Bird’s eye view

What marketing campaign best suits an illustrious remake of a popular Hindi film? Amazon Prime Video (APV) approached Trend Loud to conceive the strategy for Malayalam film Bhramam starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, Unni Mukundan, Mamta Mohandas, and Raashii Khanna.

Released on APV in India and theatrically worldwide in 2021, Bhramam is the remake of Andhadhun, a whodunit released in 2018. The success of the Hindi film relied heavily on its marketing campaign shrouded in an air of mystery in tune with the energy of the film.

However, before the release of Bhramam, Trend Loud was asked to create a vastly different and engaging campaign. Over 30 days, the agency moved away from this original perception of mystery and focussed on two themes: illusion and the idea of several moral dilemmas. After cracking its core thought, the agency routed all content keeping these two subjects as the main focus.

Bhramam ended up receiving critical acclaim as a faithful adaptation. Reviews established that Prithviraj could play deceivingly wicked characters especially well. In a bid to aid the film’s release,

Trend Loud worked in three major phases - it employed the tentpole marketing strategy; it created a buzz curve that could sustain Bhramam before and during; and ensured that chatter about the film remained alive on social media post-release.

Ahead of the release, social media was littered with conversations - memes, and challenges built around the movie. Popular actors from the South were featured in snappy videos, contributing to the booming conversation about the film.

Here’s an examination of the process.

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Breakdown

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Teaser release:

The work for the film kick-started on September 19, 2021, at Trend Loud with the announcement of the title logo. With tones of grey, red, and white, the creatives communicated the existence of a consistent grey shade in every human being. This remained consistent with the core thought.

Trend Loud’s big idea here, however, was to introduce Keerthi Suresh, among the top actors in the South Indian film industry, to be part of the campaign despite her not playing a role in the film.

Why Keerthi, you ask? Bhramam’s teaser clip provided a glance— merely seconds — of yesteryear's Malayalam actors Menaka Suresh and Shankar, referencing their 1980’s film - Engane Nee Marakkum.

Bhramam is loaded with meta references - a treat to audiences familiar with Malayalam cinema. Trend Loud decided to play on one such meta-reference and brought in Keerthi to react to her mother Menaka Suresh’s presence in the teaser through a tweet. Prithviraj's retweet to Keerthi's reaction about the teaser was a cherry on the top.

The platform helped reach the actress’ 5.5 million followers and Prithviraj’s 1.1 million followers. Trend Loud curated a Twitter exchange between her and actor Prithviraj to generate massive buzz.

Maa! How did you end up in the world of #Bhramam? @PrithviOfficial am I seeing this right? 😄@MenakaSuresh4 pic.twitter.com/2fx3aIbKKs

— Keerthy Suresh (@KeerthyOfficial) September 25, 2021

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Trailer release:

On release, the Bhramam trailer quickly saw a massive and well-deserved spike of 9.2 million views on YouTube with Trend Loud’s aid. The agency selected screen grabs and cuts of popular dialogues from the trailer. It also distributed content that could become viral videos or image-based memes on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Several content creators and meme page admins picked up content from the film. This boosted the film’s presence on social media and ensured continuous engagement with the audience.

The content that was shared effectively registered Prithviraj’s lucid dialogue delivery and the charisma of the rest of the cast. Meme pages and fan accounts made reels of the dialogues that Trend Loud had packaged.

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Aiding accessories

Apart from highlighting the trailer and teaser, Trend Loud decided to add a humour element to Bhramam’s campaign repertoire in a bid to keep the audiences engaged with the campaign.

For instance, the agency decided to show Raashi Khanna debating her morality in a YouTube video. The actress was given situations where she had to decide which was the most conducive part despite her occasionally displaying shades of grey. For instance, Raashi must choose between options like ‘Never eat your favourite food’ or ‘Never kiss again’ while trying to answer her dilemmas.

In the second YouTube video, Raashi attempted to decipher jumbled words like ‘victim’ and ‘illusion’— all directly connected to the film. She did so while wearing a blindfold.

These video-led ideas focussed on 3 things: The audience getting to know the star better; the artists’ engagement to generate social media buzz while most importantly being relevant to the film; and a short video’s ability to shine light on the film’s intense debate on morality and dilemma.

This campaign was hence very well-received.

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It is well known that actors Dulquer Salmaan and Prithviraj are good friends. Trend Loud decided to bring the two together and spark an interaction between them so as to generate further interest in the film. The most successful part of the campaign was this tweet exchange curated by Trend Loud where Dulquer’s tweet read, “What did CID Ramadas want from me @PrithviOfficial and did you give him my number?”. CID Ramadas is one of the central characters in the film chasing down Prithviraj’s character.

It was only these pictures and the quick repartee between the two that boosted the campaign with maximum engagement, hitting 1.3 million on Twitter.

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Besides this, Trend Loud planned to introduce influencers in the mix to reach regional and global audiences.

1. An interesting YouTube touchpoint was Alambanz, a Malayalam channel with 1.8 million subscribers. Their short sketch integration of tons of dark humour, being resolute about their regional touch, created quite a splash. Their video hit 1 million views. This helped solidify the film’s local connection.

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2. Trend Loud ensured that diaspora Keralites are not left hanging. Tani Malayali, an NRI influencer with 167k subscribers, reviewed the film for the foreign viewer. Her video praising the acting of all the cast members, particularly some of the senior actors, did significantly well as tonnes of Malayali audiences walked into theatres.

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Prithviraj’s stylish stills from the film, the lead couple’s pictures, and some behind-the-scenes outtakes of the film were chosen by the agency to be posted on Instagram to ensure that the film remained in people’s minds even after release.

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Take away

Films with prominent stars and interesting content can survive without much intervention. However, it can thrive with the right kind of content strategy. Trend Loud hopes to collaborate on more such large-scale projects in the future.

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