The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has been a blessing in disguise for OTT platforms. Some of the best content is currently available on Netflix and Amazon Prime. This rising phenomenon gave birth to many relatable characters like Chacha from Mirzapur, Bunty from Sacred Games or the latest Chellam Sir from The Family Man.
‘Chellam Sir’, a pivotal role played by veteran Tamil actor Uday Mahesh, has become an internet sensation. Since social media validation is all that matters in the current situation, the advertising industry wasted no time in using the latest trend of the socioverse to promote their products.
“When a character is liked by people and becomes a hit, many brands try to promote their products creating memes and using that character. However, not every product association can have the same impact! Advertisers need to see its relevance and relatability quotient with the brand,” Anjali Gupta, strategic brand communications expert & founder at ANSH Foundation said.
For leveraging content from any type of trend, we have to make sure the trend insight and brand’s ideology resonate with each other. It is true that as an agency we have to be constantly on our toes to look for such trends that establishes a brand connect to push brand’s value, Shubham Mishra, an advertising professional from Noida. added.
Several companies have combined the ‘Chellam Sir’ narrative with their product to generate customer interest online.
“We got inspiration from 2 factors – one, Srikant Tiwari’s quest for a home loan and the other, Chellam sir’s proficiency at providing accurate information about things less known. At Bandhan Bank, we have a range of Home Loans and this was a good opportunity for us to create further awareness about that using prevalent viral content,” spokesperson for Bandhan Bank told Money9.
The response that we have received to the campaign has been very encouraging. Clearly, we hit the right note with the audiences, the spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, here’s a quick roundup of various companies that have hopped on the ‘Chellam Sir’ bandwagon to promote their products in the socioverse!
Policy Bazaar
But how long do these trends thrive? Your memory of social media is quite short-lived in the sense that so many new trends keep emerging every other day.
“With new series coming every month and new trends going viral every week, the attention span of users become short-lived hence these type of trends don’t last long. Their life span is usually 2-3 weeks. But considering it is free and relatable to a large chunk of the audience, it is not bad at all,” Shubham asserted.
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