Case Study by Nayantara Dasgupta

Dubsmash: Smartphone users' latest guilty pleasure that is a potential marketing tool as well!

Always dreamt of being a celebrity? Then you must have been one of the first few to have downloaded Dubsmash! Weren’t you? Well, we don’t blame you! From celebrities to lay folks, everyone has joined the Dubsmash bandwagon!

Why is Dubsmash a winner?

A simple user-interface makes it quick and fun with over a zillion songs, dialogues and mixes to lip-synch on; it was a rage in no time! Its growth has been most noticeable on Instagram while the Facebook page of the app has more than 1.9 million audiences and counting.

Ever since its launch in November 2014, the app has exploded in popularity around the globe. It was downloaded more than 50 million times across iOS and Android. Dubsmash has users in 192 countries across myriad languages.

A New Era

Clicking selfies is now a cliché. Dubsmash has launched us into an era of video selfies. What sets a video apart is how creatively the user is recording his /her lip-synced video. The possibility of creating funny and interesting content is limitless.

Dubsmash – The Great Leveller.

Dubsmash brings out the inner celebrity in every individual. And, what is even more amazing is that it drags the common person out of the celebrity. How cool is that?

Ranging from national celebrities like Salman Khan, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Priyanka Chopra etc to International celebrities like Hugh Jackman and Lena Dunham it is a huge hit with one and all. They are coming out of their closet, having fun with the app and creating hype with their fans encouraging them to use the app. It is not essentially a social networking platform but its content is highly sharable driving every little post made, to the entertainment headlines.

Dubsmash Stands Out

As much as it has created a unique identity for itself, Dubsmash does take after the features of Vine, Snapchat and Instagram. One can add filters like on Instagram, add text on the video clip like on Snapchat and create short videos like on Vine.

Dubsmash is clutter breaking from other apps like Vine, Snapchat and Instagram, and it has no direct competition from them since it is not a specific social platform. Like Instagram or Facebook,

Dubsmash does not have a timeline nor is the content set up to be shared within the app, like Snapchat. However, the videos can be saved to the user’s phone and can be shared across social networks and other chat apps. Collat-ed videos have led to the rise of Dubsmash related websites such as topdub-smash.com, bestdubsmash.com and bestdubsmash.tumblr.com.

The Road Ahead

Celebrities are already on board. Dubsmash has now left the field wide open for brands to explore their horizons. Brands can create their own channels to create their own dubs for the users, making it even more interesting. Another section on the app encourages the users to submit their own Dubs, as it is popularly termed. Reports suggest that their next update will include ‘Soundboards’ – a better way to organize sounds, and will allow its users to create their own boards and to subscribe to other users’ boards.

There are movies that are using this app as a tool for promotion by initiating Dubsmash challenges. All one needs to do is upload a sound clip of what might seem to be a catchy dialogue or a peppy song from their movie, and voila! The movie is an instant hit among its viewers even before its release. Among all the Dubsmash challenges, the most popular is the one initiated by ‘Fast and Furious 7’, 2015. Similarly, the list of possibilities for other brands to explore their horizons to use the app as a promotional tool is endless. All one needs to do is take that leap of faith!

Is Dubsmash really here to stay?

From entertainment, to mockery, and down to serious business in the form of an alignment with brands, this new app seems to have the potential for it all. Both brands as well as individuals can put this to effective usage to build engagement at different levels. With Dubsmash videos doing the rounds on almost every profile, it has been a relentless source of entertainment, but will it sustain in the mind-space of this very fickle audi-ence? Only time will tell.

Nayantara Dasguptanayantara.dg@gmail.com