Dev D (Kashyap, 2008)

A brave new marketing campaign

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022-61424800 - The 'Lustline' opens for Dev D

After launching a marketing campaign on internet that saw visitors logging on to the official website of Dev D to hear the lead character Chanda talk dirty, UTV has now went a step ahead. They have launched the 'Lustline' on phone as well where a caller, who is required to declare that he/she is more than 18 years old, can listen to a husky sounding girl at her naughty best. On this line, Kalki Koechlin (Chanda), who enacts the role of Chandramukhi in Anurag Kashyap directed Dev D (based on 'Devdas'), gives a caller numerous options to choose between English, Hindi, French and Tamil.

022-61424800 is the 'Lustline' contact number for which lines are already open.

This is the first time ever that a bold campaign like this has been planned, something which truly goes as per the mood, flavor and setting of the film. Moreover, for Dev D where sex and lust plays an integral part of the narrative, a marketing tool like this is being looked at just apt and also quite innovative.

Says a source attached to the film, "We want to give audience a hint of what to expect in the film. Of course, the film is based on a piece of literature but with current milieu in which Dev D is set, Chanda is shown to be a girl belonging to upper class who operates in the dingy lanes of Paharganj in Delhi. An exotic femme fatale who seduces men, she is required to get into lusty chats, something that has been projected on the 'Lustline'."

A first ever initiative of it's kind as far as Bollywood is concerned, this promotional drive is all set to shock quite a few because not just it brings the word 'sex' out of closet, it also pushes the envelope with the leading lady of the film being open about the lust factor in her very first film.

"The makers want the audience to be prepared about what to expect from the film. Of course Dev D is a musical with as many as 18 songs and while this very fact also forms an integral part of the film's narrative and hence the marketing, the sexuality angle that Chanda brings in can't be ignored either. She is young, naughty and sexy and this is what callers would get to know when they dial the number", adds the source.

Now it has to be seen whether the marketing ploy works and 022-61424800 sees record callers dialing in till the 6th February release of the film.