Innovative marketing skills like launching games based on movies, inviting fans to be a part of the poster launch etc have always helped garner attention for upcoming releases. And adding to this marketing gimmick is the changing of actor's names for film promotions reports The Times of India.

As part of this new-found strategy, actors now change their display names on social networking site Twitter to their reel names in order to promote their films and make their fans familiar with their on-screen avatars. Stars also change their profile picture to the look they don in the films.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan along with Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood and Deepika Padukone recently changed their real names to reel names Charlie, Nandu, Jag and Mohini respectively, to promote their upcoming film 'Happy New Year' .

'Ram-Leela' actor Ranveer Singh also followed the unique promotional strategy to promote his new Ching noodles advertisement. The actor, who will be soon seen in Zoya Akhtar's 'Dil Dhadakne Do', changed his real name to 'Ranveer Ching on Twitter.

Actor Shahid Kapoor, who will be seen in Vishal Bharadwaj's 'Haider' with Shraddha Kapoor, Tabu and Irrfan, also followed the new trend to promote his film on Twitter. Shahid strategically placed 'Haider' in his name 'sHAhID kapooR'.

In the past, newbies like Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra, Riteish Deshmukh have also followed this new, innovative way to promote their films. Varun changed his name to 'Varun SEENU Dhawan' for his 'Main Tera Hero' and 'Varun HUMPTY Dhawan' for Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. Alia Bhatt added 'DULHANIA' to her name for 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania'. Sidharth, Shraddha and Riteish added 'VILLAIN' to their Twitter names for their film 'Ek Villain'.