Social Media Case Study: How Bhaag Milkha Bhaag got over 3 Million Video Views!

Brand Name:

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

Agency Name:

Ignitee Digital

Introduction:

To create buzz about the movie Bhaag Milkha Bhaag on the digital & social media platforms with a clear focus on spreading info about the great athlete Milkha Singh.

Objective:

To engage fans and followers online with the movie content and generate UGC while creating the hype about the movie.

Execution:

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was one of the longest running movie campaign on social media, the first teaser look was released in November 2012 and the actual campaign kicked off in the month of May 2013.

Most of the posts were image driven with a motivational quote to bring out the essence of the film. “Reaching to the top, in spite of all the hurdles in life”. This content plan was continued till May 2013.

Making today’s generation aware of Milkha’s achievements.

• Dedicated posts and activities were carried out at regular interval during the campaign to put emphasis on the real HERO!
• Milkha facts: Unknown facts about the legend were made available to the fans online.

Activity 1:

While dedicated tabs have been made for songs along with lyrics for fans to watch the videos and sing along. There is a special tab called “THE FIRST LOOK CLUB”.

In this tab, the users were supposed to submit their contact details like Name, Email ID and Mob no. What they got in return surely lived up to the name of the tab. Every time a new content piece was released, be it image, video, or any other content. A mailer was sent to all the registered users 12 hours before the actual release of the content. Giving them access to the EXCLUSIVE content before rest of the world. Bi-weekly mailers were also shared with this database to keep them updated with whatever happened on the community, even if they missed the post we managed to keep them updated.

The activity was a result of the insight that Facebook pages have thousands of fans and they are engaged more in a broadcasting manner and the individual level interaction is missing. Thus the idea is to go deeper and engage the fans on a micro level with specific mailers which have not been explored by movies in the past.

Activity 2:

Chase Your Dream:

Since Milkha ran towards achieving his dream of representing India on the world map, and each of us has a dream we want to achieve in our life. We wanted our fans to let the Milkha in them out, a unique app called “Chase Your Dream” was lunched where the users could create their personalized BMB cover photos.

Here’s how: The user needs to go to the tab, mention their first name & select from a list of Milkha imagery available along with the dream they are chasing with a date they want to achieve it by. The output of this app is a customized cover photo with your name as “Bhaag Rakesh Bhaag” along with the dream user has mentioned in the app.

Activity 3:

Milkha Mosaic poster:

Milkha Singh’s life was that of an ordinary man, full of struggles but what made it special was his hard work to overcome all the struggles and emerge as a winner. We all have the undying spirit in us, everyone has a Milkha in them. Thus we all are part of Milkha, taking a cue from this, we created an app on Microsite. The users can be a part of a BIG PICTURE called the Milkha mosaic poster, all they have to do is visit the website and login via FB Id and there FB profile pic becomes a part of the Milkha poster. By the end of the campaign the same poster will be taken offline as well, awaiting confirmation on the mosaic poster getting deployed on hoarding across the city.

Milkha Fan Art: Since we started the campaign very early, this gave us an advantage to gather all the hard core fans on our social media communities, as a result we got a lot of UGC “User Generated Content”. Be it a mash up video or Milkha arts created by them. To keep the engagement and excitement going, we started a contest where the fans sent in their creations using the BMB/Milkha imagery available online. Below are some of the fan made arts we have received:

Check out the entries received.

Activity 4:

Trailer launch idea:

To launch the full trailer we ran a contest on our social media properties and the winners got a chance to be a part of a Google+ hangout/ a video chat with Farhan Akhtar, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra – The director of the film and 9 winners from the contest. The chat was held before the actual release of the trailer which was moderated by a bollywood film critic Aniruddha Guha. Together they unveiled the trailer online - First ever initiative to launch a trailer on a live chat in the presence of fans.

Twitter:

Twitter was an important engagement driver throughout the campaign. We managed to create buzz on Twitter at regular intervals and made our presence felt with various activities like #SaluteMilkha #MastonKaJhund #BhaagMIlkhaBhaag #MeraYaarKahe #Zinda.

An exhaustive twitter activity called #SaluteMilkha was carried out clubbing the trailer launch online event.

• 2 days before the launch of the trailer, we started an activity called #SaluteMilkha where the fans were asked to show respect for the legend.
• Each tweet meant a Salute to the legend, we asked for 4000 tweets from our fans representing 400 meters race he ran.
• The activity resulted in 6.3K tweets and over 3.8K retweets and 11K+ clicks on the images posted along with the tweets.
• With this activity we managed to trend in India with the hashtag #SaluteMilkha and kept trending for over 2 days nationally.
• This activity was followed by a first ever launch of the trailer in India on a Google+ hangout by Farhan Akhtar and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Results:

Social media properties and fans & followers:

1. Facebook: 280+ K fans
2. Twitter: 6.9K+ followers
3. Google+: 76.5K+ K fans
4. Instagram: 475+ followers
5. Youtube: Over 3 mn views on videos