Why is this work relevant for Integrated?

The series saw Bobby Deol don a never seen before negative avatar as a Godman with a murky agenda. The fact that there was an ensemble star cast with each character playing a pivotal role in the narrative also made it difficult to build a campaign on select characters. Lastly, while the series is fictional – it did depict a social topic which is fairly sensitive in India and brought to the fore the kind of ecosystem that is built around Godmen, when we as devotees show our unflinching faith in such spiritual leaders.

Background

The Objective: The objective was to build and position the MX Original Series Aashram as a magnum opus, with a socially relevant message that not only spreads awareness but also entertains. Clarity of Insight and Creativity: Over the last decade, news of Godmen and their nefarious activities, is now known to every household and are always on the lookout to find out more of the hidden secrets behind the four walls of such institutions. We wanted to feed this curiosity and thirst for voyeuristic entertainment with our campaign. Also, people tend to have strong conviction in their faith; when the same is questioned, they either vehemently defend it or try to justify it. With this series, we wanted the viewer to question their faith by showcasing the world of Aashram and all the dark secrets that transpire behind this façade, under the garb of faith.

Describe the creative idea

While the story is not based on any particular Godman, media speculations were rife and multiple real life entity names were thrown into the mix from the word go. Being cognizant of the same, we decided to build a 4 weeklong campaign pre campaign and ride the wave of intrigue by introducing Bobby Deol as Kashipur Waale Baba Nirala in the teaser. Helmed by the acclaimed director – Prakash Jha, we created an entire world of Aashram by introducing viewers to its multiple characters and their agendas – be it Baba Nirala and his charisma, Pammi - the innocent devotee who poured all her faith into Babaji, Bhopa Swami, the ruthless accomplice of Baba and all the other characters as a means of unravelling the web of deceit within the Aashram. A 360-degree plan was formulated across consumer touch points using different vehicles including OOH, print, digital and PR

Describe the strategy

The show was first announced with a teaser, introducing Bobby Deol’s first look as Baba Nirala and Prakash Jha’s first web series outing. This received massive traction amongst media, as well as audiences. Each asset thereafter continued to add to the intrigue and audiences started looking forward to the next reveal from the series. To announce the trailer launch of the show, we deployed a never-done-before activity and held India's first 24-hour LIVE digital darshan of Aashram's Baba Nirala on MX Player's social media platforms namely, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube and gratified winners every hour. To promote the trailer, we further executed a Twitter trending activity, deployed a hashtag and the total number of hashtag impressions received through the activity were 12.5M.

Describe the execution

Strengthening the positioning of the show, keeping in mind the sensitive topic and sentiments of the viewer, the teaser was followed by a carefully curated disclaimer in the voice of Prakash Jha, addressing our stance of the show not being directed at any religion/community and being a fictional representation to generate awareness on the perils of blind faith. A special property called Bingevachans with Bobby Deol was created to further leverage Baba Nirala’s character, which was a series of 5 videos and these 30 – 35 sec clips were posted on all 4 social media platforms. Additionally, to promote this content piece, we pushed a series of quiz stories on our Instagram platforms, which in total received a reach of 132k.

List the results

Aashram wooed the country and achieved a phenomenal 100 Million streams within the first 5 days of its launch, emerging as a run-away hit for MX Player. The series as on date has crossed over 1Bn views This campaign has, to an extent, marked the revival of the OOH and gave hope to this age-old industry in these unprecedented times. The performance marketing for this campaign, run across multiple digital mediums successfully garnered over 1Bn+ cumulative reach for the series. The earned media coverage on the platform was at a whopping INR 19 Cr The overall media campaign for the series garnered a reach of 281.5 MN On social, the follower growth on Instagram doubled-up for that month, within 13 days of show launch, we gained 28,389 followers on Twitter.