Sony Music: Desi Grooves for One Direction

The campaign urged fans of One Direction in India to teach their favourite boy band Bollywood dance steps.

It always makes a visual treat to see a 'videsi' groove to Desi beats. One Direction, an English-Irish pop boy band based in London, took the idea forward in a crowd sourced digital campaign, in partnership with Sony Music.

Fans of One Direction in India were given the opportunity to teach their favourite boy band Bollywood dance steps through a unique platform - 1D Day, a seven-hour global live stream event. Sony Music India, as a part of the initiative, asked fans to record a video of themselves doing innovative Bollywood dance steps to the song, Best Song Ever.

The best of these videos were featured during the live stream event and the band may even perform these moves. The winning video was showcased globally on 1D Day on November 23, to celebrate the launch of 1D's third studio album, Midnight Memories.

In all, Sony Music received almost 380 videos from India, with the bulk coming from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Speaking about the initiative, Shridhar Subramaniam, president, India and Middle East, Sony Music states that the objective behind the campaign was to engage and get the 1D fans across the globe closer. "Midnight Memories, the third studio album by the boys, is something all fans have been waiting for and what better way than this to have them all on one platform! The 1D day wowed fans globally and had band members Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Liam Payne taking turns to front hours and hours of entertainment." The festivities saw a whole host of special guests, from Simon Cowell to James Corden and Celine Dion, popping up to help the boys out.

The campaign was promoted aggressively across Sony Music's social media platforms. Apart from that, the company had also tied up with 9XO and 9XM to promote this initiative and connect with the right target audience

"We continuously strive to innovate and come up with break through initiatives which ensure more and more engagement with the fans and this was one such initiative. Fans create stars and its' on us to provide fans with the access to them and their music! Also, 1D Day event became the most talked about event and a unique initiative; we know that the fans loved it and expect nothing less from us," Subramaniam adds.

In April 2013, Sony Music took the social media route to promote the song 'Khooni Monday' from its movie 'Go Goa Gone'. To catch the youth on the internet, the music label launched a hashtag, #KhooniMonday, across its Facebook and Twitter pages on April 14. The campaign aimed to establish an association of the song with Monday morning blues that sets in from Sunday (the day the song broke online). The label aimed to make fans relate every Monday morning with Khooni Monday.