The Great Father teaser: 3 million views in 24 hours; analysis on trend of breaking teaser, trailer records in Malayalam

What are the factors that create hype around a movie? Earlier, the audience used to watch movies looking at the actors and director, but now the trend has drastically changed with the introduction of promo videos, teasers, trailers, and even song teasers among many others.

Also read: Oru Mexican Aparatha Trailer trends on top spot on YouTube India

Even before a movie's release, audience gets an idea on what to expect from it with the promo videos that give a glimpse on the characters and storyline of the film. And, most importantly, fans of the actors have taken full charge in breaking and creating new records for these videos that never fails to trend on social media.

The Kerala audience seem to have started this trend with the trailer of young star Dulquer Salmaan's movie Charlie, which was viewed over 4 lakh times within 24 hours of hitting the cyber space. It was followed by Dulquer's next movie Kali's trailer that broke the earlier record by viewing 4.8 lakh times in a day on YouTube India. The record was later broken by none other than superstar Mohanlal's blockbuster movie Pulimurugan with its trailer being viewed over 4.9 lakh times after its release in September 2016.

Recently, Tovino Thomas' Oru Mexican Aparatha teaser and trailer had also scored more with its record views on YouTube. Its trailer, released on February 8, went viral on social media and was viewed over 6 lakh times within 24 hours, and is still trending as top one video on YouTube India. However, the trend has now changed from 6 lakh views to three million all of a sudden within a day for an upcoming Malayalam movie. The official teaser of The Great Father featuring Mammootty's stylish avatar, has achieved the rare feat by breaking all the records so far after its teaser got released on Facebook on February 10.

The 33-second video of Mammootty's The Great Father, which was initially released in selected theatres along with Prithviraj Sukumaran's horror thriller Ezra, went viral after it was uploaded on the Facebook page of production house August Cinema. But why did it open to a massive audience response? Thanks to Facebook's new feature called crossposting, which aggregates the total views a video gets from across all pages they are being shared.

Social media expert Abdul Manaf, who introduced this new promotional tactics with The Great Father teaser, told International Business Times, India: "Till now, the teasers and trailers were uploaded on YouTube that was later shared by celebrities on their Facebook pages. Thus, due to separate view count, it was impossible to know their exact audience reach. Now, with this new FB feature, the teaser has reached more audience and the number of views will be precise as the same video link uploaded by August Cinema is being shared by Mammootty, Dulquer Salmaan, Prithviraj Sukumaran and others on their Facebook handles by establishing a cross-posting relationship."

When asked why the Mammootty-starrer was marketed differently as it will not get any revenue from Facebook unlike YouTube, Manaf added: "Normally, even if a video gets 10 lakh views, the revenue that the producers make from it would be around Rs 60,000 from YouTube. But the whole purpose of releasing a teaser or trailer is to reach the movie to more and more people, and I feel Facebook cross-posting is the best option for that. More than the money producers get from YouTube, isn't movie's reach more important? And this is the first time the industry has used this feature in movie promotion."

"Despite being a small market, if a Malayalam movie's teaser gets this massive response, then it is not just because of this technical feature, but the content and style of Mammootty in The Great Father teaser are the main reasons why it got good traction," Manaf adds.

At the time of reporting, the teaser of The Great Father has been viewed over 3.5 million times with 1.8 lakh views from the parent post and over 3.4 million views from other shared posts. Meanwhile, the teaser uploaded on the YouTube page of August Cinema has been watched over 3.2 times on Saturday evening. 

Here's a list of Malayalam movie teaser/trailer views within 24 Hours on YouTube:

1. Oru Mexican Aparatha - 605K (Trailer)

2. Jomonte Suviseshangal - 579K (Teaser)

3. Pulimurugan - 491k (Trailer)

4.Kali - 489k views (Trailer)

5. Thoppil Joppan - 450K (Teaser 2 )

6. Pulimurugan - 428k (Teaser)

7. Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol - 425K (Teaser)

8. Charlie - 400k (Trailer)

9. Kasaba - 374K (Teaser)

10. Ezra - 330k (Teaser)