Gully Boy rap song ‘Apna Time Aayega’ has been taking the Internet by storm right since the song was released. It has built huge speculation and buzz around the film and people are eagerly waiting for the movie to release. The song connected instantly with people and memes flooded the social media. In fact, not just memes but even the Rap song is being extensively used by brands to promote their products and ride high on the popularity wave of the song and the film.
The Brand Wagon
From Zomato to Netflix, Mumbai Police, Durex to Barbeque Nation, a number of brands have been using ‘Gully Boy’ memes to entertain the audience. Many brands are forming collaborations with the film and Ranveer Singh seems to be the man of the hour.
Integrated Communication
Zomato and Torex cough syrup have launched TVCs featuring Ranveer Singh, where we see the actor promoting Zomato’s super-fast delivery in one of the ads.
Expert Views
According to N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA: “Ranveer is a versatile actor who wears his attitude on his sleeve, much like gully-rap artists. He too represents a sub-culture in Bollywood, which has come to accept his unconventional persona into the mainstream. Brands must stay subtle and be a natural part of the story, rather than treat it like any other normal Bollywood movie or actor. If the brand tries to do anything too blatant, it will backfire as Gully Rap and ‘Gully Boy’ are meant to be representations of authenticity.”
Recently, Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh posted the dialogue promo for ‘Gully Boy’ where Alia Bhatt looks up a name on Truecaller. The promo shows Ranveer Singh teasing Alia’s Bhatt’s character about his secret admirer Albina.
Leveraging the dialogue promo post, Truecaller joined the conversation and responded to Alia’s Tweet and Instagram post, saying “Glad we could help Safeena find #ApniAlbina when she needed it the most.” The promo was optimized well by Truecaller. The conversation also saw high engagement from users who lauded the brand commentary.
Glad we could help Safeena find #ApniAlbina when she needed it the most. We hope #GullyBoy breaks all box office records this year! https://t.co/pKCVcrgKPF
— Truecaller (@Truecaller) February 4, 2019
“Gully Boy represents a sub-culture of Mumbai that talks about the phenomenon that has been now termed as “Gully Rap”. This rap originated in the back alleys of Dharavi, and is the voice of people who do not get represented in the mainstream,” Chandramouli said.
“The brands, which choose to associate with the movie, are those who are willing to experiment with this new sub-culture language, which can surely be expected to be a part of the mainstream in the near future. Such brands will be pioneers in their path and will get a new audience to connect and build relationships with,” he added.
Brand expert Aman Abbas, Co-Founder, Commwiser Consultants LLP said, “In today’s content-cluttered world, films like ‘Gully Boy’ give brands a short term but a potent kick to stay current and connected with their audience. Gully Boy’s situations and dialogues have given great ammunition to brands to create some of the most brilliant creative takes. We have already seen some great engagement on social media, which is a testimony that the audience is responding to these campaigns. They have created great content in the past and almost always connected with the audience immensely.”
