My best campaign is Sony Music's 'Why This Kolaveri Di': Roopak Saluja

It drew the attention towards the song in a way that none of us ever expected, he says

Which do you consider your best campaign and why? When was the campaign launched?

One of the most memorable campaigns for our agency was the “Why This Kolaveri Di” campaign launched in 2011 by our digital arm Jack in the Box Worldwide for our client Sony Music. It started as an accident when Sony Music was alerted that a song of the upcoming film 3 whose music rights were with Sony had been leaked online. Music is a big promotional tool for any movie and the Kolaveri Di song was important for the producers.

The client came to us and asked us if we could do anything to remove the pirated version from the internet. Since this was not possible, we thought let’s create our own version and put it out online. Our own version was shot in the recording studio and we put it out with some interesting subtitles. After this we started the social media campaign, primarily on Twitter and Facebook, which were the primary mediums.

What did the campaign achieve for the brand? Could you also share some numbers to corroborate your claim?

It drew the attention towards the song in a way that none of us ever expected. Those were still early days for social media as organic reach was possible which isn’t possible any more. There was absolutely no money spent and yet, it went on to become one of the most viewed Indian video of all time and got to about 80 million views in just a couple of months. It got widespread coverage in the Indian press and even globally. I remember it was launched in the middle of November 2011 and on December 30, the same year, I saw a CNN Global report saying the most downloaded Indian video of the year was a little-known video called Why This Kolaveri Di.

Roopak Saluja, Founder & chief executive officer, The 120 Media Collective

What was the key idea behind the campaign?

Kolaveri Di is Tamil for murderous rage. It is a slang used in Chennai. It is common to find people using “Hey Macha! Why this Kolaveri man?” while venting out their anger or annoyance in everyday situations. So after putting the video on YouTube first, we started the campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #WhyThisKolaveriDi. Users left the link to our song as they posted their own accounts where they had to talk about disgust or disapproval with the hashtag. Someone said he did not like a movie or someone else was unhappy with her boss for shouting at her. Embedded was the hashtag. 

What was the industry response to the campaign?

We won at least 50 awards for the campaign and for us as an agency, this was the one campaign that helped put us firmly on the map. But the cult it became was the most heartening aspect. We had expected it to do well online but had not imagined the kind of success it tasted. Soon, the internet was flooded as users put their own versions on YouTube, there were flashmobs in different places all across the globe. One video I remember was that of Japanese women playing their own version of Kolaveri and dancing to it. In effect, we brought it from point A to point B but beyond that it took on a life of its own.

We later conducted a study which showed that in two months, it earned an estimated PR worth Rs 67 million.

What were the execution challenges?

Not many when I look back but if I had to do something like that today, it would be a much bigger challenge. Like I said earlier, it brought a lot of organic reach for us which meant we could do without a budget. Now to promote anything on social media, you have to spend money.