Humor has marketed itself in India in varied ways. Whether it is laughing clubs, standalone comedy shows or through the online community, humor marketing is pacing up in India. From stand- alone to brand-alone, many stand –up comedians like Zakir Khan, Abish Mathew have made themselves in to brands. Starting from stage shows to owning digital shows, these names have managed to collect fan followings similar to Bollywood celebrities. Not just these comedians but many online humor communities have made a good name in the market as well and as a result have attracted brands who want to associate with them. One such online community which started way back in 2010 and now owns a full webpage and millions of followers is ‘RVCJ’.
‘DIGITAL MAESTRO’
‘RVCJ’ was established when India was seeing a new phase of digital transformation and people were indulging in online content. Started as ‘RajnikantVsCIDJokes’ on Facebook as a community with limited members, RVCJ has seen huge transformation. While catching up with the Pitch Team, Shahid Javed Ansari, Founder & CEO, discussed how meme culture and humor has marketed itself in India. ‘Before the social media phase came into existence in India, the only source of entertainment were television and radio channels. Then came the era of social media, which was liked by the audience as this gave them freedom to write, comment and share their feelings. We started our journey early in 2010 as a Facebook community, when Orkut died and Facebook was emerging, since then we have been following the trends. Our posts were dedicated to the daily lives of our audiences and current topics - we would generate content out of that,’ said Shahid.
‘NAME-GAME-FAME’
RajnikantVsCIDJokes was revamped and was named RVCJ. Talking about how he came to name the community after a famous India television serial, Shahid said, ‘At the time when we started our Facebook community, we were looking for a good name for it. It was in October 2010, that a movie named ‘ROBOT’ starring superstar ‘Rajnikant’ was released. As you might be aware, Rajnikant has a fan following of millions and so does the famous Indian television series, CID. We were inspired by these and RajnikantVsCIDJOKES was born. It broke the internet and was loved by everyone.’
THE ONLINE-COMMUNITY IS A TWO-WAY THING
Regarding offline content, Shahid said, ‘The content consumed by television is very straightforward and one way, you cannot interact with it. You see an ad once and you forget about it till it comes again in front of your eyes. Whereas, the online game is strong, it’s interactive and engaging. In fact, just a couple of months in to our launch, we started getting inquiries from brands for the associations and also from the Indian movie fraternity. There was a simple reason for this, the content which audiences were consuming on their mobile phones was very personalized and viewers were commenting on it, whether
they liked it or not, and were also sharing it on social media platforms. This two-way sharing is very impactful.’ With 14 Million Facebook followers, 1.5 Million Instagram followers and 180,000 twitter followers, RVCJ has managed to make a name in the humor industry and as result brands like Big Bazaar have turned to meme-based marketing and have partnered with RVCJ.
