Facebook launches Baahubali stickers for Messenger, 13 million already downloaded

Owing to the growing popularity and smashing box-office collections of Baahubali: The Conclusion, social networking platform Facebook on Thursday launched exclusive animated stickers on its Messenger app.

Baahubali was not just a hit in the theatres, but also on Facebook, recording over 10 million interactions on the platform in a span of just five months. From the launch, the sticker pack has been quite a hit with 13.4 million downloads within a week’s time.

To create more buzz on the platform, a marketing campaign was designed to run exclusively on Facebook, under the pretext of “Why Kattapa Killed Baahubali”, a plot in the first part of the franchise (#WKKB). This was also the theme of the Messenger bot - another promotional tool used to keep the fans engaged.

Audiences landing on the bot got an opportunity to engage in a fan quiz to know more about the characters and stand a chance to win prizes. The bot was available in 5 languages, to appeal to global audiences and was hosted on both the Baahubali and Kattapa pages.

Over the course of the movie’s marketing campaign, there has been a seven-fold increase in the total number of interactions on Baahubali’s Facebook page, increasing from 1.5 million in Nov-Dec, 2016 to 10 million from Jan-May, 2017. More people have joined the conversation around this movie than any other Facebook has measured.

The Baahubali team also used Facebook Live to officially announce the movie release date, music launch and other key events during its promotional campaigns. Prior to the release, the native trailer launch of the movie, on its official Facebook page, in four languages, garnered around 45 Million interactions in total with over 22 million views.

As part of the expanding franchise, Baahubali profile frames were also introduced on the launch of the movie, along with Baahubali comics designed using Facebook canvas.