Case study: How Magicbricks integrated Gulabo Sitabo in communication garnering 85+lakhs impressions

Magicbricks launched a series of co-branded videos with Gulabo Sitabo's Priceless Jodi, integrating the movie's plots and quirks in their social media marketing strategy.

This case study explores how Magicbricks partnered with Prime Video India for the release of 'Gulabo Sitabo', a movie which focussed on an ancestral home, integrating their core brand product with the movie.

Category
Introduction

Technology has been gradually changing the face of the Indian real estate industry over the last decade. More than 70% of the home buying decision are impacted by online influences and this has provided the online real estate industry with a great opportunity to innovate and provide full-stack end-to-end business solutions.

The industry is still in its nascent stage and is roughly estimated to be around $215- $225 million in 2020. It has been growing at a robust CAGR of 40% plus from what was a $55-60 million industry in 2015. With the pandemic hastening the digital & technology adoption, this industry is poised to grow rapidly.

Brand
Introduction

Owned by the Times Group, Magicbricks was founded in 2006. Today, Magicbricks has many integrated services from the discovery to the transaction phase in the real estate category. Having more than 1.65 mn active property listings across 16,000 plus properties, Magicbricks is one of the most preferred platforms for buyers and sellers. 

It also boasts of 2.1 lakh exclusive listings posted by individual property owners from across 700 towns and cities. Magicbricks has now aggregated about 80% of all supply and about 60% of all buyers in the market. The brand's app consists of personalized features such as Propworth, Smart Search, Home Loans, EMI Calculator, & more.

Summary

The global pandemic and the ensuing lockdown had forced everyone to accept a new normal. It was particularly challenging for the brands to remain salient as the consumer mindset had shifted.

In such a scenario, the partnership between Magicbricks and Amazon Prime Video for Bollywood film Gulabo Sitabo, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurana, who is Magicbricks’ brand ambassador, was seemingly a different one. This was the first-ever release of a film on an OTT platform, thereby aiming to create history and charting a new normal in the Indian entertainment space. 

Objective

The marketing objective behind this tie-up was to drive brand salience during lockdown via a contextual & disruptive narrative. Keeping ROI in mind, the brand leveraged the movie & its conversation around the first-ever OTT release during the pandemic.

The film’s storyline was based on an interesting relationship between a landlord and his tenant and hence was rooted in the brand's category. The campaign was driven by social media platforms focussed on reach & engagement.

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Brief

Magicbricks had to leverage the quirky movie storyline to establish that it helps tenants find a good landlord and vice-versa.

Creative
Idea

The idea was to find the right context and create conversations that connected with the brand's target audience. Magicbricks aimed to get into the consumer’s heart, internally named as ‘heartbeat marketing’.

Challenges:

• The launch of the film coincided with the onset of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown. The whole economy was paralyzed and the industry was still accepting the new normalcy.
• Sentiment in the real estate industry was at an all-time low and the rental segment was also hit due to job losses and salary cuts.
• Since the launch of Gulabo Sitabo was an industry-first initiative, multiple brands were associated with the movie. So the task was to stand out in the clutter with quirky yet relevant content that could create an instant connection with the TG.
• Thr brand had zero budget for the campaign and organic growth was in the focus.

Execution

The campaign was driven on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The idea was to drive conversations across platforms.

Magicbricks picked dialogues from the movie and took a quirky take on them, making the dialogues relatable to the brand and the audience. To promote the movie Ayushmann Khurrana challenged other celebrities to take up the Gulabo Sitabo tongue twister challenge. They leveraged the trend and tweaked the tongue twister, making it relevant for Magicbricks

The brand picked the movie’s by-line ‘Ek Price Jodi’ and created relatable posts pointed towards landlords and tenants from the country.

It also involved Amazon Prime Video for a Twitter banter where Internet explorer joined the conversation.

Results

• The ‘Gulabo Sitabo’ campaign was successful and created over 85 lakh impressions on the brand's social media pages.
• The response was over 31% engagement rate across all our social media platforms.

Quote

"We look for constant avenues to build brand preference among our audiences. Our marketing strategy called 'Heartbeat Marketing' makes the brand create immersive experiences for consumers through emotive storytelling & innovative execution", said, Prasun Kumar, Head of Marketing, & Revenue verticals & PR, Magicbricks.

He adds, "We are extremely delighted to have partnered with Amazon Prime Video for Gulabo-Sitabo, the first-ever OTT launch of a movie. This helped us drive salience during the lockdown period via contextual narrative and an extremely engaging social media execution. I was absolutely delighted with the consumer response to this initiative which met all our expectations."