysing its marketing success.
8October 31, 2011 A fan from Chennai, @arundanush, tells Dhanush’s sister-in-law Geetanjali Selvaraghavan and
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
Maintain, please... The Kolaveri story
Composer Anirudh and producer Aishwarya at the Kolaveri recording
And here’s what you
really wanted
Yo boys, I am singing songSoup song... flop songWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diRhythm correctWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diMaintain, pleaseWhy this kolaveri... di
Distance la moon-u moon-u Moon-u colour-u white-uWhite background night-u night-uNight-u colour-u black-u
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
White skin-u girl-u girl-uGirl-u heart-u black-uEyes-u eyes-u meet-u meet-uMy future dark
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Maama notes eduthuko (take notes)Apdiye kaila sax eduthuko (and the saxophone in your hand)Pa pa paan pa pa paan pa pa paa pa pa paanSariya vaasi (play the music properly)Super mama readyReady 1... 2... 3... 4...Whaa wat a change over, mamaOk mama, now tune change-u
Kaila glass... Only English...
Hand la glass-uGlass la scotch-uEyes-u full-aa tear-uEmpty life-uGirl-u come-uLife reverse gear-uLovvu lovvu Oh my lovvuYou showed me bouw-uCow-u cow-u, holy cow-uI want u here now-uGod, I am dying now-uShe is happy how-u
This song for soup boys-uWe don’t have choice-u
Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diWhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri diwhy this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
Flop song!
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