The below “The Hindu” Advertisement is creative at so many levels, I can’t describe. Whoever, has made it, has punched ToI in the face, all keeping themselves within the legal boundaries of what is allowed. The advertisement indirectly takes a jab at low quality of news covered by Times of India and how their readers severely lack important knowledge.

Check out this video and I am sure you will love it (of course, if you are not a very big fan of Times of India)

Stay Ahead with Hindu

Many are calling it a response to a ad released by Times of India for its Chennai Edition couple of months back, where the ad directly takes a jab at “The Hindu” and calls it a very boring newspaper. It is a Tamil Advertisement, but I am sure you will understand the gist of it!

The Times of India Chennai ad TVC Wake up to the TOI

There is no question that Hindu Ad is far more punchy and creative – We will have to wait and see how and if Times of India responds to this!

What’s your take on these newspaper wars – It makes for an interesting viewing, isn’t it!

No related posts.

Kolaveri Di topped the charts with 17 million views and more than 75,000 comments from over 130 countries just 2 weeks after it was released in November 2011 (current views at 37 Million). With this sensational outburst, the unpredictable, unstructured phenomenon of the viral has been revisited.

What does viral really mean? Viral videos or internet memes comprise content that is made popular by internet users who forward, send, re-tweet, embed, post, pass on, recommended & shared at hectic pace with other internet users. The popularity of viral content usually soars not due to externally injected promotional strategies but through inadvertent sharing. 

Once Viral, Always Viral

The great thing about viral content is that whether it is impromptu or planned, once it is set into motion on the internet, it doesn’t need external fuelling. For instance, as HT reported, the Kolaveri Di video inspired tons of sequels, spoofs, spin-offs and remixes which only furthered its popularity and viewership. These spin offs, by the way, have become viral themselves. Even if a person comes across the spin off version, their curiosity will lead them to trace the original. Can you believe that Kolaveri Di has a Marathi version, a heavy metal version, a Dutch version, a female version, a cute version sung by Sonu Nigam’s son and a version that has Adolf Hitler. Apparently, even the Japanese are shaking their feet to the tunes of this irreverent Tamil song.

“Now, it has been our conscious effort to long tail ‘Why this Kolaveri Di’ concept by creating official dance mixes of the song, exploiting publishing and distributing the same. We want to keep it fresh, buzzing and alive till each person world over has seen/heard it.”

- Shridhar Subramaniam, President India and Middle East Sony Music Entertainment. [Source]

The logic of Viral Phenomena

Why viral content remains elusive to marketers, common folks and advertisers alike is because it is impossible to formulate or replicate by choice. You never know what the public is going to like and forward. The harder you try, the harder you are going to fall. As Gaurav Bhaskar, Global Communications and Public Affairs Manager at Google India puts it,

“Trying to predict which videos are going to ‘go viral’ is a bit like catching lightning in a bottle— extremely hard to predict. YouTube is a place where culture is created and shared— phrases like ‘double rainbow’ have entered the lexicon. Viral videos tend to share a few characteristics: Like any news story, they are authentic, surprising, and often topical.”  [Source]

This brings us to observe the kind of content that makes it go viral. The commonly seen characteristics of viral videos are:

• They are not shot with the intention of going viral
• They are original – usually funny, cute and shot at home
• The content is often plain, non-technical and not complicated
• More often than not, viral videos are shot on ordinary digital cameras and hence their quality is not very good.
• They operate on shock value, a heartfelt message or content that appeals universally.
• Viral content is often short.

"Viral videos are essentially successful because they are in essence non-conformist, anti-convention, anti-establishment."  - Prahlad Kakkar  [Source]

Some examples of viral videos in India and worldwide:

The Mumbai Flash Mob 2011: On 27th November 2011, about 200 ordinary Mumbaikars came together at the CST Mumbai to break into an impromptu dance on the ‘Rang De Basanti’ song. Although the act looks spontaneous, it was pre planned. The phenomenon spanned across Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon and Kolkata.

