Known as a marketing maverick, Shah Rukh Khan has given ‘Happy New Year’ a ‘swachh’ makeover with a pioneering initiative to turn it into a social upliftment, community-oriented exercise that gets the public itself personally involved with a number of do’s and don’ts of behaviour – with the express intent of driving the masses to the theatres in droves and weaving box office collections magic.
While this box office collections magic was widely expected from Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Bang Bang’, but that did not happen. Now, the focus shifts to Shah Rukh Khan’s Happy New Year, which, initially, was not really billed as something that could generate huge amounts of money.
Getting back to ‘Happy New Year’ pre-release strategies, it must be said that we can hardly expect Shah Rukh Khan to stay away from promotions. From Facebook, Twitter to Google offices to multiplexes, the team of ‘Happy New Yea’r ensures that their presence is felt through newspapers, television, digital, every platform that is exposed to public. And now, they are targetting multiplexes.
The team of this upcoming Farah Khan directorial have come up with ads which make the audience aware of the do’s and don’ts in a theatre. A popular multiplex chain has started featuring commercials in association with the ‘Happy New Year’ team on maintaining cleanliness within the premises, respecting the national anthem and keeping the phones on silent.
In the first ad about hygiene, we have a roguish Abhishek Bachchan who is over enthusiastic about watching the film and in the process ends up dirtying the theatre throwing popcorns. It is Boman Irani and Shah Rukh Khan, who teach a lesson to the actor and request the audiences to follow basic rules of cleanliness.
On the other hand, representing the nature of a typical audience is Sonu Sood. The actor is seen talking on the phone constantly as a song is being featured and once again, Shah Rukh Khan enters to make him understand the need of keeping the phone on silent and to not disturb the others around us.
Similarly, the actors also ask the audiences to respect the national anthem by asking them to stand up in respect as they are ‘Indiawalle’.
Produced by Red Chillies Entertainment, ‘Happy New Year’ also stars Deepika Padukone, Vivaan Shah, Jackie Shroff, Dino Morea among others. The film is slated to release on October 24.
