within 18 days

Within 18 days, Kolaveri Di became ‘murderous rage’, it was the title of a ‘Tanglish’ India’s most downloaded song on mobile phones (Tamil-English) song written and sung by actor (2,10,000 downloads) and on November 24 it Dhanush for his film 3. became the first Tamil film song to be premiered on a national music channel, MTV India. A video of the song being recorded in a studio was uploaded at precisely 12.53 am that day on YouTube Imitators played the role of flatterers as versions by Sony Music, which held the music rights for 3, of Kolaveri in various Indian languages sprang up. and its agency, Jack In The Box Worldwide. There was even a female version and one about This was followed by aggressive promotion on the slapping of Indian Facebook and Twitter. On the latter, the hashtag Agriculture Minister #whythiskolaveridi was created and the agency Sharad Pawar. Kolaveri started posting quirky lines like “Iceland has not found a mention in Time heard #whythiskolaveridi”, “Not called for 2 days magazine and even on the #whythiskolaveridi”, etc, with the YouTube link. Kolaveri Di female version more conservative BBC, Most people didn’t understand what ‘Kolaveri’ even as the Indian Institutes of Management cited it4 meant and clicked on the link to find out. as a viral marketing case study. The combination of a catchy song, a video that Even the prime minister was bowled over. Dhanush wasn’t staged and online ‘seeding’ worked. and his wife Aishwarya – incidentally, she’s the daughter of Tamil screen icon Rajnikanth and the By the evening of November 21, the hashtag producer of 3 – found themselves part of a state #kolaveri had topped Indian Twitter trends. Within dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a week of the video going live, it received more for his Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda. than 1.3 million views on YouTube and more than 1 million shares on Facebook. By December 5, Kolaveri found another unlikely admirer in the it had become a rage,