Careful use of social media was extremely important for us.

We used the inherent strengths of social media like specific communities and existing user behaviours/insights within social media to our advantage.

It was important to activate certain communities within social media to kick start conversations around.

Our challenge was to tap which social media user behaviour would help us the most

The show was about a young girl called Tara, from a small town Satara in India. Tara is an underdog, untrained, freewill dancer who enters a dance show and goes onto to win the competition

Launching & promoting a daily television show in India, among the plethora of ones that dominate the television screen on a daily basis, is a daunting task in itself.

With no known faces to create initial interest in the show, it was left to marketing to create the buzz for the show

Objectives

To open the show with a high TRP during the first week of the show. Daily TV shows typically open at 0.4 ratings

To establish the name of the show – Final name retained as Tara From Satara (which was a result of the campaign

To make the principle protagonist a household name and famous before the show

'Internet Sensations' had become a reality in India.

‘Dancing Uncle’ became famous for his dance in a marriage, Jackson lookalikes and dancers, comics and unique performers had found fame through their performances on social platforms

The common man from small towns, with a unique talent, suddenly had the potential to become a sensation overnight, thanks to social media.

And Social media was proud to help talents find the spotlight.

So, we decided to let the internet discover Tara and her talent!

This was also the very essense of the show. She was the wild card entry into a dance show and goes on to win the competition

So we married the narrative of the show with a social media trend, keeping the underdog narrative intact throughout the campaign.

In India Bollywood Dance has a huge following and always gets mass audience reaction. Our intent was to activate that LOVE.

TG

a) Daily Shows TV watchers in the Hindi speaking Markets

b) Reality TV content watchers

c) Dance enthusiasts

1.We created a dancing video where Tara danced and moved with famous dance steps that were unique to famous Bollywood actors and even did a Jackson moonwalk!

2. This Video was seeded via an social media account from Satara.

3. Seeded dance influencers started raving about Tara's dance. Since they are known for their dancing skills, their appreciation created authenticity and suddenly the whole internet was activated with comments, likes and love for Tara’s dance.

4.Celebrity Influencer - Shilpa Shetty – one of the leading Bollywood actress and a dance reality show judge, invited Tara on her dance show.

5.Tara came on TV dance show and finally reveals that she was the lead in Primetime TV's new show called Tara From Satara. The main promotional video of the show

Believability and authenticity was the biggest Challenge

Its unique in Indian small towns that after the local marriage, kids come out and dance to the music while the wedding arranger is busy packing up.

We created this scenario exactly for our video to create believability

We inserted dialogues that felt that it was a conversation between two people ( one of them shooting it on his phone ). Through the dialogues we reveal about Tara, the town from where she was.

The other challenge was to activate the influencer community with authenticity

We activated all the social channels Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

First it was seeded by someone pretending to have shot the video .

Then known dancers, choreographers shared and commented “asking who was this girl ?” and praising her dance. Ultimately Celebrity shared a video from a well known choreographer and invited Tara to her dance show.

Across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter

With a total of 500K likes, 4000+ comments, 2.7 million organic views, 60 million overall reach, this content truly travelled and made Tara an internet sensation. Using social media dance influencers to launch the character and targeted paid promotions to the audience set of SONY TV to launch the promo of the show, this was one unique show launch.

So effective was the campaign that the opening week TRP was 0.9 which was higher than the usual 0.4 TRP that all GEC shows with no celebrity receive.

The uncommon girl from Satara truly did capture all – the audience hearts and the TRPs.

Tara becoming an internet sensation even before a single episode was broadcasted on TV was unheard of in Indian television