A couple of days back, I watched the Amazon Original, ‘Soorarai Pottru’ on the OTT platform. The Sudha Kongara’s sixth directorial venture is not only moving but also is studded with a number of lessons for businesses to take away. In this article, I list them. But, before listing, I shall boil down the movie, which is loosely based on the life of G. R. Gopinath, founder of ‘Simplifly Deccan’ – India’s first low-cost carrier.

A brief on the movie…

‘Soorarai Pottru’ chronicles the inspirational journey of Nedumaaran (Suriya), an ex-Air Force officer, who is launching a low-cost airline in an attempt to afford flight travel to the less privileged. In the process of realizing his dream, Nedumaaran is hampered at regular intervals by Paresh Goswami (Paresh Rawal), a leader in the aviation industry and the one whom the former considers a role model. Amidst such tricky circumstances, Nedumaaran makes his dream come true. Alongside him is Sundari (Aparna), his better half, who apart from successfully running a bakery, stays with him through thick and thin in breathing new life into his dream.

Now, let me list the lessons I observed.

1. Empathize with the pain points of your customers:

While serving in the Indian Air Force, knowing his father dying, Nedumaaran rushes to the airport. When trying to purchase a flight ticket, he gets to know that the economy class tickets are fully booked, and he is short of the fare of a business class ticket. As he desperately wants to travel to his native, he even goes on to plead with his fellow passengers for the balance money. Also, he promises that he would return it to them but it goes in vain. So, he resorts to alternate modes of transportation. And by the time, he reaches his native, his father has already died.

Following these series of unpleasant experiences, he doesn’t stop with just painfully running into them but goes on to empathize. He empathizes from the shoes of all those who consider the prevailing pricing of airline tickets unaffordable. That very thought urges him to make the common man fly. And the result is… a low-cost airline.

2. Take into account the value-conscious aspect of the target market:

As a follow-up to empathizing with customers’ pain points, he formulates a business model that enables passengers to buy plane tickets, like they purchase soaps. With India being a value-conscious market, Nedumaaran decides to charge 1000 rupees per ticket as opposed to the market rate of 10,000. Simultaneously, he negates various value-adds. He doesn’t provide newspapers. No extra food or staff. And to top it all, he decides to operate his flights for six trips a day as against the 2 trips by existing players. Eventually, he drops costs but at the same time ensures in delivering a quality service.

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3. Team up with another business to do fusion marketing:

In a chapter of the late American Business Writer Jay Conrad Levinson’s book*, the author has listed twenty ways in which guerrilla marketing differs from the old-fashioned brand of marketing. In one of the ways, the writer defines traditional marketing as an approach, which suggests a brand to observe its industrial market completely to decide which of its competitors are to be utterly defeated by it.

Conversely, he proclaims guerilla marketing as an outlook, which advocates a brand to discover businesses that possess the same kind of potential customers/clients and standards as it does, so that the brand can collaborate with the selected businesses in their marketing endeavors.

By opting for the latter, the author asserts that a brand is expanding its marketing reach, but reducing its marketing cost as it is sharing the expenses with the fellow business. And, he puts forth the term Fusion Marketing, which guerrillas use for this viewpoint.

Now, coming back to the movie. As Nedumaaran partners with his wife Sundari to sell food to his passengers, he provides hospitality to them and at the same time, earns extra money for his family (A collaboration with another catering service would have dented his profit margin).

Towards the climax, a couple of young men, who just completed a trip in Nedumaaran‘s flight, render a casual positive remark over the food. This implies that Sundari‘s expansion of her products beyond her bakery has become fruitful and it’s a win-win situation for the entrepreneurs.

Also Read:

4 Examples of Captivating Fusion Marketing Campaigns (And Why They’re So Great)

These are the 10 Best Burger King Marketing Campaigns of 2018

4. Identify your competitor(s) (If necessary, cut across industries):

Way back in 2019, in a letter to its shareholders, Netflix wrote, “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.” This was owing to Netflix considering the online game, ‘Fortnite’ as its competitor in entertaining its customers, and eating up their free time in the process.

Likewise, Nedumaaran doesn’t view another airline that offers flight tickets at relatively affordable prices as his competitor. Instead, with 1,000 rupee tickets – way below market rates – he wants to meet the Indian Railways head-on.

So, for a business, it is essential to identify its competitor(s). If necessary, it has to do so by cutting across industries because sometimes your competitors may end up in another industry, as in the case of Netflix.

That’s it with my observations and interpretations pertaining to the lessons, which businesses can take away from ‘Soorarai Pottru’. Hope you liked reading the write-up. Let me know your opinion(s) in the ‘Comment’ section.

* Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for making big profits from your small business

Featured image courtesy:

2D Entertainment and Sikhya Entertainment