1. January and February of this year are particularly important months for Bollywood.
With lots of big budget films like "Chandni Chowk to China", "Delhi 6", "Dev D" and
"Billu Barber" hitting the screen, there's going to be a lot of competition to seek
people's attention and get noticed. The marketing teams behind each film would try
everything they can to spread the buzz and build a sense of urgency to watch the film.
Let’s see how folks behind "Dev D" are going about marketing.
Lustline:
Before you go any further, pick up your phone and dial 022-61424800. Just dial it for
yourself and see what it is, trust me, it will be worth the call charges (if you are dialling
from India)
Welcome. To proceed, please certify that you are above 18 by pressing one.
On pressing one, you are greeted by a husky voice that says
"If you want me in English today, press one. Agar hindi mein chahiye toh do dabaiye."
Though what happens on pressing the next digit maybe disappointing for most callers
as instead of talking (or hearing) anything naughty, all they get to hear is "to get an

2. autographed cd of the film visit the website devdthefilm.com or "to get a movie poster
visit the website devdthefilm.com" , it's a brilliant example of something that has never
been tried before. If the lustline ever worked the way it was said to work it's great but
even if it never really worked that way it opens a whole new world of interactive
marketing. The possibilities of using phone and sms lines for involving masses are
immense and hopefully, we would soon be seeing more being done on these lines.
Website:
You have to certify that you are above 18 to view the site, interesting.
The lustline is also available on film's website, where again you need to certify that you
are above 18 by and select a language to get going. Though I couldn't really get past
this stage, all thanks to the awfully slow site, I still don't get why all the film websites
are made in flash, other than poor SEO they all take ages to load, spoiling the whole
experience but alas no one really takes note of what people are saying about these
things online (see month old rants here).
Though only a few sections are working, the all red site looks intriguing just like its
trailers. I liked the community links section and the fact that it has links to 10 external
web properties but the site could have been a lot better and engaging (engagement is
almost zero).
Videos:
I am not really a TV person, so I rely on the web for updates on what's new on the idiot
box but if you are not like me chances are that must have come across “Emosional
Atyachar”. This song was uploaded on YouTube under the official UTVMotionPictures
channel three weeks back and has got about 25,000 views while the official trailer
uploaded two months back has been seen more than 59,000 times and has got about 117
comments, not bad at all. Not only this, UTV folks have been regularly uploading a
minute long videos of the film songs every 7-10 days with the last one uploaded

3. yesterday. Since the movie contains 18 songs, they can easily upload 10 songs without
worrying too much. These videos have got almost 1,00,000 hits in total.
Abhay Deol gets tattooed
Audio:
The films music is also available via streaming at BollywoodHungama. Anyone who
listens to the songs of the film will definitely talk about it and thus spread the word.
Some like me may decide to buy the audio cd too. These songs have been listened more
than 25,000 times already.
(M)TV:
After reading this nicely written piece on passionforcinema I tuned to MTV and as
mentioned their ticker is full of "atyachar". What happens if you are pretending to be
working in office when you are actually playing games? Professional atyachaar etc. It's
another nice way to spread the word (like I just did). There are film promos playing
every 5 minutes across the news channels, even if you want you cannot miss them.
Facebook:
An active official group with 920 members(2,020 members as of now), 7 videos, 86
stills from the film. The good thing about the group is that it's regularly updated and
admins are also participating in it. There’s also an active fan page which is also heavy
on content. The film has 686 fans already (now 12,161 fans). There's also an event
about Dev D's tattoo launch. This is an interesting way of involving online audience
into offline activities. Translate the lyrics contest: There's also a contest to translate
emosanal atyachar into English & get an autographed CD
Things definitely seem to be in the right direction as far as Facebook is concerned.
Other social networks (Fishing where the fish are):
Not on facebook but want to join the film group, no problem. The film has official
groups/communities on orkut (316 members), perfspot (135 members), hi5 (42
members), fropper (26 members), bigadda (45 members) and goyaar (10 members).
It's worth mentioning that despite the size of the group/community the information and
content is same across all these groups and apparently there are profiles of some of the
cast and team members also on most of the platforms covered.
PFC:
passionforcinema is the biggest platform for Hindi film buffs and lots of experts in the
field blog there. Anurag being an active blogger at PFC has written a lot of the film and
engaged with his readers. There are lots of other posts written by other folks about the
film. These posts must have easily got more than 10,000 views. There's also a deleted
scene video from the film exclusively for PFC which is certainly a great idea.
Controversy:
Nothing works better for making noise than a planned or accidental controversy. Dev D
also has its share of controversy in the claims the film has reignited the infamous DPS
mms scandal.

4. Merchandise:
Not sure if it's the right category but if news sources are to be believed there are plans
to launch "Dev D Condoms". If they pull of this one, it will be an historic (not
necessarily successful) tactic, which will create a lot of buzz and be a remarkable event
in marketing of Bollywood films.
The marketing strategy for the film includes both offline and online activities, while
Ghajini's online marketing was more focused on stand alone sites, it's focused more on
social networks in the case of Dev D and apparently it has got to do with the fact that
the producer of the film is UTVSpotboy. Apparently, they have a platform and a
methodology which is used to promote their films. Given the rate at which buzz is
spreading for the film and the fact that its release is about three weeks away chances are
it will see a grand opening. Let’s see if they come up with something else till the release
date and how the movie performs.
If you found this case study useful, feel free to share it with others.
This Case Study was compiled by Mayank Dhingra.
He writes about Marketing, Business and Social Media at http://mayank.name
Contact Details
Email: dhingra.mayank@gmail.com
Phone: 9810041966