MUMBAI: Music label Sony Music has launched a special campaign for the film ‘Khamoshiyan’, which is slated to release in January 2015. The campaign was launched to create a buzz about the movie much before the release of the film’s poster, teaser, trailer or music.

The label released a 60-second audio edit (audio seeding activity) of ‘Khamoshiyan’- the title track, composed by Jeet Gannguli and sung by Arjit Singh, five days before the full version was released. The audio edit was made available for free download on two platforms- Xperia Jive (for downloads) and Airtel (for WAP downloads). The audio file was also available on Saavn for streaming.

Sony Music India marketing director Sanujeet Bhujabal said, “We understood the power of the song, which is why we decided to try a reverse approach of going with the music strength. We sampled the music throughout the country and got tremendous feedback. We have seen a day-on-day increase of 70 to 100 per cent in terms of download.” The label company started measuring the popularity of the song by not just limiting it to download, but by measuring the ‘Likes’ and traction it attracted to its social media.

He further added, “Downloads and streaming of the audio has been phenomenal. We sampled the song and we know that it is a hit.”

The music album will be launched on 10 December 2014, and will be followed by a traditional campaign (audio and video release). All the tracks from the album will be available on Saavn and other platforms. Bhujabal said, “There will be a multi-crore media campaign that will follow on radio, television and other medium.” The film will also have a music app soon, along with promotional activity planned with the musicians.

The film ‘Khamoshiyan’ is produced by Vishesh Films and Fox Star Studios. Sony Music has had a long-term partnership with many production houses like Dharma Productions, Vishesh Films, Fox Star Studios, Maddock Films and others. Most of the production houses released one or two films this year which came out under Sony Music. Talking about 2014 which included all types of film, Bhujabal said, “2014 was really strong for us with music of films like ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’, ‘Hasee Toh Phasee’, ‘Ungli’, ‘Citylights’, ‘Bang Bang’, and ‘Holiday’ to name a few. We had strong films which were strong in terms of their music. We had a spectacular year in terms of film music.”

The market share of Sony Music across the platform is roughly around 22-25 per cent. Bhujabal stated that the growth was all because of the right product.

Although, he did not reveal much about his future plans, Bhujabal said that the company’s philosophy for 2015 will be to outgrow the existing business rather than acquiring film music aggressively.

The promotion of the film music ‘Khamoshiyan’ will be extended to 2015.