Shraddha Sharma: An ordinary girl from Dehradun who runs a channel called Shraddharockin (almost 37k subscribers) simply posts Hindi film songs sung in her own voice along with strumming the guitar. The next Justin Bieber of India?

David After Dentist: This is a video about a boy with a cute verbal lisp describing his trip to the dentist’s. Currently standing at 105,720,592 views, 310,872 likes and 20,894 dislikes!

Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!: Once again, a ‘cute video’ which got 85 million views in the first year has now accumulated 250 million and is the most widely watched video on YouTube, reported HT. It currently stands at 410,708,353 views.

Double Rainbow: Currently at 32,356,591 views, this video taken at the Yosemite National Park in the US in 2010 sat on the internet for six months before it picked up and became viral.

Susan Boyle in the American Idol: Who knew that this ordinary looking contestant would draw millions of views, music CD sales and internet downloads? This is an example of a viral video that got picked up from a televised show because of the talent.

Open letter to a Delhi boy: Shahana Nair-Joshi, an ordinary Delhi girl wrote an open letter criticizing Delhi boys on her blog in September 2011 which gathered more than 7000 comments the very next day. She was forced to open a Twitter account, handle public admiration and is not being offered writing gigs!

"I was bitching about Delhi boys with a girl friend so I wrote it on a whim and posted it to my (recently created) blog. It wasn’t based on anything at all, just a rant" - Shahana Nair-Joshi, viral content creator. [Source]

Fat Indian kid dancing to Dhinka Chika: An ordinary fatso Indian kid dancing to a hit number in his underwear in his house had drawn about 1,965,172 views.

If viral phenomena and internet memes are generating some great talent and revenue, then more the merrier!

No related posts.

This whole week Internet has been abuzz with SOPA and PIPA. Most of the online biggies opposed these 2 acts that threaten to put an end to the way we share & express on the internet. Wikipedia went to the extent of blackening out their entire site for a period of 24 hours.

Most of us know and understand that SOPA & PIPA will bring heavy censorship on internet sharing, however, do you know the details of how these 2 acts will work?

Salman Khan of Khan Academy has made an excellent 11 minute video, that beautifully explains the nitty-gritties of these Acts and what they could end up enabling.

If you watch this video, even a school going kid will understand what SOPA and PIPA acts are all about.

SOPA & PIPA explained

[This video has been put as number of our readers requested us to put something up that could explain them these 2 acts - The above video does that job beautifully]

[via- @aparanjape]

Related posts:

1. Wikipedia’s first ever protest – To stage 24 hr blackout!
2. After Video resumes it is time for Video Interviews
3. Video viewing consumes about 60% of total mobile data traffic in India!

Although Google came out with an official list of the top 10 most watched videos on YouTube in 2011 in India, here is Trak.in’s very own list of the same. Google’s list for India has a few international videos along with 6 movie videos. We give you a mixed bag of the Top 10 Indian videos on YouTube in 2011 which include news items, viral videos, city happenings and the best movies, in no particular order.

Why this Kolaveri Di

This song went viral beyond imagination when it was released in November 2011. The video of the song features its making and recording with all the involved artists namely the lead singer Dhanush, Shruti Hassan, Video Director Aishwarya Rajinikanth, music composer Anirudh and the sound engineer Sivakumar. Let’s see if the forthcoming Tamil movie ’3′, for which the song has been made, hits a similar jackpot or not. As of now, Kolaveri Di remains one of the most watched and downloaded songs of the year 2011 in India.

Approx YouTube views: 29.6 Million

Flash Mob Mumbai

2011 saw a series of flash mobs across India in Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon and Kolkata but the pioneer has been Mumbai. On 27^th November 2011, about 200 ordinary Mumbaikars between the age groups of 4 to 60 came together at the CST station to break into a dance on the tunes of ‘Rang De Basanti’. Onlookers obviously S-T-A-R-E-D!!

