Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi - A Contagion Case Study

Amish Tripathi is the author of Shiva Trilogy novels - The Immortals
of Meluha (Feb 2010), The Secret of the Nagas (Aug 2011) and The
Oath of the Vayuputras (Feb 2013). The trilogy is a fantasy re-
imagining of the Indian deity Shiva's life and adventures.
Amish Tripathi
Shiva Trilogy

Shiva Trilogy | Amish Tripathi
QUICK FACTS
• The Shiva Trilogy was a huge franchise
• It had only grown with every subsequent book release in the Trilogy
• While ‘Immortals of Meluha’ itself was a massive success; its sequel, ‘The Secret of the
Nagas’ had a much faster uptake
• Both the books in the Shiva Trilogy so far have enjoyed a fantastic response from
readers making it a cult franchise
• But there was one more thing that the Shiva Trilogy and Amish Tripathi had been
famous for and that was the marketing approach

MARKETING THE BOOKS
• Think WhyNot, was brought on board to market ‘The Secret of the Nagas’
• For the first time a trailer film for a book was made almost on a movie scale and what's
more, it also played in theatres
• The digital marketing strategy pushed the book to be a phenomenal hit & became one
of the first books to become a bestseller at the Pre-order stage
• Today the combined sale of the two books is close to a million
• Amish was signed on by CAA - one of Hollywood’s top Talent Management agencies
and got him a deal with Dharma Productions for a film to be made on the first book

MARKETING THE BOOKS

All this was just about the right stage setting for the final book in the Shiva Trilogy, which
was to be unveiled in 2013 - the release of the third and final book in the Trilogy –
‘The Oath of the Vayuputras’

• “The Oath of the Vayuputras” was one of the most eagerly awaited books of 2013
• Fans in Social media were clamoring for the release date of the book since early 2012
• While readers were eagerly awaiting the story of Lord Shiva to be completed, it was an
equally interesting wait to see what innovations would be pulled out for the marketing
of the third book
So what would the innovative part be? What were the firsts that ‘The Oath of
the Vayuputras’ will unfold???

TASK
• The brief to the agency from Amish was to remove the hat of ‘Book Marketing’ and
think big!
• The Vayuputras was to be one of the largest ever initial print runs for a book
• At 500000 copies the scale of the book was huge and the marketing idea had to be
BIG.
• Having said that, it was still not a mass media product which could afford the regular
Above-the-Line advertising budgets.
• Hence the marketing needed to be smart, viral and cost effective though the scale was
larger than that of any Indian book ever marketed in India.
• The challenge was also to expand the base of the franchise and introduce the trilogy to
completely new audiences

SOLUTION
The solution lay in breaking new ground with more
‘Firsts’ - something that the Shiva Trilogy, Amish and
the marketing approach for the Trilogy were already
known for.
A series of ideas were implemented that were
never done before and which were so interesting
that they generated their own media through viral
buzz
And together were woven together in a 360 web

SOLUTION
Music Video
• While the last marketing campaign revolved around innovative trailers, the idea was to
take it to next level and actually make a music video
• As an agency, we staunchly believed that music video was a great idea because it acts
as a perfect AV trailer in the first place.
• If made well, it gets its own media by getting some airtime at a substantially lower
media costs. And if the music is made well, it works the same way as songs work the
magic for Bollywood movies
• Since the Shiva Trilogy has always appealed to younger audiences, it was decided to
make the track as ‘Rock’ish Shiva Anthem, high on testosterone

SOLUTION
Music Video

SOLUTION
Music Video
• Taufiq Qureshi was chosen to compose the track & Sonu Nigam was bought on board
to bring this Shiva story to life
• Our agency head - Sangram Surve, wrote the music video outline to bring alive the
journey of the 3 books in this 5 minute music video & it was written by Rachana Dixit
• The video was directed by Amit Pandirkar, the same talented director who had
directed the earlier trailer films
• Shot in croma, 3D structures & matte paintings were made to recreate the period &
make it look as real as possible

SOLUTION
Music Video
Watch the music video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WMwxYzIrUk

WHAT’S DIFFERENT?
We didn’t just stop here…
• The point was not just to make a music video but create a music product inspired by
the book
• Hence Times Music was approached to distribute this piece of music and sell it as a
single
• Times was excited by the potential of the franchise and the idea of having a great
musical product based on such a franchise and decided to put its own might behind
the marketing of the single

One more First:
Not just a Video, but an
ALBUM

SOLUTION
Music Album
• Sangram bumped into one more creative brain who was intrigued and excited by the
franchise and about the music video idea - Raajeev Sharma, owner of a music label in
the World Music space
• Raajeev extended the music video idea to one more ‘First’. Why not create an entire
album?
• The first time in India and perhaps the world that an OST would be created around a
book
• Music that brings alive select chapters in the Shiva Trilogy series to life
• Talented musicians were approached to work on this exciting brief
• The album was called ‘Vayuputras’

SOLUTION
Music Album

SOLUTION
Successful Campaign?
• The music video not only functioned like a TVC for the book but also a standalone
product inspired by the book
• It was an ad that paid for its own production cost through the revenue it generated
• It was an ad that has also generated its own media
• The media that it got for promotion was 10 times the production cost and therein lied
its effectiveness.
• The music album was also the biggest grosser for Times Music in the ‘Non-Bollywood’
segment

