Nissan launches Bollywood movie cast through Facebook

This month, Nissan launches the New Star of India, a 5-minute short movie that has Bollywood's hottest star Ranbir Kapoor playing the lead role. The major production is the grand finale of a traditional and social media campaign, which features 20 co-stars selected via Facebook from all across India.

The campaign was devised and developed by AKQA, the largest independent digital agency in the world.

The talent hunt was launched online in October with the support of the Times of India network, including their leading daily newspaper, TV and radio channels. Bollywood fans were given the opportunity to win a place in the movie by uploading a short video clip of them dancing, and auditions were also conducted in shopping malls across nine cities in India. Over 2,300 excited fans entered the contest and then used every means possible to coax their friends and family to vote for their entries on Facebook. The top 100 were selected based on number of votes, which were then narrowed down to the top 20 lucky winners from all parts of India, selected by Ranbir and his team.

The film, a classic Bollywood story where Nissan's world conspires to unite two lovers, was one of the biggest productions shot at Ramoji film city in Hyderabad, India. It was directed by top choreographer/director Ahmed Khan and filmed by India's top cinematographer Ravi.K. Chandran. The film promises to be a must-watch and will be launched primarily on Nissan India's Facebook and Youtube channels, and potentially on other channels.

The innovative campaign has helped Nissan build a highly engaged community of nearly 500,000 fans on Facebook, making Nissan one of the top automotive brands on Facebook in India. David Parkinson, GM Social and Digital communications EMEA and India at Nissan commented, "Nissan is a relatively new entrant into the Indian market so we wanted to rapidly become part of the conversation by doing something fresh and different. The New Star of India campaign has been immensely successful in helping Nissan build an emotional connection with Indian youth, and of course given us a great platform to continue the conversation with India at scale".

Nissan is the first brand to use social media to create a platform for aspiring youth across India to show their talents and actually share the screen with one of their biggest heroes. "People like us from the middle-class in India could never have dreamt of actually meeting Ranbir, but now we've actually shared the set with him! It's been a great experience" said Shritima Chauhan, one of the winning co-stars.

Launching 30th March across 3,500 cinemas in India will be a 60" film advertising the movie. A press event is also scheduled for April in Mumbai involving a screening of the film and a prize giveaway of an Orange Micra by Ranbir to one lucky winner from the Facebook community.

Several of those who auditioned found their way into the film as their Facebook profile pictures were turned into art on set. The film also left several post-production decisions such as shot-choices and character-names to the Facebook community.