Results and Effectiveness

The Facebook campaign reached 750,000+ influencers who helped generate sufficient curiosity about the movie to create a Record Opening for any Hollywood movie in India. Slumdog Millionaire was ranked among the Top 100 Best Opening weeks of all times in India. Its first week collections surpassed not only the lifetime box office figures for popular Hollywood blockbusters such as The Dark Knight but also opening week collections of multi-starrer Hindi /other Indian language blockbusters.

Creative Execution

Cinema-going being a social activity -The media solution also needed to mix individual interaction with group participation. Facebook the fastest growing social networking site in urban India was the obvious choice for main media platform. To replicate the Hero’s unique life journey, the first-ever experiential quiz on Facebook was created. The clue trail for quiz was hidden in different Facebook profiles, fan group pages, pictures, videos, wall-posts and notes. The audience started off on the "SlumdogMillionaire" contest page on Facebook and went on to unravel the answers through a journey over different Facebook pages which let them discover important facets of the plot as well as the main characters, revealing just enough to whet their appetite. Web 2.0 users evangelized the activity and helped result in a viral snowballing effect. The amplifiers included promotions on all major Indian portals, gaming portals and presence on all “Slumdog” related searches from India.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In India Hollywood movies find audience only in urban areas, the main draw being the big stars. “Slumdog Millionaire” a small movie about a slum dog from India was winning rave reviews all over the world. But, in the absence of a multi-star cast the movie risked a “weak opening” at the Indian box-office. 3 weeks before the movie release, the challenge was to come up with a unique proposition to engage the potential audience and get them to know more about the movie and its characters. The Target audience was the educated affluent 15-55 year old from urban India. This TG profile fit in well with the internet user base in India. The movie’s USP was the unique plot of the hero’s fascinating journey and experiences in his quest for love. It was necessary that the audience sample and like this plot.