FICCI-KPMG-Report-13-FRAMES

84 The power of a billion: Realizing the Indian dream
Case study – BARFI!
© 2013 KPMG, an Indian Registered Partnership and a member firm of the KPMG network of independent member firms affiliated
with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.
Cost of Production – INR 300 million
Box Office Collection – INR 1.26 billion
Barfi! has changed the way audiences consume
content today. Prior to Barfi! it was mostly mainstream
plots with action, comedy or drama that crossed the
INR 1 billion mark. To add to it, a film where the leading
protagonists had physical and mental disabilities, even
with a superstar would have been difficult to score high
at the box office. But Barfi! has changed all of that by
outperforming at the domestic box office and garning
more than INR 1 billion revenue. It is the first Hindi
blockbuster film where dialogues constituted less than
20 percent of the run time of a movie.
The marketing challenge
The major challenge was to steer away from the theme
of disability without shying away from the subject of
the film and to ensure that the target audience did not
perceive this as a dull and serious film. The objective
of the film producers was to establish the film as an
entertainer and to emphasize that it was a fun film
about Barfi! – a street smart, happy-go-lucky guy who
charms his way through everything.
Overcoming the challenge
With inputs from consumer research, it came up with
a tagline “Don’t Worry Be Barfi!” and positioned the
film around it. This positioning remained consistent
through the campaign across creative, events, PR,
alliances, media and digital.
Campaign details
• Barfi! Bulao – To establish the youth connect,
college students were given an opportunity to get
the Barfi! team to visit their college. The Barfi Bulao
contest in association with a radio partner got the
cast to do interesting things in colleges – hang out
in the canteen, arrange a patch up etc.
• ‘Barfi! Live Experience’- This was yet another
property with a brand partner (Nissan Micra) that
had the Barfi! team along with music composer
Pritam perform in malls across different cities in
India.
• Media Alliances – Ranbir Kapoor appeared in
the Barfi! style along with Priyanka and Ileana on
several reality and fiction shows (Indian Idol, Dance
India Dance, Comedy Circus, Taarak Mehta Ka
Oolta Chashma) in addition to an unique integration
- Barfi! Marathon on Zee TV with Barfi! interacting
with the lead characters of three prime time
shows on the same day. In another first, Barfi! was
integrated on the ‘Barfi! news series’ on the TV
Today group where Barfi! walked through significant
news of the last decade in his inimitable style. The
‘Cholbe Na’ campaign by Dainik Bhaskar and ABP
Ananda in Kolkata also integrated the film with
Ranbir Kapoor urging Kolkataites to ‘Be sweet, Be
charming, be Barfi’. The free media worth of these
alliances is estimated to be around INR 500 million.
To increase the fun quotient of the campaign, a
song ‘Fatafati’ was launched that was partly sung
by Ranbir and featured behind-the-scenes footage in
the week leading up to the release.
Digital campaign
• During Diwali 2011, an adwords campaign was
launched with Barfi as the keyword. Many people
who searched for Barfi on Google were able to see
a message about Barfi the film and got a chance to
win a box of sweets autographed by Ranbir Kapoor.
• A digital app was created on Youtube (www.
youtube.com/barfi) where people could make Ranbir
Kapoor dance, smile, cry and do anything else they
desired. They could also learn tips to impress girls
at Barfi’s Pataoshala. The app was a viral hit gaining
over 250,000 users in 2 weeks and was hailed by
the Google India team as the best online innovation
that has been done on YouTube in the past 1.5
years. The app also won a bronze in the video
innovation category at the prestigious Yahoo Big
Idea Chair Awards.
Brand associations
• Coffee Day associated with the film keeping the
youth connect and had Barfi branded coffees
and additional branding via tentcards, menu and
danglers at 1200 Café Coffee Day outlets across the
country.
• Other brands that added to the share of voice
across media (TV, Print, Digital, Radio & In-store)
were Prestige, Monte Carlo, Nutrasweet, Mydala.
com, Rupa, Panasonic, Goodricke and Vodafone – all
adding up to over INR 18 crore of media worth.
A diligently planned marketing strategy supported
by continuous monitoring the reach of the marketing
campaign helped Barfi! achieve an audience reach of
90 percent (Movie Excitement Score tracker) on the
week of its release.
Barfi! Movie Excitement Score (% reach)
Source: Industry discussion conducted by KPMG in India