Dhanush and Aniruddh at IIM Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, 7 February 2012

“IIM-A is beautiful. Both the people and the place. I had a great fun session there. The students asked such sensible questions that it was a blast. God bless,” This was what Dhanush had to say today on Twitter after finishing his lecture at IIM Ahmedabad(IIMA).

The PGP and PGPX students of the contemporary Film Industry Course at IIMA attended a lecture by ‘Kolaveri Di’ song fame national award winning actor Dhanush who is son-in-law of Rajinikanth. With Dhanush was Anirudh, a 21 year old music director of ‘Kolaveri Di’.

Dhanush and Anirudh, each spoke individually first and then fielded questions from the students. Dhanush started the talk and speaking with much humility, said that they did not anticipate the success of ‘Kolaveri Di’ and said that he would be surprised if he saw it repeated in his lifetime. He said that he believed that the simplicity of the songs lyrics and the fact that all the words but ‘Kolaveri Di’ were in English contributed to the songs success. He also said that although the monetization through the songs was limited for him as a producer, since the song rights had been sold in advance to Sony, ‘Kolaveri Di’ has helped him gather national fame. As a consequence of the songs popularity, the release of the movie is planned now in three language- Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. Moreover, from the distribution of about 400 prints planned initially, the movie will now release with over 1000 prints.

Speaking on the issue of viral marketing, he most candidly said that much of it was unplanned. Following, the release of an incomplete stolen version of the song online, their team decided to release the song online. They initially aimed at about 5 lakh hits over the songs lifetime, however, managed to touch that number in less than 5 days! The hits for ‘Kolaveri Di’ today stand at over 42 million. Dhanush said that Viral Marketing, if capitalized right, is indeed a great way to gain popularity, given the minimal expenses involved in promotion.

Next it was Anirudh’s turn to speak-among India’s youngest music directors at 21. Addressing the audience as his ‘seniors’, he shared an anecdote about his father’s desire to have him study at the IIMs and how his father was left speechless, when he told him that he would be lecturing this class. Anirudh spoke of some issues related to the music rights for movies in India, highlighting that no proper system for royalty exists here unlike in some western countries. He also expressed how he felt fortunate at already receiving offers from Bollywood, when several music directors spend years trying to cross over.

Dhanush and Anirudh also fielded questions from the audience. In response to one of the questions, Dhanush said that they had learnt much from the success of ‘Kolaveri Di’- including about the sale of music rights as well as purchasing rights to key words in a song at the appropriate time. In response to another question they said that, given the number of hits on ‘You Tube’ and emails and tweets that they have received, the song has definitely cut across boundaries and reached an international audience.

Towards the end, Dhanush and Anirudh sang ‘Kolaveri Di’ with the students., with enthusiastic participation.

Before coming to IIMA, Dhanush had yesterday tweeted, “Gearing up to make my speech at IIM institute Ahmedabad tomorrow. I don’t know good English, but who cares, I am an Indian, not English.”

For purely management point of view, the success of ‘Kolaveri Di’ is a fantastic subject to study, as it is a classic case of viral marketing and four crore plus reach through social media.

IIMA’s CFI course has earlier seen lectures of Aamir Khan, Shriya Saran, Prahlad Kakkar, Madhavan Apporva Lakhia among others. Course coordinator Bharathan Kandaswamy, the executive director of southern India based film production firm Kavithalayaa Production has a connection with Dhanush’s father-in-law Rajinikanth, as Kavitahalaya was founded by K Balachander who brought Rajinikanth to film industry.

From the lecture

Dhanush: I produce the film even though many people counseled against it.

Dhanush: Only 1200 CDs of the movie has been sold. All the songs are hit. Piracy is a problem. Digital download is the answer.

Dhanush: Because of digital downloads and viral marketing, pop songs are again being produced, after a gap of a decade.

Dhanush: If people have to relate your product, you have to be in the trend. I learnt viral marketing with Kolaveri di.

Dhanush: Online piracy has forced producers/marketers to innovate. Youtube and Twitter have to be combined.

Dhanush: How Kolaveri happened? It was a mistake! Director gave a situation “girl dumped a boy; song should be happy/funny.

Aniruddha: Kolaveri was very relatable as I thought about the time when I was dumped.

Aniruddha: On the day of Kolaveri’s release, my legs were shaking; today, driving down to IIM-A, Dhanush was nervous.

Aniruddha: People work hard for decades to go from regional to national stage; If this album has helped me, I thank God.

🗃️ This story is from our archives and may contain outdated information.