The objective was to get a track from the Tamil movie ‘3’ heard, shared and downloaded by even the non-Tamil-speaking audience, pan India. The challenge was to generate a buzz across a country where umpteen different languages are spoken, while Tamil is spoken in just 1 state.We used the insight that people, irrespective of language, love to crib on social media. So the plan was to take an unconventional PR route and reach out to the masses directly using social media platforms. Twitter was used to get people talking and Facebook for sharing the song that was uploaded on Youtube.We started a hashtag, #WhyThisKolaveriDi, which is a line from the song that literally means 'Why this murderous rage?'. This hashtag could be used to express irritation. We tweeted with the hashtag about topical issues that irked people and attached the link to the song. Those who could relate to the topic of the tweet watched the video. They got hooked to the phrase #WhyThisKolaveriDi and vented using the hashtag. Thus a Tamil song broke all language barriers.#Kolaveri was trending in India on Twitter within 5 days. More than 1m tweets and 3.6m+ Facebook shares, within a month. The video has more than 41m views across 220 countries and was declared the top song of the year by CNN. All this on-line buzz earned media worth INR67m(US$1.4m). The caller ring-back tones downloaded has exceeded 2m and still counting.

We recreated the recording session, shot the video, and uploaded the song on Youtube (client's channel) in the early hours of 17th November 2011.Following this, the first Facebook post was up and the #WhyThisKoloaveriDi was used on Twitter. We tweeted about topical issues that irked people and added the Youtube link along. Whoever could relate to that topic got curious if the video link had anything to do with it. They watched the video, and understood the usage of the hashtag.By the end of the 3rd day the video had 300,000+ views. Many of those who watched the song either tweeted or shared it, including some celebrities. The #Kolaveri was trending on 20th, 21st and 22nd.To heighten the engagement, a home video of sorts with our own people singing and enjoying the song was uploaded on Youtube to inspire fans to make their own version of the song.

The video has had more than 41m Youtube views across 220 countries. The song was heard and shared not just by our target audience within the country but across the globe.More than 1m tweets and 3.6m+ Facebook shares, within a month. Engagement levels were really high, with fans putting up their own versions of the song and also fan-organised flash mobs.All this on-line buzz earned media worth INR67m (1.4m USD). It was claimed to be the top song of the year by CNN. It was also featured in BBC, TIME, Pitchfork, Contagious magazine and Huffington Post, to name a few.Adding the caller ring back tone codes of various telecom subscribers to the video made sure that the downloads exceeded 2m (and is still increasing). These downloads meant huge revenue for our client's even before the album of the movie 3 was launched.