“Why this kolaveri di?” the single released from the Tamil film ‘3’ is fast emerging as the most shared video in India, and the filmmakers will be patting themselves on the back for their foresight of shooting “behind the scenes” video of the song. The video, written and sung by actor Dhanush, was shot in a music recording studio and has been given a raw feel is now one of the most watched songs in India. The song has already been viewed more than 1.8 million times on the official channel of Sony Music ever since the video went up on 16 November, while several fan videos have also been created and shared following that. Chances are that you would not have missed the song, however, just in case you missed it, watch it here:
Jack In The Box, the digital outfit from Bang Bang Films, was appointed by Sony Music to promote their content online, and have seeded and viralised the ‘Why this kolaveridi?’ video. Sharing his thoughts behind the craze, Sony Music South’s Kaushik Rao, said, “We have been using social media to make our library of music popular for a while now. However, this has transcended all previous benchmarks and become popular in a very short span of time. We are very happy with the kind of response the video has generated, and are now working on future promotion plans.”
Pointing out that the quality of content is one of the primary reasons for the popularity of the video, Prashanth Challapalli, business head, Jack in the Box Worldwide, elaborated, “We have been working with Sony Music for a while now and have handled quite a few projects for them already. When we saw the video for the first time in our office, the song caught on and we felt that we have something special here. One of our team members is from the south, and he understood the nuances of the song and so we decided to promote it appropriately.”
Roopak Saluja, co-founder and managing director, Bang Bang Films and Jack in the Box Worldwide, added, “You don't ever create a viral. Content is either worthy of going viral or it isn't and that's for other people to decide. What you do create are the conditions for propagation. And I'm proud to note that, not for the first time, we've demonstrated that at Jack In The Box Worldwide, we hold the key ingredients necessary to create those conditions- knowledge, network and lots of passion.”
The song was first uploaded on YouTube, and then tweeted with the hashtag “#Whythiskolaveridi?”, and following its popularity the hashtag changed to “#kolaveri” which was trending in India as well as in a couple of other countries.
Commenting on the success of the viral, Dhunji Wadia, president, Everest Brand Solutions, said, “It is simple and unassuming. The lyrics are fun and Dhanush’s singing along with the pure desi beats make it a stunning song. In addition to its immediate young target audience, it appeals to my generation and people older than me too. It proves in a large way that music transcends language. Kolaveri has become more of an anthem now. And it’s not just for the South but the entire country. I hear that there is a huge group of non-Indians too singing along with the song and it’s looped in many rooms at university dorms in the US too.”
Pointing out the similarities in the video and the JWT Chennai’s ‘Nakka Mukka in English’ video for Times of India’s Madurai launch, Senthil Kumar, national creative director, JWT India, said, “Well a couple of my rockstar friends in Chennai, Mark Manuel and Vinod Kumar, pinged me that they spotted a coincidental resemblance to a viral video we had done a few months ago for TOI. I saw the Kolaveri video when it had around 100,000 hits online and guess what it did have an uncanny resemblance to our TOI Chinna Ponnu Video. Even the setting of the studio and the crazy subtitling was ditto. So I posted this video with a tag for the rest of my Tamil friends to see and spread the word. Here was a big budget video for a mega star movie imitating our video done at almost zero budget in a free location - the radio station itself. Another case of big time feature films following low budget advertising.”
Sharing his thoughts on the reasons behind the popularity of the video, Kumar explained, “What worked for the song is first the soul that lies in the music itself, it's quite a cool folk tune with an addictive groove. You hear this song once, and you wanna hear it again and again. Next came the surprising fact that Dhanush who is now among the most popular tamil stars singing in English for the first time. This was instant buzz marketing right here and right now! The video was amplified by the sure-fire celebrity factor, because you have the awesome threesome of Dhanush (Rajnikanth's son-in-law), Aishwarya (Rajnikanth's daughter) and the super hot Shruti Hassan (Kamal Haasan's daughter), all in the same Youtube frame! Guaranteed Superhit.”
Watch some of the fan videos and memes inspired by the original video here:
A carnatic version:
Kolaveri, Kill Bill style:
.jpg&h=334&w=500&q=100&v=20170226&c=1)
.png&h=268&w=401&q=100&v=20170226&c=1)
