Reviewing Barfi's Interesting YouTube Campaign

We were not half as impressed by the movie Ra.One as we were by its YouTube campaign. The channel was interactive, and Shahrukh Khan was all over the screen, pixel for pixel, doing his “superhero” stuff in a visually enhanced YouTube channel. If I remember correctly, the campaign was hailed the biggest digital campaign in India.

Almost a year later, Barfi has decided to follow the same route. UTV Motion Pictures has created a custom page for Barfi on its YouTube channel. This is how the channel looks.

What is the campaign about?

The moment you land up on the page, a video begins to play. Ranbir Kapoor played by himself introduces Barfi, the protagonist. Roughly 40 seconds later, the interactive part begins. The user is given 2 options by means of which he can interact with the character, Barfi.

• Find out how Barfi impresses girls – Barfi’s Patao-shala
• Change Barfi’s mood

Once the user selects either of the options, a video plays with an interactive dialog box on the top. RK will then ask you to put a word of your choice in the box and watch Barfi perform.

In a tutorial video, you will see how RK asks Barfi to “get flowers” by typing in the box and Barfi performs that action.The users can type in any word of their choice and watch Barfi in action. For instance, if you want Barfi to get slapped, type in that word and so on.

And if you type slangs, you get this:

Similarly you can choose option B and make Barfi laugh, cry, and smile and set other moods. I will let you guys explore and experiment with words.

The campaign is easy for a dodo to understand. RK does a fine job in explaining and reminding what the user needs to do at different stages. The concept is very interactive and. . . . PLAGIARISED.

I am not sure if there is any such concept as plagiarism of digital strategy. I say, there should be one.

Tipp-Ex, a whitener company launched “A hunter shoots a bear” campaign last year. Thankfully, the channel is still live here.

Barfi's YouTube campaign is only a slight modification of Tipp-Ex campaign. While in the former, the user controls RK, in the latter it is the hunter you get to control. Of course, both are fantastic actors.

For those who were aware of the Tipp-Ex campaign, Barfi is simply a sweet, harmless déjà-vu. And those who were not aware of Tipp-Ex's campaign will surely go around screaming, “Oh my God, this blew my mind!!”