From the Severance pop-up to Squid Game season two’s thematic collaborations, we no longer want to simply watch content – we want to step into fictional worlds and live vicariously through our favourite characters.
–
Did you know that Anora, the film that swept up six awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress at the 2025 Oscars, spent $18 million on its marketing and distribution campaign – almost three times the entire budget of the movie itself.
For Anora’s first-ever screening, its distributor Neon, skipped the regular host of press and influencers and instead invited sex workers (like the film protagonist) for the premiere. It also hosted a pop-up shop at the New York City strip club where the movie was filmed. By inviting viewers to step into its fictional world, the Anora team made it feel included in the story and invested in the film’s success. This brand of publicity – where a proposition is sold by thematically engaging the audience – is rightly dubbed participatory marketing, a technique on the rise in entertainment promotions globally, and equally across India.
At home in India, Gadar 2 tapped into the grassrooted-ness of its characters with a Hand Pump Challenge held at malls across Indore, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. In an ode to the film’s protagonist Tara Singh – who uproots a hand pump in a moment of intense anger and patriotism – audiences are given the chance to unveil their inner hero by lifting the makeshift hand pump and expressing their own strength. Zee Studios’ head of marketing Neeraj Joshi told Social Samosa that “more than 70% of the film’s marketing budget was spent on on-ground activations, followed by social and then display.” For context, the 2023 film collected a whopping ₹625.54 crore in India alone. Even for the Squid Game season 2 release, Netflix India collaborated with Sunburn Goa to create an activity zone with gamesinspiredby the series like Piggy Bank Crawl, Digi-Dalgona, Manic Marbles, and Red Light, Green Light. A Swiggy Instamart partnership also brought an interactive challenge called ‘Instamaut’ to Gurgaon where people had to act out a death scene to pretend-audition for the show, recreating the foundation of the show’s shock value – people being murdered while playing childhood games.
CUTTING THROUGH THE NOISE
The State of Mobile’s 2025 report shows that the total time spent on streaming apps in India dropped by 16.2% in 2024 – it seems that, in the era of digital fatigue, production houses can no longer hinge the success of a film on a famous cast alone. In the last few years we saw an overload of Tanmay Bhat-style marketing where celebrities were cast in unlikely roles for shock and endearment. For example, Rahul Dravid being angry or Jackie Shroff being ‘good’ in the CRED ads. As people get saturated with this strategy, a new strand of marketing that prioritises in-person interaction and experiences that go beyond influencers is on the rise,” says culture writer Ria Chopra.
This was most recently evident when Severance, AppleTV’s psychological thriller, brought its sterile workplace set along with a cast play-acting their characters to New York’s Grand Central Station. As suit-and-tie clad commuters rushed to meetings, they were confronted with an installation that highlights the show’s themes of corporate surveillance; it even turned the audience into participants by encouraging them to voyeuristically look into the transparent cubicle. The stunt garnered 23 million views and 2.5 million engagements across platforms, millions of reactions on the internet, making the few who witnessed the installation in-person feel like mini celebrities. “At a time when a notification, an ad and Netflix are all vying for your attention, it’s increasingly difficult to cut through the noise,” says Rohan Mukherjee, strategist and co-founder of creative agency byooooob. “That's why brands that have the budget and creative acumen are moving where customers already are, to become a part of their daily life.”
PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER
By inviting audiences to vicariously experience core themes of the film or show, interactive marketing techniques can help viewers come together with no real effort on their part. “As a generation that has grown up on screens, we are getting disillusioned by everything digital, so there is a desire to be offline and to have revenge experiences,” says Chopra. Brands like Zomato and Nykaa are responding to this yearning for community with events that require more active participation than simply showing up.
At the tail end of 2023, Spotify too celebrated its much awaited Spotify Wrapped day bypartneringwith Social outlets across tier 1 Indian cities where guests could show bartenders their unique listening personality and be surprised with a custom cocktail. “Koriken, the Korean restaurant in Bangalore, also hosts K-drama screenings that have become a big draw… As we struggle to have social interactions, people want to be a part of something bigger, so brands are extending their niche to build communities,” says Shambhvi Rao.
For instance, ahead of Panchayat season 3’s launch in 2024, Amazon Prime Video championed lauki, the humble vegetable that appears as a recurring symbol throughout the show, in its marketing campaign. Fans were encouraged to play an online game: the more bottle gourds people successfully cleared from the screen, the sooner they would be able to access the show’s release date. As laukis were removed online, the progress was reflected on hoardings across Delhi and Mumbai, fuelling people to involve their loved ones to help clear the game faster. The activation reportedly engaged one million people who, as Rao said, felt like they were a part of something bigger.
