Domestic abuse is a problem that’s so rampant that it permeates every aspect of Indian society. 1 in 2 married women are victims of domestic abuse, and yet, 86% of cases go unreported – owing to factors like victim blaming, large-scale insensitivity and a general attitude of trivialising incidents of domestic violence as mere family ‘squabbles’.

The film Thappad – being about domestic violence – was uniquely positioned to generate conversation about and tackle this issue. But we wanted to go beyond that. We didn’t just want to generate conversation about the issue, but also to inculcate a habit of standing up to and reporting domestic abuse – wherever it may be witnessed.

We wanted women across the nation to know that ACTION WILL BE TAKEN if they took the step of reporting abuse.

To do this – we shot a 4th wall breaking trailer where the film’s lead actress Taapsee Pannu suddenly starts speaking to the audience right after she’s been slapped. She demands all viewers to use the ‘report’ feature which is so easily accessible on YouTube. Thus, unlike every other trailer – we didn’t want people to just like our trailer, we actively encouraged people to take it down; making it the world’s first movie trailer to be taken down by YouTube.

While the message of stopping domestic violence is a universal one meant to cut through class, age, sex, gender and other divides, we chose YouTube as our primary medium for a couple of different reasons. Apart from being accessible to everyone, it allowed us to specifically target our message to Bollywood fans, film lovers and social commentators.

We cleverly utilised the anticipation that surrounds every Bollywood movie trailer on YouTube to drive home the message that no matter who you are or what you do – domestic abuse is an evil that’s to be reported immediately, wherever it’s witnessed.

Since every modern revolution has begun as a small spark on social media, it was only fair that we chose that as our medium too.

We deceived our viewers by releasing what looked like a regular trailer for a film on YouTube, but was actually much more. The trailer was designed with the specific intention for it to be reported and taken down. When Taapsee Pannu’s (one of India’s most popular leading ladies) character is slapped in this trailer, she breaks the fourth wall and asks viewers to report it using YouTube’s built-in report feature – because domestic abuse should never go unreported.

- Two months after the launch of our habit changing trailer – India recorded a 100% increase in domestic violence cases reported; proving that Indian women are finally ready to speak up against these grave injustices

- Our trailer was reported over 400,000 times and got taken down by YouTube as a result

- Covered by most of the prominent publications like Times of India, Hindustan Times and India TV.

- Reached over 15 million people organically

- Our trailer received 1.2 million views in just 26 hours

- Local authorities saw our idea and urged women to come out and report domestic violence

- Thappad, our low budget film ended up in the top 10 highest grossing Bollywood films of 2020