Approx YouTube views: 2 Million

Ra One Teaser / Chammak Challo

Google’s official list puts the Ra One teaser as one of the most watched Indian videos on YouTube in 2011, but eventually this success was followed up by Ra One’s popular song ‘Chammak Challo’. It features international sensation Akon, is composed by Vishal Shekhar and is shot with quirky dance steps choreographed by Ganesh Hegde.

Approx YouTube views: 4.1 Million (Ra One Teaser) / 9.5 Million (Chammak Challo)

Teri Meri Song

Bodyguard has featured in our list of the Top 10 Bollywood films of 2011 on Trak.in and it makes a comeback in this list because of its immensely popular song ‘Teri Meri’ composed by Himesh Reshammiya. Of course, it’s a different story that the song is supposedly a rip off of the Romanian folk song La Betleem (Down There in Bethlehem).

Approx YouTube views: 21 Million

Sharad Pawar slapped

On the 25^th of November, viewers were glued to their screens because videos of an attacker named Harvinder Singh slapping Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar broke out on the internet and in the news. This event was recorded at the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) center in Delhi where Mr. Pawar was at a literary function. The attacker apparently slapped him because of this inability to control price rise. He has also previously attacked former telecom minister Sukhram in court. Strange but true!

Approx YouTube views: 306 thousand

Leopard attack on forest guard in Siliguri

While the YouTube viewership stats of this news item may not be as high as Kolaveri Di or a Bollywood song, it surely remained highly watched and popular on YouTube. In Siliguri, West Bengal, a leopard attacking a forest guard was caught on camera. Efforts to tranquilize the leopard started after this incident occurred. The unique way in which the leopard attacked the official was what made people watch this video again and again.

Approx YouTube views: 147 thousand

The Silent National Anthem

Mudra Communication’s released a campaign of the Silent Indian National Anthem that features deaf and mute children singing or enacting the Indian national anthem through their sign language. Made for Reliance MediaWorks (BIG Cinemas) on the occasion of the 61^st Indian Republic Day, this campaign bagged a silver lion and two bronze lions at Cannes 2011.

Approx YouTube views: 1.2 Million

Don 2 Trailer

Before Don 2 released, the anticipation for it to hit cinemas was flying high, resulting in more and more users logging on YouTube to check out its sensational promo. It’s remarkable that pre release movie video viewership can reach such heights but considering it’s an SRK – Farhan Akhtar combination, there are no surprises. As box office gross figures come out in the next few weeks, we will get to know if Don 2 was really worth this hype or not.

Approx YouTube views: 3.7 Million

Shraddha Sharma

Shraddha Sharma seems to be on her way to becoming the Justin Bieber of India, well almost. A YouTube user herself, Shraddha Sharma is an ordinary girl from Dehradun who runs a channel called Shraddharockin (almost 37k subscribers mind you) on which she simply posts Hindi film songs sung in her own voice while strumming the guitar. This Indian teenager’s recent rendition of Haal-E-Dil from Murder 2 drew very heavy traffic.

Approx YouTube views: 1.6 Million

The first Crorepati on KBC Season 5

KBC’s Season 5 this year was much loved because of its theme of discovering talented people from the innards of India and giving them a chance to change their life. On 2^nd November 2011, KBC went on air with its 47^th episode in which Sushil Kumar from Bihar won the Rs. 5 crore jackpot. The audience loved his idiosyncrasies of thinking aloud and constantly drinking water until her wanted to pee. This episode crossed the viewership stats of Episode 40 which starred SRK who was busy promoting Ra One.

Approx YouTube views: 240 thousand

There you have it – The most popular Indian videos on Youtube in 2011. Do you think any other video was being worthy of being in this list? Let us know!

Related posts:

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2. Youtube hits 3 Billion Views a day..Wow !
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Apart from all the 3G launch campaigns were the talk of the town in 2011, there were also some great print and TVC campaigns that India saw in 2011. Let’s take a look at the top 10 campaigns that were well recalled, liked, watched and commercially successful – in no particular order. 

