Twitter India, Aren’t Digitally Signed Posters By Superstars Passé?

Three days later that is on October 11, Bollywood’s living legend Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan will be gearing up for his 72nd birthday celebrations. The actor who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the Indian celluloid is by no means getting old and with every passing day he is getting younger than most of us.

His birthday heralds celebration time for his fans from all over the globe, in fact the celebrations have already started on social media. The superstar who has more than 10M followers on Twitter is already witnessing #AB72Wishes trending at the top of India Twitter trends since the morning. Facebook trends are yet to capture the madness of his birthday celebrations where the star has more than 16M fans.

T 1637 – Party Toh Banti Hai ! Send birthday wishes with #AB72Wishes and get an exclusive signed digital poster !! ~ Bachchan Digital Team

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) October 8, 2014

At the backend these celebrations on Twitter are being driven by Twitter India and Fluence Digital media network, the agency behind Amitabh’s digital presence. According to a release from Twitter India, “Mr. Bachchan will respond to all his fans that follow him on Twitter @SrBachchan and tweet and send him birthday wishes with the hashtag #AB72Wishes. These lucky fans will receive a digitally signed, specially autographed poster by Mr. Bachchan, that’s not all each day one Fan will become fortune’s favorite for the day and receive a specially recorded personal video message by the Big B, that is guaranteed to make his day and be treasured for a lifetime.”

While the superstar is excited about the new way to interact with his fans on social media, Twitter India is also excited about the move bringing a new experience to his millions of fans and followers.

But, Twitter India, aren’t automated digitally signed posters by celebrities quite passé now? It has been done so many times that associating the phrase “bringing a new experience” just does not feel right.

Lets revisit some of the recent occasions where digitally signed posters were done to death. If I can recollect well, the trend was introduced last year at the time of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from all forms of cricket. To strengthen the bond between fans and Sachin, BCCI had asked Sachin’s fans to tweet a message for the legend along with #ThankYouSachin and BCCI promised to gratify the fan with a personalized picture of Sachin.

http://t.co/mdhDRtYqy2 Look wat i got. Thanks sachin for being the legend in my life, will always luk up to u and learn

— Mahendra Singh Dhoni (@msdhoni) November 13, 2013

While it doesn’t take much rocket science to understand that the personalized signed poster was an automated one managed by an app, the idea was a nice initiative timed well.

Post that the idea has been repeated again and again. Most recently during the ongoing promotions for the upcoming movie Happy New Year. Users were asked to tweet to @HNY with #HNYPoster and in return receive a personalized tweet with a poster autographed by the cast.

@juniorbachchan @IAMSRK & @HNY wishes you a #HappyNewYear. Here’s ur #HNYPoster! RT if you like it! http://t.co/Lw3Wj63Eaf — Happy New Year-Movie (@HNY) January 5, 2014

Besides receiving the automated personalized poster, fans on Twitter received personalized videos of the movie trailer from their favourite movie star. While I am confused about the definition of “personalized” here but again the same trick is going to be repeated at a later stage for Amitabh’s birthday.

@ShahnavazTank Your wait has come to an end! #HNYCharlie has sent you #HNYTrailer! @iamsrk http://t.co/asxEx1Wgut — Happy New Year-Movie (@HNY) August 14, 2014

Another personalised poster madness was rolled out in association with Twitter India during the promotions of Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif starrer Bollywood movie Bang Bang. Users were asked to tweet to @foxstarhindi and type #Mybangbangposter to receive personalized posters autographed by the stars.

Received my Bang Bang digitalized poster with my twitter name & their autographs! #BangBangMovie #Mybangbangposter ✌ pic.twitter.com/djIwmqPreA

— Geethikaz (@Geethikaz) September 25, 2014

No, there isn’t much rationale in testing things that are working fine but we can expect a bit of innovation from a company like Twitter. In fact last year Amitabh’s birthday celebration on social was an innovative one with Zipdial giving users a chance to receive the superstar’s tweets by simply dialing, or giving a missed call at a given number.

Isn’t it time to venture out into something new than pushing the boring personalized posters, Twitter India?

Image credit: Facebook