Inside: Mirzapur 2 marketing strategy - A combination of seasons to increase viewership

Mirzapur 2 Marketing Strategy is all about recapping season 1 for loyalists & new viewers, while keeping the buzz alive for the upcoming season. A look at their social media mix.

While the marketers leverage the gap period & the core theme of ‘battle for the throne’ & ‘revenge’ for Mirzapur 2 marketing strategy, we take you through the prominent tactics adopted across social media.

The first season of Mirzapur on Amazon prime revolved around the theme of ‘Aapka Swagat hai’ to introduce and establish the plot of the crime-thriller series. As loyal fans binge the new season amidst the ongoing pandemic, Mirzapur 2 marketing strategy revolves around leveraging the gap between the seasons, keeping the buzz alive.

As the battle for the throne of Mirzapur grips, marketers leave no stones unturned to keep the buzz alive by leveraging the narrative of ‘Gaddi Pe Kaun Baithega’. Tactics such as the pre-buzz micro-campaign for the announcement date, popular dialogue posts, cross-over trailers, brand & content collaborations with trending post formats, and more were used.

Apart from releasing the series in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi, Amazon Prime also kept season 1 of Mirzapur available for free streaming on the platform from 25th to 30th September 2020 for the uninitiated and new viewers. On social media platforms, individual handles in addition to Prime Video India social media handles were created to promote the show. Quintessential to Amazon Prime, the OTT platform launched a consistent series of post formats akin to its social pages.

Mirzapur 2 marketing strategy also involves digital billboards with YouTube masthead ad to redirect the users to Prime and watch the series, along with traditional OOH ads. The prominent hashtags used are - #MirzapurOnPrime #Mirzapur2, #MS2W, and #yehhaimirzapur.

Ode to Fandom Micro-campaign

The delay in the release of the OTT series and movies is not new, owing to the productions halt during COVID-19. With the rising curiosity of the fans post-season 1, marketers leveraged the popular hashtag - #MS2W, that meant ‘Mirzapur 2, When?’ to launch a micro-campaign, pre-buzzing the announcement date of the new season.

In a bid to pay a tribute to the loyal viewers, the campaign urged the fans to ask about the date in their way through a Facebook event page for amplification, using the hashtag. The best responses were shared on Prime social media pages.

This activation was followed by ‘Kab Aarha Hai Mirzapur’ cross-over trailers with varied Amazon Prime shows, with a CTA to join the premier on YouTube for the release date of the show, on 24th August 2020.

Mirzapur x Panchayat

Mirzapur x Paatal Lok

Release Date Announcement

Post the micro-campaign, the wait for the series was over with the release-date announcement.

The tactics led to #Mirzapur2 trending on Twitter in the top 10, quite many times while engaging the viewers for the series. Further, makers continued to express gratitude towards the followers by sharing best fan-arts across its official handles after this.

Character Re-introduction & Word-play

Post this, the brand continued to generate curiosity with short videos on the old and new character, each with a purpose of his/her, driven by a storytelling format as the social media posts.

The show also highlighted the ‘Women of Mirzapur’ in alignment with the grit and courage imposed on them through varied circumstances at Mirzapur

Guddu

Kaleen Bhaiya

Maurya

Women of Mirzapur

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Trailer Release

After much hype and conversations across channels, the trailer for the new season was launched.

The catchy dialogues & characters soon paved way for memes by brands and people, across social media channels.

Post-trailer Launch - Munna’s Letter

The plot of Mirzapur showcases a constant conflict between the father-son duo, Munna and Kaleen Bhaiya. In a post-trailer release, Prime Video released a supposed emotional letter from Munna to his father and how he wanted him to be proud of him despite the devious routes for end-results.

Short-format Videos Leveraging the Theme

Prime shared more posts around the central theme of the series by video posts on glimpses of what to expect in the crime-thriller.

Kaun Lega Mirzapur 

Gaddi pe kaun baithega?

The makers attempted to garner more reach through the strategic brand associations for the series.

Content Assets

Post a considerable buzz created with dialogues, campaigns and short-format videos, another trend leveraged by the marketers was content extension, involving influencer-collaborations and characters from Prime Video India's existing shows. These included cross over content from other series and also Purvanchal Ke Samachar, a news series based on the show, in a light-hearted manner.

Bandish Bandits x Mirzapur2

The series harped on pop culture such as a special rap song as an ode to one of the central characters.

Purvanchal Ke Samachar

Prior to the trailer, these content series aimed at reviving the previous season of Mirzapur with facts and anecdotes, invariably a recap series albeit, in a news format.

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KetchupShots with the Rebel Kid

Recap Series

Every actor from Mirzapur 2 shared his/her side of the story and motive through a recap series, posted by Amazon Prime. All the actors shared interesting snippets aimed at generating curiosity for the new season.

Topicals

Be it 'Hindi Day' that leveraged the iconic dialogues in the language or 'Tourism Day', positioning Mirzapur as a place to visit, another strategic tactic adopted by the marketers was leveraging social media trends, significant to the tonality & theme of the series.

Hindi Day

Tourism Day

True to its style, Prime Video India leveraged trending post patterns, and memes intended for fun and humor, keeping the theme of the show intact with prominent characters in the background image.

In an attempt to keep generating conversations around the show, marketers banked on organic moment marketing by other brands. While they perpetually shared with viewers the moments from the previous series, in one of the instances, Tinder India had joined the chatter.

What’s your Mood?

This is an ongoing campaign on the OTT brand's social media pages. Here, the actors attempt at promoting their upcoming show in-line with 'What's your Mood' by Amazon Prime.

Twitter Poll Posts 

On a dedicated page across social media platforms for the series, marketers leveraged 'Poll Posts' on Twitter, in tandem to the viewers' sentiments.

OOH Galore

Mirzapur 2 theme revolves around the 'Bhaukaal' of 'Who will win the throne' in the upcoming battle. The marketers went all out to bank on this with an OOH campaign, placing cut-outs across 8 cities of U.P, targetting even the Tier II and III cities.

To take the curiosity a notch-higher, fans could scan the QR code on the hoarding to cast their vote on who they think would win the throne of Mirzapur.

To Sum it Up

Overall, Mirzapur 2 marketing strategy followed suspense, thrill, and leveraging the curiosity of 'Who will win the throne' as the central theme. Prime Video India attempted to keep the Season 1 and 2 connect alive through various content assets and IP. Overall the show's marketing strategy reflected Prime Video India's social media persona.