Cadbury’s ‘I love You’

Agency: Ogilvy India

The bitter-sweet background score of all ads of this campaign have been crucial to bring out the punch of the storyboard. The best ad of the campaign has been the one in which a wife asks the husband about when was the last time he expressed his love for her. He gives her a Dairy Milk and subtly conveys that he actually expresses his love for her every day without saying it.

Airtel’s ‘Har ek friend zaroori hota hai‘

Agency: Taproot India

Airtel’s print and the TVC campaign has once again hit the right spot with the audiences. The campaign tries to focus on how every friend is important in his or her own small or big way for their specific abilities. This youth friendship campaign aims to reinforce the unique importance of each relationship in life.

Vodafone Zoozoo superman 3G

Agency: Ogilvy India

The lovely Zoozoo Ads can never fail to tickle your ribs at the right places, can they? Back to launch Vodafone’s 3G services in India, a series of very likeable ads were released. The Zoozoo turned superman and performed unearthly tasks to denote the speed of Vodafone’s 3G internet. The campaign’s main aim was to tell audiences that Vodafone’s 3G is smarter, better and faster.

Tanishq ‘True Diamond’ campaign

Agency: Lowe Lintas

Cashing in on the magic that Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan can potentially weave over an audience in the range of 6 to 60 years, Tanishq’s ads emphasize on the quality of the jewellery and diamonds they offer along with exquisite designs. The best of this campaign is that the beautiful light hearted story about how Big B gifts his wife a set of diamond bangles from Tanishq that she already has.

Idea’s ‘No idea….Get idea’ campaign

Agency: Lowe Worldwide

Whether Abhishek Bachchan has managed to strike a chord with his audiences through his films or not is a debatable question, but his ‘Get Idea’ campaign has surely hit gold. The recall value of the entire string of TVCs for this campaign have been high – from the lady waiting for her boyfriend in the restaurant, to a girl discussing her sms bill to Junior B asking a lady of her plans on January 20. This campaign also won the ‘Best Brand Campaign’ at the World Communication Awards 2011.

Tata Docomo

Agency: DRAFT FCB + ULKA

Tata Docomo’s melody has already become very hummable and popular from the day it launched its service in India. This 2011 campaign remained popular amongst audiences and drove home the point that is makes in the tagline ‘No getting away. The network that always connects. Everywhere’. Whether it is an office executive waking up from his noon reverie with the Docomo tune ringing on his phone or the groom picking up his call during his wedding ceremony, the short but sweet ads have been successful in generating a smirk on the face.

Tata Sky ‘Poochne mein kya Jaata hai’ campaign

Agency: Ogilvy India

In a series of TVC’s that Tata Sky released without its brand ambassador Aamir Khan, the theme of the ads was to link an episode in which one friend is always hesitant to ask questions and the other friend unabashedly asks and benefits. Every ad links such an episode to the two friends asking for a Tata Sky retail feature at the shop and getting it. And hence the tagline "Pooch dala, toh life jhingalala".

Volkswagen Jetta Flyboy campaign

Agency: DDB Mudra

Apart from the large front page print campaign that was run for Jetta in the Times of India in its four main editions, the TVC of the boy with wings also remained popular throughout 2011. In the automobile category of the CNBC TV 18 Overdrive Awards 2012, this commercial received the Storyboard Auto Commercial of the Year Award.

TVS Wego Body Balance campaign

Agency: BBH India

Released in February 2011, this ad portrayed Wego to be the first two wheeler in India to have the unique Body Balance technology. The ad ran repeatedly during the IPL season this year and showed two young couples outdoing each other using ‘body balance’ by doing acrobatics on their Wego scooters. In the bike category of the CNBC TV 18 Overdrive Awards 2012, this commercial received the Storyboard of the Year Award.

Lay’s World Cup Flavours campaign

Agency: JWT Delhi

This campaign was launched in with the aim of cashing in on the tremendous audience of the ICC cricket World Cup 2011. Six new flavours of the chips were introduced keeping in mind the top 6 international teams that were participating. The campaign also continued with the Dhoni and Saif Ali Khan ads. PepsiCo aimed for 360 degree communication with this campaign being launched on social and digital media simultaneously.

Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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2. Global companies approaching Indian Ad agencies to handle media campaigns
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“Did you know that 31% of rural Indians have not even heard about internet (That’s more than entire population of Brazil). On the other hand, India has crossed 100 Million internet user landmark and average Indian internet users spends about 26 minutes on internet every day.

India is diverse in every way you can imagine and online trends are no different than offline. That’s the reason why we see consistently see offline advertisements for online things, something which is very rare in other countries – The recent example is Google’s full page ads on Google Chrome and Google Plus. I am not sure if Google has done that anywhere else.

Even though majority of Indians are not online, still India is one of the top countries when it comes to Internet user base. The mobile statistics are even more startling than internet – you must have read about the unbelievable numbers released by Google India head recently. According to him, 67% of Ecommerce in India happens through mobile, while 40% of internet searches are contributed to mobile as well!

We write about these sort of statistics often here on trak.in – and for an Indian it may not be all that surprising. However, for non-Indians these figures are sometimes quite unbelievable.

“We are Social”, an ad agency which has offices in 7 cities across the world has published a presentation that gives some awesome numbers on everything online, social and mobile about India. Take a look!

Social, Digital and Mobile in India

Which of the above statistics did you find most surprising?

{Note: If you are viewing this in feed reader or email, please click on title or you may not be able to see the presentation that has been embedded in the article}

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Update: It seems the video was removed from Youtube as it was illegally uploaded. This documentary is yet-to-be aired documentary on BBC. Keep a close eye on this page, video will be available there  soon. 2nd Update: We have posted another youtube video so take a look

My friend just forwarded me a link couple of hours back to a 58 minute video documentary on Mark Zuckerberg and how Facebook has changed millions of lives. However, the most important aspect of this video is what Facebook is planning in future.

The documentary examines Facebook’s plans to use the personal information it has collected to power a new kind of online advertising. It really gives you peak at how facebook plans to make money, its revenue stream, valuation etc.

If you are in Social Media, you should not miss this one. It is hour long documentary, but worth every second. If you cant watch it now, Bookmark it for later, but make it a point to see it!

Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook

Share it with your friends as well!

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Katrina Kaif’s popularity over the years has only increased – The web and mobile searches for her name clearly point to that. In fact, the she has 3 times as many searches compared to second placed Jacqueline Fernandez when it comes to mobile videos searches done by Indian Mobile users.

Vuclip, world’s largest independent mobile video service, recently released the mobile video trends for August 2011, and Katrina Kaif not only came out on top, but also the only celebrity who figures from previous years August 2010 list. Except for “Katrina Kaif”, all the search terms are different from what they were in 2010.

Take a look at the most search entities for Mobile Videos on Vuclip

Generally, these kind of list are dominated by Bollywood & Cricket searches, but given the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement, Anna Hazare was also one of the popular searches on the network.

Interestingly, Brittney Spears (#8) is the only Foreign celebrity to be ranked by Indians in Top 10. She ranks on number 10 on US searches as well.

As far as cricketers go, Sachin Tendulkar remains at top followed by MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh!

Top Videos viewed by Indians on VuClip Network

Don 2 and Bodyguard were the 2 movies which garnered maximum views in August 2011. Surprisingly, Ra.One which right now is the talk of the town was not seen on their network.

Unique Users by Country on VuClip Network

With over 800+ million strong Mobile subscriber base, India also accounts for maximum searches on Vuclip Mobile video network which are also gaining steadily even as unique users in some countries is seeing contraction!

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Yeah, its time for some fun – and trust me this one will bring seriously put you on the floor laughing !!

The video given below shows 2 (hardly working) startup guys visiting an office to help a client whose website is having some issues. And the web strategy they present is beyond comprehension (I mean literally).

If you are an entrepreneur or a startup guy – you MUST watch this. The real fun starts 2 mins into this Video !

Start-up Guys – The Best Web Strategy is one you don’t understand

Note: If you are seeing this in RSS reader / mail etc. and are not able to view the video, click on the title link

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