THE DIGITAL ANGLE

TASK
Maximize viral reach through the ‘cult’ base of fans on the social assets
Amplify the ‘Big Idea’ as well as the launch of the book to create a big enough
buzz online which would ‘spill-over’ offline too.
Cement Amish as the bigger brand in the long run encouraging more traffic
inflow to the author’s digital assets

SOLUTION
After the success of the first two books we knew that the author’s fan base was
thirsty for teasers to his next book. We used this fact to keep our audience
excited with exclusive content which of course, went viral.
• We took this a step further with a Shiva Trilogy avatar application which allowed fans
to customize their profiles with Shiva Trilogy messages

SOLUTION
• In the second phase of the campaign we focused on the upcoming music video. We
started by releasing exclusive visuals of select characters from the new book. We
followed this up with an exclusive online release of the music video

SOLUTION
The Video release (3 days post the final poster reveal)

SOLUTION
• In the final phase of the campaign, our aim was to turn the launch of the book into a
mega event and bring in throngs of fans to the event. A live stream was planned along
with a LIVE tweetboard giving added impetus to those on twitter to share their
thoughts as the event progressed

SOLUTION
• A new website under the domain name authoramish.com replaced the earlier
shivatrilogy.com
• The main objective of constructing a new website was to establish a brand name for
Amish Tripathi as an author
• The new design of the website was also a lot different from shivatrilogy.com. A lot of
thought was put behind the design of the website so as to suit the brand image of
Amish.
• While shivatrilogy.com had an all out ‘Indian fantasy fiction’ feel to it, the author
website needed a more contemporary design while retaining elements of the earlier
website.

SOLUTION
Landing page of shivatrilogy.com
Landing page of authoramish.com

SOLUTION
Homepage for authoramish.com

• The event trended in multiple
cities all around India on
twitter.
• The urge to be seen/heard
encouraged many users at the
event to login and get tweeting
while at the event causing a
wave of crowd sourced event
coverage on twitter in just 3
hours.
• Combined efforts have seen the
book go into a second print run
within a week of its release.
The first print run itself ran into
5 lakh copies.
RESULT
Shiva Trilogy
Amish Tripathi

Digital Statistics on the Launch Day
 Number of conversations: 1297
 Number of unique users who
participated in the activity: approx.
500
 Users reached: 7,52,864
 Impressions generated: 23,03,636
All this in just under 3 hours!
Amish's Twitter handle (@AmishT)
grew by 3000 followers within a month
from the launch, organically.
RESULT
Shiva Trilogy
Amish Tripathi

THE CULMINATION

THE CELEBRATION EVENT
• Movies become Blockbuster Hits. Break Box Office records and indulge in exuberant
success parties. Such a Cliché
• Taking a book to stardom! Now that's Think WhyNot. After the grand marketing
strategy for the 3rd instalment of the Shiva Trilogy, it was time to party in style!
• "The Celebration Event" held at Taj Lands End was at a scale unheard of ever in the
Indian Publishing Industry. Guest of Honour was none other than Mr. Amitabh
Bachchan
• The guest list was further star studded with the likes of Dr. Satyapal Singh (Police
Commissioner), Pritish Nandy, Kabir Bedi, Dilip Tahil, Neena Gupta and many more

CELEBRATION EVENT - HIGHLIGHTS
• The evening kicked of with two back to back performances of Original Sound Tracks
created for the book – 'Vayuputras'! Each song is dedicated to a particular episode in
the story
• The first one was the track "She Enters His Life" performed by the original artists, the
dashing youngsters of Indo-Gypsies
• The second track played from the album was "Bhadra Bam Bole" and again artists Arijit
Dutta & Prashant Samadhar enthralled the audience with their sheer intensity
• The final touch down was an eclectic dance performance on Shiva's Tandav,
choreographed by Sonia Parchure and performed by Gashmeer who also starred in the
official video of the title sound track - "Jo Vayuputra Ho".

• Screening of the video trailers created for the books was interspersed between these
performances
• An AV was compiled which narrated the success story of Amish and revealed the
astounding facts & figures associated with this historic literary phenomenon
• Post the performances, Mr. Bachchan graced the dias and regaled the audience with
his modest speech
• What followed was an intense discussion on the philosophies entrenched in this
literature between the well respected columnist Mr. Anil Dharkar & Author Amish
himself.
• The guests were gifted with a parchment scroll that had the image of the Pashupati
Seal recreated by Amish himself & that was given in a beautiful golden case

CELEBRATION EVENT – PR & COVERAGE
The event was covered extensively
across all media:

CELEBRATION EVENT – PR & COVERAGE
But the highlight was definitely the tweet about the event from Mr. Bachchan:
With 4,840,286 followers, that’s surely one high profile PR!

By the end of it all, the Shiva Trilogy franchise have set new benchmarks
thanks to Amish’s vision and some really out-of-the box thinking
agency –
Think WhyNot!

Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi - A Contagion Case Study

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Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi - A Contagion Case Study