Airtel’s 3D holographic promotion with Kabali shakes up the industry!

Superstar Rajinikanth’s Kabali was not a film, it was a phenomenon in Tamilnadu. Never before had the Tamil film industry witnessed a marketing blitzkrieg of such epic levels for a film. Kabali was literally everywhere right from the hoardings to the numerous social media memes. It was the flavour of the season weeks before its release.

Under these conditions, the question was how Airtel could make the best of this and yet stand out. The solution was to get creative and think out-of-the-box.  Keerthi Vardhan Reddy, Head Brand & Media, Kerala & Tamilnadu at Bharti Airtel Limited was quite excited about their association with Kabali and says,”This is probably the biggest thing I have ever done in my career. When we wanted to associate with the producer Thanu for Kabali, he asked us to come up with innovative ideas. We came up with ideas like a Kabali month where all our communication would have something related to Kabali in it. With Airtel having a customer base of 40% of Tamil Nadu, this was a huge reach. The company initially planned a Kabali SUK (Starter User Kit) but then just 10% use a new SIM, so they created Kabali Data recharges at Rs.5 to reach a greater number of customers. Lakhs of these coupons were sold. Airtel also came up with a 3D Kabali keychain as a gift for post-paid subscribers.

“These ideas, the producer wanted something even more novel and innovative. It was then that we came up with the idea of a 3-D holographic van. The state-of-art technology came from Singapore and we fixed this onto a new van. After Narendra Modi used this technology for his election campaign, we are the next to try it. The effect was spectacular, you actually feel like you are seeing Superstar Rajinikanth in real life, Keerthi added.

Airtel shot with Dhansika for six to seven hours and used this footage. For Rajinikanth and Radhika Apte, clips from the movie were used. The van toured 40 theatres, two beaches and 20 hotspots in Tamil Nadu and attracted a huge crowd which gave them good mileage. The innovation garnered attention from national and international media such as the BBC, CNN-IBN, NDTV and others.

The holographic van was just one part of their campaign. They also ran a SMS promotion where fans sent messages to Rajinikanth. All these will be featured in a coffee table book and gifted to the Superstar. Airtel had also promoted Kabali via 55 hoardings in Tamil Nadu besides posters. They had been given two exclusive images from the film and these were used for pocket calendars and key chains. They also made a Kabali spoof which not only went viral but also gained three lakh views in just 4 days!

The campaign was a resounding success with it reaching over 2 crores of Airtel customers and numerous others through the mass media.