How Saiyaara's PR Made It Famous: A Crash Course in Modern Movie Marketing

It started with crying videos. Random couples in movie theaters, sobbing uncontrollably during the climax of Saiyaara. These weren't your typical movie reviews.These were paid but raw, emotional reactions that began flooding Instagram Reels and TikTok. Young lovers, acting completely devastated by what they'd just watched, filming themselves as they walked out of theaters with puffy eyes and runny noses.

Saiyaara weird crying reactions

The videos went viral instantly. "Bro, this movie destroyed me," became a common caption. Couples posted themselves crying in parking lots after shows. The hashtag #SaiyaaraCrying started trending organically. Nobody knew who these people were, but their genuine reactions felt real in a way that polished celebrity endorsements never could. PR had played a good game by paying small-time actors to do this part.

What followed was perhaps the most unconventional marketing campaign Bollywood had seen in years. While other films were spending crores on celebrity appearances and influencer partnerships, Saiyaara did the exact opposite. The lead actors, Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, vanished from public view. No interviews. No promotional tours. No awkward dance performances on reality shows.

Saiyaara movie

The strategy felt borrowed from a different era entirely. Remember the 1990s, when you discovered new actors through their movies rather than their Instagram stories? When Shah Rukh Khan wasn't tweeting about his breakfast and Madhuri Dixit wasn't doing sponsored posts for skincare brands? Saiyaara brought that mystique back.

Director Mohit Suri became the only face of the film's promotion. In rare interviews, he dropped hints that kept audiences guessing. "This could have been Aashiqui 3," he mentioned once, immediately connecting the film to his hit musical franchise. But the stars themselves remained protected, almost hidden from the masses that were growing increasingly curious about them.

The industry thought YRF had lost their minds. Trade analysts predicted the film would open with barely 2-3 crores. After all, who goes to watch complete newcomers when there are no promotional gimmicks to build awareness? The conventional wisdom said you needed at least six months of aggressive marketing, celebrity appearances, and social media buzz to launch new faces.

But something interesting was happening in the background. The film's music started climbing streaming charts without any promotional push. Songs like "Barbaad" and "Humsafar" began appearing in Instagram Reels, not because influencers were paid to use them, but because people genuinely connected with them. The title track "Saiyaara" became a genuine earworm, the kind that plays in auto-rickshaws and college canteens without any marketing spend.

The crying videos multiplied. More couples started posting their reactions, and each one felt authentic. There were theories floating around that these were paid actors, hired to create fake buzz. Social media detectives tried to connect the dots, looking for evidence of orchestrated campaigns.

Then came the celebrity endorsements, but these felt different too. Alia Bhatt posted about the film calling the newcomers "magical stars." Ananya Panday (Ahaan's cousin) shared an emotional post. Karan Johar gushed about the music. But even these felt organic rather than contractual.

The silence around the lead actors created a vacuum that audiences filled with speculation and curiosity. Who was this Ahaan Panday? Was he really Chunky Panday's nephew? What about Aneet Padda where had she come from? In an age where every detail about star kids is dissected before their first film releases, Saiyaara offered something rare: the chance to discover new faces through their performances.

The film's storyline wasn't revolutionary. A troubled musician meets a shy poet. They fall in love. She gets diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. It's essentially the 2004 Korean film "A Moment to Remember" adapted for Indian audiences. The emotional beats follow a predictable pattern that Mohit Suri has perfected over the years.

But none of that mattered when the film opened. Those crying videos had done something that millions in advertising couldn't: they had made people want to experience the emotion for themselves. The film collected 28.75 crores worldwide on its opening day, making it the highest opening for a Hindi film featuring a debutant male lead.

The numbers kept climbing. 119 crores in the opening weekend. By the end of the first week, Saiyaara had collected 255 crores worldwide, emerging as the third highest-grossing Hindi film of 2025. Theater owners reported packed shows and audiences that stayed through the end credits, many of them filming their own reaction videos.

Trade analyst Komal Nahta, who had initially predicted disaster, admitted he had been wrong. "Where they went wrong was in assessing the power of YRF's promotion strategy of not revealing the lead pair in a single interview so far. They also underestimated the power of hit music and kickass teasers and trailers."

The strategy wasn't entirely new. Shah Rukh Khan had used similar tactics with Pathaan, limiting his media appearances and letting anticipation build naturally. But implementing this with complete newcomers was considered commercial suicide. The success of Saiyaara proved that audiences were hungry for fresh faces and authentic storytelling, even without the usual promotional circus.

What made this different from typical Bollywood marketing was the restraint. There were no mall visits, no random dance performances, no celebrities spotted drinking coffee for paparazzi photos. The usual "hamsters on a wheel" circus that accompanies most film promotions was completely absent. Instead, there was strategic silence paired with organic buzz; something that the audience had missed.