Gangs of Wasseypur – Social Media Campaign Review

Anurag Kashyap is a highly talented film director with an offbeat point of view and a whole host of surprises up his sleeve. While conventional Bollywood wisdom dictates that a “different” film, without a roster of big name stars had no chance at being successful, Kashyap defied this with the critical and commercial success of his film, Gangs of Wasseypur.

In fact, the movie went a step further and managed to achieve cult status in the first few weeks of its release. The focus has now shifted to the release of the sequel, Gangs of Wasseypur 2. The excitement is palpable and people are talking about it everywhere as they wait for August 8^th, the proposed date of the release. Faisal Khan (one of the lead actors) and #GOW2 have been trending on Twitter.

With respect to Social Media, there is a notable difference between the release of the first part and the second.  The second time around, the makers of this film have capitalized on the immense popularity that GOW1 by utilizing the various Social Media platforms and quite successfully at that. The Social Media campaign for GOW2 has been the brainchild of Ignitee, a digital agency. The movie is being promoted on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook:

Currently the Facebook page has 259,484 fans and growing as you are reading this. You can describe the look of the Facebook page in 3 words: posters, posters and posters. They are everywhere.

The overall look of the page perfectly reflects the theme of the movie and gives one a feel for what the Wasseypur world is all about..

There is a lot of activity on the page with fun applications such as:

Which Wasseypuri Character are you?

User answers a few questions based on which they get to be a character in the movie. Although we have seen many applications like this before, (Dark Knight Rises being the latest one), there is no reason why this application should not work in their favor. The fans already love the movie characters.

Wasseypur Poster Contest

A contest where users submit their version of GOW posters and the winner gets his poster signed by Anurag Kashyap and the cast. This contest is unique and well executed. It presents a perfect win-win situation for both the brand and the participants.

Wasseypur’s Citizenship:

Users get to show off their own citizenship card of Wasseypur.

Additionally, you can also sing along everybody’s favorite song, I am a Hunter, in the Karaoke tab.

The content on the page is mostly Hindi (transliterated into English). The tone of the content is in perfect harmony with the tone of the movie The Facebook page for GOW is aptly called The Wasseypur World and is content rich. The engagement level on the page is commendable with 83471 people talking about this.

Considering the popularity of the movie, the rave response could be dismissed as a foregone conclusion. However, the campaign execution on Facebook is most definitely worthy of a mention.

Twitter:

The Facebook persona is effectively carried over to Twitter. Be it the language, tone or the interactions, nothing has changed. The characters from the movie have their own twitter handles.

The characters come alive on twitter by the way they communicate. Most of the interaction is seen on the main page @WasseypurWorld which does a fine job of not only interacting with the audience but also keeping the twitter cast together. Humor is maintained consistently on Facebook and Twitter.

Yeh lo mantri ji khud hey maja le rahe hain RT @ramadhirsingh: Good morning bho**** waalon! Aaj naashta mein kya khaaye?"

— Gangs of वासेपुर २ (@WasseypurWorld) August 1, 2012

इमरजेंसी के दिनों में ऐसा हुआ होता तो संजय जी द्वारा अब तक पूरे power grid board की नसबंदी करा दी गयी होती.

— Ramadhir Singh (@RamadhirSingh) July 31, 2012

आज है ऐन्टि-सरदार खान डे;) मािफ अबू कनटौरले नहीं हुआ. हम घर में छुप गए हैं और ए क्या, मंत्री जी के हाथ में चूड़ियाँ? रो.फ.ल!!

— Faizal Sardar Khan (@FaizalSKhan) August 2, 2012

Both the Facebook and the Twitter campaigns are well executed to build and maintain the excitement for the release of GOW2. The campaign does not come off as a strictly promotional campaign. It does a fine job of balancing the promotions with entertainment by interacting with the audience via witty and unique content and some interesting engagements.