Mirzapur 2 is about to release. What kept the excitement of fans alive for two years? Amazon’s long term promotion strategy is a case study in itself. Let us look at it more precisely.
“Shuru majboori mein kiye the…ab maza aa raha hai”.
The trend of Indian series was quite an awful affair, to be honest, three years back. Streaming platforms that made Indian series were nowhere to be seen and then came Netflix’s first Indian series “Sacred Games” on June 28, 2018. “Sacred Games,” was based on the 2006 novel by Vikram Chandra, a thriller set in Mumbai. This thought might resonate with you too that Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is one of the most competitive companies out there. What began as a hub for books, is now expanding so rapidly that it has its tentacles in almost all possible sectors of consumption. How can Amazon(Prime) leave the Indian streaming market that is expected to reach $4 billion by 2025 (as per a report by Media Partners Asia)?
November 16, 2018, Amazon Prime got itself a season of Mirzapur and we got a cast and a story to go crazy for. The viral show and its fandom is a case study in itself. Let’s look into the intricacies of how did this show create its fandom and sustained the excitement for two years!
Why so viral?
Guddu bhaiya, Kaleen Bhaiya, Munna Bhaiya, Sweety, Bablu, Golu and more, became the poster characters of the series. With memorable and top notch dialogues, on point meme templates, an excellent cast and the engaging story, Mirzapur made a debut and left its mark. This show was highly promoted and used by Amazon Prime to generate hype for the platform. A constant tease by the platform nurtured and kept the curiosity alive.
The show’s launch timing was impeccable. There were only two shows that were dominating the Indian OTT market then in 2018: Sacred Games and Mirzapur. The market is sort of saturated now. Creating a similar effect with any show now will be difficult. The genre is also something that has been picked up by many shows like Asur or Paatal Lok. The content is also something that stood out in Mirzapur’s case. The revenge storyline showing the edgy side of Uttar Pradesh. Unapologetically raw, something that the audience was craving.
The longer a media project takes to launch, the lesser the hype gets. Sacred games tried to cash on this hypothesis and failed miserably as compared to the success of the first season. The show was a disappointment for the fans and was subjected to a lot of criticism. Even the talented cast could not save it. The same was expressed by the cast themselves that the overarching preachy narrative drowned the interest. The hype created was lost. A lot of fans fear that Mirzapur 2 would succumb to the same. Let us see some numbers to see how the internet is reacting to the show.
How much is the hype?
Amazon Prime didn’t leave a single opportunity to tease the fans for the show and the results have been exemplary.
Amazon initiated a campaign for the trailer launch too. It launched a video on YouTube for its fans on the 21st of August 2020. It later launched a video for the release date announcement on YouTube for Mirzapur 2 on 24th August, 2020. The video has over 13 million views. Since then, till 19th October 2020, the reach of Mirzapur 2 has been more than 478 million as recorded by The Wonk. The male-female ratio of this distribution is 70:30 (approximately). The main medium of hype was Twitter, followed by Youtube. This campaign was welcomed by a lot of memes, gifs, and tweet wars.
The trailer was launched on October 6, 2020. It has over 25 million views on YouTube, has around 744k views on Twitter and over 2 million views on Instagram (as per the official handles of Amazon Prime India). The trailer was accompanied by a lot of posts too. The cast and crew shared the videos and posts mentioned, on their personal handles. The trailer and its hype had a reach of 165.9 million from October 5 to October 11,2020. All the videos started trending on YouTube and twitter immediately, post the announcements.
All ‘good’ things come with a little bitterness. The bitterness, in this case, was the call for a ban on Mirzapur 2. This was mainly due to the involvement of the producer, Farhan Akhtar, and the show’s actor, Ali Fazal (Guddu bhaiya) in anti CAA protests. Their personal involvement and opinion led to the outcry for the boycott of the show. You can read about the details here. The reach of this ban was around 15.6 million from October 5 to October 11, 2020. This constituted 75% males and 25%, females. However, this did not impact a lot of users and from an observational standpoint, the outcry for bans was dealt with by the fans effectively.
Amazon’s tease
What do you do when you complete an interesting show? You probably go out on the internet and check for the next season. This is a natural phenomenon but it is bound to fade away. But, oh boy, Mirzapur fans deserved that ode! They are fanatics who were religiously asking for another season and at a point, “Mirzapur ka next season kab aaega?” became a jam. The fans did not leave any platform!
From 22 Aug at 12:00 UTC+05:30 to 24 Aug at 12:00 UTC+05:30, Amazon Prime and Mirzapur Amazon created an event on Facebook for the fandom called “Asking MS2W One Last Time”
Don’t even get me started on the beautiful meme templates that kept the fans sane for two years. There are endless pages, hashtags, tweets, posts, etc on Mirzapur memes. Amazon prime too has been seen putting the same legacy. Talk about memes and streaming platforms and you don’t mention Netflix? Shame! Netflix too posted some wholesome memes and videos for the Mirzapur fandom.
The various crossover videos helped in encashing on the fanbase of other shows too. The various crossovers were:
- Paatal Lok x Mirzapur
- Panchayat x Mirzapur
- Bandish Bandits x Mirzapur
- Family Man x Mirzapur
- Four More Shots Please x Mirzapur
The wait will be over on the 23rd of October. We are glad it’s the weekend, aren’t you? Tell us what you feel about the show now!