Tuesday 7 February 2012

“Kolaveri” Success – Viral Marketing of the Century - 'Why this Online Promotion Di’


The cross- cultural Tamil-English music- "Why this Kolaveri Di.  " has created a viral phenomenon, unprecedented in the history of online promotion in India or even in the global internet viral promotions.  The quantum of ‘likes’ both in Youtube and Facebook created was awesome.  The video clip placed by Sony Music had attracted over 22 million hits and 85,792 comments on Youtube in just over two weeks.  The comments in the main video reached 108,972 and attracted 221,044 likes with a viewership of 39 million in two months.  The music which was written and sung by Dhanush, the Tamil film actor, became the most-searched song on Google, and most-shared on Facebook within ten hours of posting.  It was identified as the number one Indian trend on Twitter on November 21, with many tweeting random bits of the song.  


The term Kolaveri, meaning ‘murderous rage’, is now being picked up by marketers and brands alike and people in other parts of the work as a form of expression.  The track is also the first regional language (Tamil) song ever to see a high rotation on Mainstream Music Channels - play listed on 43 Radio Stations Pan-India.  The blend of two languages along with the funky music is what did wonders for the number.  According to a study done by IIM Kozhikode, many non-Tamil speaking people liked the son due to the peppy feel, funky music and the Tamlish lyrics.  

The song has got many versions released, “Female Version”, “Give me Milk Version by Naveen Nigam”, and “One Random Remix” after its sensational hit on the internet.  There are almost 1,000 search results appearing for the search query Kolaveri Di on YouTube.  The one by Nevaan Nigam, 3 years child son of Sonu Nigam attracted  5 million views  in 45 days (placed on Dec 4, 2011).  Kolaveri came in different languages and the one in Punjabi version - Pinki Mogey Wali (Jan 23, 2012) attracted 14,920 views in a week time which points out the success of the Kolaveri.  There are many spoof videos floating around the YouTube based on Kolaveri Di, which indicates the height of popularity of the song.  

There are reports which mention that the Tamil movie fans (mostly male) and non-resident Indians drove most of the traffic in the US and the Gulf, and students studying abroad made up the majority of mentions in Europe.  From 16 November on, according to Social Hues, the rate of Twitter mentions of Kolaveri increased by nearly 200% every day, starting at 179 and peaking a week later at 14,907 tweets on 24 November—the day after it became the first Tamil film song to be played on MTV and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan  had tweeted about his admiration for the tune.  Most traffic was driven by Facebook, which accounted for nearly 80% of social media mentions of the song, followed by Twitter and YouTube, according to Social Hues. 

Tamil population in India is around 72 million and India is reported to have 8.5% internet penetration.  Assuming the internet penetration rate among Tamil speaking people is same as 8.5%, an estimated 6 million Tamilians will have internet access out of the total 72 million.  However, the song had hit 22 million in the first two weeks point out the fact that it was not the mere Tamil fans which pushed the video clip.  As of now the viewership reached 39 million which clearly highlight the fact that the video clip became viral beyond language or region. 

The Google Keyword Interest analyses a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms one entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.  This analysis indicates the likelihood of a random user to search for a particular search term from a certain location at a certain time.  The following data reveals that the higher Keyword Interest for the term ‘Kolaveri’ was from Maharashtra followed by Orissa and other Northern States of India rather than the Tamil speaking places.  At the same time, Tamil Nadu reported 22.  0 in Google Keyword Interest analysis data.  


What is the secret of the success of the music Kolaveri.  Wait for our next blog on the Viral Marketing analysis of Kolaveri which is quite interesting to all digital marketers.