BECOMING THE MAIN CHARACTER
Rao sees entertainment marketing’s ability to manufacture clout as a major attraction. When Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (KGHK) – a film about three friends navigating the ebbs and flows of being chronically online – released in 2023, Netflix debuted a series of immersive collaborations. Microsite activations in Mumbai allowed young people to be featured on a life-sized billboard with their friends, recreating the film’s plot where the characters found themselves at the center of a public witchhunt with their faces and names plastered all over the internet. “People are looking for deeper storytelling and more attention to detail. For instance, poster making was big in the ’80s. Conservative areas would have movie posters with less skin than other regions. This micro targeting is important especially today as we have so much content. The marketing needs to be uniquely relatable to different groups,” shares Karan Suri Talwar, founder of Harkat Studios.
Rao participated in another KGHK activation held in collaboration with select Social outlets across India. The creator and her friends visited the Social on Carter Road, Mumbai, where the staff presented them with a KGHK-branded box to surrender their phones and detox for the evening. At the end of the hangout, if the group succeeded in going tech free, they would win a portion of fries. “We’re all exhausted from screens so when brands pay attention and go the extra mile it makes you feel special. The experience becomes a cool story to share with people,” Rao says, adding that this can create FOMO for onlookers while making you feel part of the in-crowd – just as it did with the Severance pop-up.
INDIA’S UNTAPPED POTENTIAL
But brands should be mindful that their activations hit the right tone and translate the themes of the show for its viewers. Merely copy-pasting a formulaic approach that worked for others quickly reveals itself as a transparent gimmick. Case in point: after the Barbie (2023) movie successfully fostered community by encouraging viewers to dress in pink, Blake Lively seemed to attempt a recreation of this strategy with It Ends With Us (2024). Inspired by her protagonist Lily Bloom’s profession as a florist, the actor asked viewers to “wear florals” to the screening but received major backlash for glossing over the movie’s themes of domestic abuse. Lively’s lightheartedness appeared to trivialise a serious social issue, in turn alienating her audience.
As viewers, we’re more discerning than ever and, by crafting story-specific, emotional experiences around content, brands can create lasting impact that sustains in the consumers’ memory well beyond the two hours spent in front of the screen. Chopra brings to mind Deepika Padukone’s incredibly coveted blue sari from Yeh Jawani Hai Dewani which quickly became a staple at graduations and sangeet parties for years to come. “I wish Rocky and Rani took inspiration and collaborated with a homegrown brand to sell the saris that Rani wears, so many of us would love to buy them,” she says.
Remember Rocky’s insistence on blasting “Aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja” in the car when he met Rani? Now imagine if the film tied up with Uber and allowed people to pick up friends and partners with the same over-the-top pizzazz? “With the return of wired earphones and digital cameras it’s evident that tactile experiences mean a lot more to gen z. Growing up when Krrish released we could buy themed masks, backpacks and build a world from the content, we need more of that,” Chopra adds. Similarly, Rao sees a missed opportunity in Netflix’s 2023 series The Romantics. “I love Yash Chopra’s filmography and, when the docuseries celebrating his legacy came out, I wish they would release polaroids or postcards with his films. So many of us would collect it,” she says.
DEMAND FOR LORE AND ESCAPISM
Thinking back to Anora’s success, perhaps there was potential for Heeramandi to take a similar route. What if Netflix partnered with a jewellery brand to launch limited edition ghungroos or, better yet, if tawaifs hosted dance workshops for people, creating more awareness around their profession? It is clear that trailer launches and influencer reviews no longer cut it for new-age viewers – audiences want more lore with their content. In response, production houses and studios are slowly but surely seeing the merit in on-ground marketing that engages people and adds dimensionality to their films. However, more brands should bet on the power of the offline, sensorial experience and invest in a layered understanding of the themes that shape their content to create immersive activations that stand the test of time.
As the reality of economic instability and isolation hit hard, people are seeking stories that provide reprieve. We want to be part of fandoms that let us step in and escape from the mundane everyday, at least for a few moments. So if a movie is set on the foothills of the Himalayas, take us there, collaborate with the coveted NAAR restaurant on a tasting menu inspired by pahadi cuisine and your film. If your show’s protagonist always carries a book in their backpack, partner with a local bookstore to build a crowdsourced shelf of reads that the audience believes this character would devour. No matter what the theme or the content, it’s time for makers to dive deep and unlock the gates of the fictional worlds they build.
