Tale of Sufiyum Sujatayum & Amazon Prime's love for Aditi Rao Hydari

We take a look at Amazon Prime's marketing strategy for promoting Sufiyum Sujatayum, the first Malayalam movie to release on an OTT platform.

With the ongoing pandemic and the uncertainty over the re-opening of movie theatres in the country, several movies are being released on OTT platforms. Sufiyum Sujatayum (Malayalam) is the latest addition to the list of such firsts for Amazon Prime Video India, joining Ponmagal Vandhal (Tamil) and Gulabo Sitabo (Hindi).

Though they have deployed other social media movie marketing strategies as well, posts appreciating the beauty of Aditi Rao Hydari, the movie's female lead, are the most prominent of all. Even in the case of other visual assets, the thumbnails mostly feature her.

#SufiyumSujatayumOnPrime is the main hashtag used to promote the film.

Love for Aditi

In an attempt to promote Sufiyum Sujatayum, Prime has concentrated a huge chunk of their efforts in sharing stills featuring Aditi Rao Hydari. The story revolves around her and so do the marketing efforts on social media. The OTT platform has been pretty much gushing over the actor's appearance and beauty.

The couple

Since Sufiyum Sujatayum is primarily a love story, the lead couple is what the next set of promotional posts focussed on. Though the narrative talks about both Aditi and Dev Mohan, the actor who plays the male lead, love for former strikes a chord in these posts too.

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Involving Audiences

Given the current scenarios, offline meet and greets at theatres and other public events for movie promotions aren't possible. So, the team executed the next best option of replicating the experience virtually. First, the lead star cast extended invites to fans and later, a screenshot of the meet was shared by Prime.

The team

In two instances, to announce the film's release and to depict the #FirstDayFirstStream excitement, the entire team was brought together, virtually. These promotional posts featured Aditi, Jayasurya, Vijay Babu, Dev Mohan and others.

Trailer and reviews

To promote Sufiyam Sujatayum, Prime also shared the poster and trailer of the film and reviews by social media users as well as publications.

Promoting a movie by only digital means and co-ordinating all efforts virtually is no easy feat. Though a lot has changed under the lockdown, the strategy of leveraging the lead actor for marketing efforts is a constant that the new normal has borrowed from old times.