BLACK TICKET FILMS

EDIBLE CUTLERY (INNOVATION SERIES)

SYNOPSIS
When The Better India approached us the idea of collaborating on films on innovation, we hand-picked 6-stories that presented the pulse of a changing India!

THE PROBLEM:

NarayanaPeesapathy, a groundwater researcher from Hyderabad, quit his comfortable job to make cutlery, using wheat and millets. As the world’s first entrepreneur to conceptualize and commercially produce edible cutlery, Peesapathy’s story should have been successful one, except that no one believed in his idea. For 7 years, he struggled without investors or customers. His last mortgage was his house for which he was now facing an immediate eviction order.
THE CAMPAIGN: Our goal was to showcase the innovation, get it trending on social media, engage various online media platforms parallely to amplify the reach and activate immediate purchases of the product to ensure quick funds for Narayana.

• We designed a digital campaign using this short, engaging film as the centerpiece. The creative design was to be the hero – engaging, emotional and persuasive, along with being an effective piece of direct communication that propels viewers to share, like and make immediate purchases.

• We identified a strong digital dissemination partner in The Better India, an online news portal with more than 1 million Facebook users – our potential captive audience.

• We sent targeted emails to various social media platforms, online magazines along with social media influencers (bloggers, freelance writers, environmentalists, advocacy groups) about the film, anticipating support in sharing and adding to the virality of our content.

THE IMPACT:

•On March 16th, 2016 we launched the video on TBI. Within 12 hours the film going online, it had 2.5 million views and Narayana had received 10 million direct orders, from all across the globe. A global viral video was born.

•The story was immediately tweeted and shared by international media including The Huffington Post, The Guardian, ScoopWhoop, Mashable, Scroll, Upworthy, Forbes amongst others. Global TV networks played the film on their primetime news with sub-titles. Two weeks after its release, the film had received 80 million views across multiple social media platforms and reached audiences in 20 countries.

• Online fund-raising campaigns on Kickstarter and Ketto, using the film as a centerpiece, raised a sum of Rs. 2 crores.
• Investors from Europe, USA and Africa showed their interest in distributing the product. Orders from global giants like KFC & Pizza Hut and from leading hotel chains including the Taj, Oberoi and Sheraton also poured in. Soon they received pre-orders worth INR 6 crores.
• By April 2016, Peesapathy’s team produced over 3 million spoons, crossing its funding target by 500%, without buying any ad space.

Needless to say, Peesapathy paid off his debts and scaled-up the production of a revolutionary product – at a pace that he could have never imagined.


  • Produced by Black Ticket Films
  • PARTNER The Better India
  • SUPPORT The Marico Innovation Fund