Indian film industry releases 2000 movies every year. It becomes extremely difficult to promote a movie on a shoestring budget in such a cluttered market. Therefore, we broke the internet by doing something no film would even dare - Leaking it online!

Well, that’s what everyone thought before downloading the film. After downloading, the users were left shocked. The downloaded movie was fake.

We generated organic PR worth 1.5 million dollars for our film that lead to a social, economic, political & legal change. The buzz generated lead to important reform all across the country. The piracy law was amended.

Situation:

Every year Bollywood incurs a loss of around $2 Billion, 2018 was no different. Several films were leaked online (primarily through torrents) in the first few days of their release. The Government of India tried banning and blocking these torrent sites, but as these sites are not hosted in India, people found different ways to access it.

Objectives:

Our film, Uri: The Surgical Strike, was the first major 2019 film. Before the release, we feared that our film will die the same death. For a small film with no big actors, we couldn’t afford to let our film leaked. Therefore, we had to find a way to protect our film and re-ignite the conversation about a strong anti-piracy law in a country that produces more than 2000 films a year.

Brief: Find a way to protect URI: The Surgical Strike from would-be pirates. Also, initiate a conversation about piracy.

We shot a video with the actors from the movie, disguised it to look like a real movie by putting a real certificate, real distributors, the folder contained real screenshots from the movie. The video was looped to be exactly the movie’s runtime of 2h 18 mins. On the day of the release (usually when the first print of the movie is leaked), the fake movie was uploaded on various torrents sites. It was seeded to keep our movie at the top of the torrent search. But when people downloaded the movie the actors broke the 4th wall and spoke directly to the audience and trolled them, urging them to catch the movie only in the theatre.

Our TG primarily were movie buffs. Someone who would rather watch a film first rather than watching it right. Therefore, on the day of the movie’s release, we silently uploaded the movie and waited for it to be downloaded and shared. We then seeded tweets about the leak so that more people downloaded, the news got picked up. Vicky and Yami (Film’s actors with millions of followers on social media) expressed their disappointment. But when people who tried to download the movie got trolled, shared their thoughts. When the word got out that Uri: The Surgical Strike has conducted a covert strike on torrents, people began sharing the news. It became hyper-viral.

People began tagging Prime Ministers Office and Ministry of Information. 7 days later, the Prime Minister of India, addressed the issue.

On the 22nd day, the government of India amended the 67-year-old Cinematograph Law.

The hours after we leaked the movie, we planted a few stories on social media about the leak.

CAT-C influencers were used to spread the word of a leak.

The actors of the film – Yami Gautam and Vicky Kaushal (having millions of followers) re-tweeted/shared these posts. Thereby, reaching a wider audience.

During a movie’s promotion, every move of the actors is made into a story by entertainment channels and publication. We used this to our advantage, as soon as the actors shared the story about the leak, it got picked by all the major publishers.

The download saw a spike and more and more people fell prey, as the tonality of the message was funny and smart almost everyone who downloaded the fake movie shared it on social media, which further increased our impressions.

In a matter of just 5 days, the campaign was covered by every major publication.

Tier 1: Media outputs: We trolled the illegal downloaders and India loved it. Every major publication and content hubs started covering it. (Mashable, FirstPost, Hindustan Times, Times of India, AdAge, Campaign India, The Indian Express, etc.)

More than 300 publications picked up the story.

The campaign generated nearly $1.503 million worth of free PR.

Using the social media influence of the actors, and the coverage we received with the keynote speech of the Indian Prime Minister.

Around 20 million people were reached, generating 100 million impressions and over 730k conversations.

Tier 2: Post our campaign a national conversation, spearheaded by our victims, started about the issue of piracy and the urgent need of a strong law against it. Stories of people who downloaded the movie and went to the theatre to experience the motion picture surfaced.

Google searches for Uri grew by almost 300%.

Regular torrent downloaders developed a fear of downloading Uri files.

The Prime Minister took notice of the issue and promised a stronger law.

In just 22 days, the cabinet amended a 67-year-old law.

Tier 3: Upon release, the movie became an all-time blockbuster. The movie did 14 million dollars collection in its first week and tremendous business in the subsequent weeks. (Uri holds the record of highest Day 23 and Day 24 collection)