Social Media Campaign Review: Zanjeer The Film, First Look

One of the cult movies from the 1970s, Zanjeer saw the creation of the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. An official remake of the film by Apoorva Lakhia, which releases in September 2013 is doing the rounds on Social Media since earlier this year. However, since the movie release dates were pushed ahead, the social media promotions started only in July. An active Facebook account has 23K+ fans with rapidly soaring levels. On Twitter the movie has crossed the 1.5K mark and has excited tweeples participating in various contests.

Objective:

The film is promoting its release and garnering plenty of views for the trailer and cast. Through Twitter, the team aims to conduct contests which would familiarize viewers with the characters of the film.

Execution:

The film began with application named First Look, in an attempt to create curiosity among fans regarding the main lead of the film. The cover image was displayed with a countdown and a hidden profile of the lead. The countdown changed every 1 hour for 24 hours, until the application was finally revealed.

At 0 hours the application revealed the first look of the film through a cover image and directed users to the trailer, which is an embedded video on Youtube, using another application.

There are a few posts, using the hashtags #AngryYoungMan and #RamCharan, promoting the lead character.

A contest application named 'Zanjeer' was launched.  The application consists of the embedded trailer video, which users have to view and then answer a question related to the film. However, there are no posts promoting this contest.

On Twitter, the hash-tag #Zanjeer is used to direct users to watch the trailer on Youtube as well as run a contest. The contest is related to questions about the characters of the film. Subtle hints are given along with the question. 5 questions were asked and winners were given movie merchandise.

Q1: Who plays the new #AngryYoungMan in the film? Answer using #Zanjeer! Hint : http://t.co/4c6FkqlqOb Answer quickly!

— Zanjeer (@Zanjeerthefilm) July 5, 2013

Positives:

I see a soaring engagement rate on Facebook and a positive amount of interaction on Twitter. But that’s about it. These interactions probably have more to do with the excitement about the film and less to do with the social media campaigns.

The cover photo has been used creatively, directing the user to watch the trailer. The page also leads users from the Facebook page to their Twitter profile by adding a tab on the page.

Scope for Improvement:

I cannot think of a shoddier job on social media than what the team of Zanjeer is executing. The content is of a very repetitive nature, seems to be projecting a very self-bragging image. The lead is being promoted heavily and other characters are ignored.

There were no posts between January and July. They could have created some buzz since Jan with powerful content like behind the scenes, making of songs etc. If the movie is releasing in September then July is too late to start the social media promotions. You can build a fan following, a loyal community over night by running ads but does not serve of any recall value.

The hashtag used for the Twitter contest is extremely simple, and no innovation or creativity has been used in the execution of the contest. Moreover, the same hashtag is used to continue conversations among tweeples. Being a film promotion, the hashtags can be extremely innovative. There can be multiple hashtags dedicated to the different characters of the film. For instance, #ZanjeerRamCharan or #ZanjeerPriyankaChopra are celebrity names which will attract more conversation.

A much better campaign can be executed than a countdown to the First look or a simple question based Twitter contest.

The Facebook posts have almost zero strategy attached to the post. Creating Facebook properties and personalising posts will be a much better option.

I also noticed that in a span of 3 days the fan numbers jumped from 3K to 11K which obviously suggests that they are heavily investing in ads. Though this is not a bad idea, they should concentrate on putting forth some great content considering the investment. Engaging the fans is much more important than collecting them.

Conclusion:

This movie is releasing in September. So I think they will eventually start promoting. Its been only 15 days since they started their social media promotions. They will perhaps surprise us in the coming two months with good stuff too. "Movies should not take social media for granted."