Did Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Go Wrong With Jazbaa Trailer?

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s comeback film - that's Jazbaa's biggest draw. The stage was set for the movie to make noise with its trailer.

We're sure Ash's fans were all set to YouTube and Google it up. But the makers of the courtroom drama had a different plan.



We saw Aishwarya telling the world how to find the trailer online. Now this 'how to' part was very interesting. Once you went onto your Facebook page, you had to add 'Looking for Jazbaa' on your status bar and the social networking site would show you the trailer. Yes, Facebook had specially offered their engineering intelligence for this campaign.

Even Sanjay Leela Bhansali had done something similar with Bajirao Mastani. The much anticipated trailer was first launched on the production house's website, not on the biggest video aggregator Youtube or Facebook. The production house took the risk of limiting the audience reach for the first look. They must be convinced about their plan (never mind the fact that Shah Rukh Khan's Raees trailer was the one that went viral around the same time).

Another case in point is Tanu Weds Manu 2. It would've been a delight to catch the smash hit on TV, right? But again, the production house decided to screen it on their app before its television premiere. Obviously, to increase the number of their app downloads.

Now, Bollywood has long jumped on the social media bandwagon to reach out to maximum people. Every big movie has a specifically designed social media plan. Twitter is often used to reveal the first look and trailers, thus keeping the movie or the star in question in the news. And that is being used as a global standard of success of your campaign.

But these recent online promotional tactics had us puzzled.

What were the makers thinking of when they came up with these strategies, most recently being Jazbaa? Guys, you joined the social media because your audience was right here. Why are you now trying to veer them towards your platform? The audience wants less instructions and easily available content. They don't want to jump from one platform to another as if they are catching a Mumbai local. Don't make them work extra hard just to see a trailer which you put on Youtube eventually.

Dear Bollywood, the mantra to a larger reach is only virality. And your content will not go viral unless you make it easily available to your audience. Give it a thought. That is, unless going paid on digital media is your plan eventually.