Hello everyone! I know it’s been a while, but once you finish reading this article you will see why. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the people who reached out to me and enquired about my next journal entry. To you, I say thank you, for making me feel like the effort I put into this exercise is worth something.

And without further ado, let’s dive in!

To start with, Arctic Fox announced the release of its newest Anti-theft backpack. Unlike most anti-theft backpacks, this one comes with an alarm, operated by a specific code. If anyone tries to open the bag without using said code, the alarm will sound, thus alerting the wearer of an attempted theft.

The CEO of Arctic Fox is very proactive in the brand’s marketing efforts, and occasionally takes personal initiative regarding the same. So for this backpack’s launch, he told us that he had partnered with a film called Saaho, which was scheduled to release fairly soon. While we are generally wary of product placement strategies, we understood his excitement, as there was a lot of hype around the film starring Baahubali lead, Prabhas.

We got to thinking about how we could amplify the impact of this collaboration. Was there a way to draw more attention to our anti-theft backpack in relation to Saaho? Turns out, there was.  

A common problem the entertainment industry faces is films ‘leaking’ on torrent platforms before their release. So we decided to do something called ‘torrent poisoning’. We uploaded a fake version of Saaho on major torrent sites. Using a combination of stock footage and clips from the real film’s trailer (after getting permission from the film’s producers, of course) we created a video that we guessed would resemble the beginning of the actual film. We even used a voice over artist to impersonate Prabhas.

During the first thirty seconds of the video, we pieced together footage so that our video could be mistaken for the real film (our advantage here being that the film hadn’t released yet, so no one really know what the opening sequences would be). After thirty seconds, the footage transitions to a video of our Anti-theft backpack, with the sound of an alarm blazing in the background. This continues for around two hours.

With this video, we not only showcased our anti-theft product, but also made an ‘anti-theft’ content piece that prevented theft of the film Saaho, thereby making our partnership with the film stronger, and cementing our product even further in consumers’ minds.

But that’s not all – we also made a fun short film called ‘Truly Alarming’ featuring our backpack that aired in cinemas before the start of Saaho. This was a production-heavy exercise and the team was kept very busy in preparation for this shoot. Here is what my Creative Associate, Prahaas Boppudi, had to say about the whole experience:

Watching your script come to life frame by frame feels amazing. What’s even more amazing is the absolute madness that seems to be the norm in film production. ‘Truly Alarming’ is the first professional shoot I’ve ever been a part of and even though I was vaguely aware of process of film production, I could’ve never imagined the drama, tension, energy, and stress that I have now learnt are elementary to every film shoot. An outsider would watch a film shoot and see 50 sleep deprived people yelling at each other. But as someone who has witnessed the action from the inside, I can assure you there’s more to shooting than that – there’s copious amounts of coffee and an endless supply of cigarettes.

All jokes aside, I loved every moment of the madness and I look forward to my next shoot. Other than the ‘Truly Alarming’ shoot, I was also part of an innovative campaign called ‘Torrent Poisoning’. The campaign involved setting up a fake torrent distributor group called ‘Telugu Rockerzz’, which has its own logo, website, and accounts on leading torrent websites. My colleague and I became web-developers, filmmakers, and data pirates to get this campaign executed. As I was writing this, I realized that Telugu Rockerzz is my first entrepreneurial venture and I have high hopes for its success.

By the way, Prahaas is the same person behind all the comics in which the character ‘loosely’ based on me frequently features as the primary antagonist (I’ve added more of his creations at the end of this entry).

When Saaho released, the whole team went to the movie theatre together, to see both our pre-film video and the product placement within the film. Imagine our surprise when the product never appeared! (Although after watching the film, this might have been a blessing in disguise)

But our rollercoaster of a month was far from over. Next up was our shoot with Indya for their first ever large scale national brand campaign. I won’t go into too much detail about it, but it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Right now we are tying up loose ends and should be done with everything by next week.

On another note, the Red Fort project has become something of a conversation starter with my friends. Every time we meet they ask me how the project is going, knowing full well that it is on standby. However, production might actually start very soon, and I am excited to see where it goes.

To conclude, here are the comics I promised you earlier: