THE CREATIVE BRAINS BEHIND OK KANMANI AND KANCHANA 2 ...

What happens when you suddenly get a call from Mani Ratnam's office and you are asked to work with his team? A dream-come-true moment right? This is precisely what had happened with the girls of 'Uptown Ideas', who handled the social media promotions of OK Kanmani. This company comprises four girls - Abhinaya Selvam, Priyanka Ravi, Megha Dharan and Ansaline Shruthi and they also took care of the promotions of Kanchana 2.

 

When Behindwoods correspondent got in touch with Abhinaya of Uptown Ideas to share the experience of working with two completely contrasting movies, she said, ''Both the film's crews were very clear in who they were catering to. While Kanchana 2 catered to A B and C class audience, OK Kanmani team were clear that they catered to the A class. So we split our team into two; where two of us concentrated on OK Kanmani and two of us for Kanchana 2''.

 

Talking about the experience working with Mani Ratnam's team, she said, ''They were well-planned and they had already charted out what they wanted us to do. Including their internal team we were 8 of us who brainstormed ideas, day in and day out. We still have a WhatsApp group where messages pour in every day. So it was a collective effort for the success of the social media campaign''. 

 

She added, ''The OKK team was so well organised that, they had designers exclusively for the social media campaign. Even for OKK Love Stories, we chose stories that were interesting to read. We created about 17 real life love stories using the couples' photographs''.

 

When asked what were the challenges they faced during the whole process, Abhinaya said, ''Well, one main challenge during OK Kanmani was, we didn't have enough stills or photographs from the film. We worked around the whole campaign with just 7 - 8 pictures. We had to brainstorm ideas that had to involve public but also not reveal much about the film. #OKKStatements, #OKKMeetTheCrew, #OKKLoveStories and so on are the results of ideas formulated without using the movie's stills, yet it was engaging''. The social media team started working on the promotional activities one month before the two films released and the activities are still continuing.

 

The team promoted Kanchana 2 with exciting dubsmash videos and punch dialogue contests. Abhinaya concluded, ''Both the films have given us the right platform to execute our creative ideas. I have to mention about my colleague Priyanka who insisted on approaching Mani Ratnam sir's project which we never thought we would crack. When we got a call from his office, it was indeed a dream-come-true moment''.