Branded entertainment is a relatively new phenomenon in India but has grown exponentially in recent years, largely driven by increased (effective) advertising costs in a fragmented media environment, and the need to differentiate communications in a growing consumer economy. However, most branded content is created for television, which has resulted in an explosion of similar-themed (reality television) programming.The New Star of India was not only one of the first campaigns in India to focus on creating content for a digital audience, but also the first to use social media to enable the audience to play an integral part in the creation of the content. Using Facebook, we selected 20 people from all over India to act alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Bollywood’s hottest rising star (and Nissan’s brand ambassador), and also invited the rest of the community to make shot selections during post-production.

Ranbir Kapoor led the campaign, calling out for 20 co-stars in an online teaser film with the support of India’s biggest newspaper and numerous blogs.

While Facebook was the central platform for the submission of the dance audition videos, we also held live auditions at experiential events across India. We used further print stories, TV, radio and online ads to widen the search.Auditions were showcased on a video wall, and the top 100 dancers based on public votes were highlighted on Facebook. From these, 20 were selected as the winning co-stars, and flown to Bollywood’s top studios.The wider community followed the winners’ story on Facebook, and were involved in making shot choices online during post-production. We then released trailers on TV and online, and the movie was launched with a première. We also ran a trailer in cinemas across India, while the film music was also released separately.

-Nissan grew from a few hundred to over half a million Facebook fans in 3 months.

-Nissan has become the fastest growing automotive brand on Facebook in India, with one of the highest engagement rates to match.-We received over 2,300 video auditions.-The combined activity had a total reach of over 32m.-We received over 700 test drive requests online through the campaign.-The Nissan Micra was the top-selling hatchback in India in January 2012.David Parkinson, Nissan: “we wanted to rapidly become part of the conversation by doing something fresh and different. New Star of India has been immensely successful in helping Nissan build an emotional connection with Indian youth, and of course given us a great platform to continue the conversation with India at scale”.“People like us from the middle-class in India could never have dreamt of actually meeting Ranbir, but now we’ve actually shared the set with him!” – Shritima Chauhan, one of the winning co-stars.