Cola Wars

Seen Pepsi's new 'Youngistan' ads on TV? I have only one word for them - Whatever!

I think JWT is completely ripping Pepsi off! Or maybe they're just going by the brief given to them by the Cola major - "Get as many celebrities as you can on board, content doesn't matter. We're following a predatory strategy here!"

Whatever the case, the ads are dumb and not worthy of the viewer's 30 seconds. I can remember only two Pepsi ads that were good - the 'Hi, I'm Sanju' ad with Amir Khan & Aishwarya Rai and the 'Bubbly' ad with SRK.

The 'Hi, I'm Sanju' ad was original, intelligent, funny and was aired after Amir Khan's 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar', when the character 'Sanju' was still fresh in the minds of people, thus encashing on the popularity of the movie. We also liked Aishwarya Rai more at that time...she was the green-eyed girl & not the plastic moron she's known to be today.

The 'Bubbly' ad was an instant hit because of it's 'Be my lover Bubbly' jingle that was cute & catchy. And ofcourse it had the affable SRK in it, doing his usual tomfoolery. I still find myself humming the 'Bubbly' jingle sometimes.

I'm not a big fan of Coca Cola ads either. They don't make much of an impact though I must give them credit for originality. Even content-wise they are slightly better than Pepsi ads, and they're not as celebrity-centric as Pepsi is. While Pepsi's strategy is to sign every new "big" kid on the Bollywood block, Coke has stuck to Amir Khan and now Hritik Roshan. I think Ms Rai also moonlighted for them sometime ago.

I think among all soft drink companies, Mountain Dew has the best ads. First, the 'Bad Cheetah' ad & now the 'Dar Sabko Lagta Hai, Gala Sabka Sukhta Hai...Dar Ke Aage Jeet Hai" one. Atleast they've been sending out a consistent message since their launch in India - that Mountain Dew is for the adventurous & brave-hearted. Coca Cola's message too has been consistent - they emphasize on brand loyalty & a clear brand association (Thanda matlab Coca Cola). Pepsi on the other hand has been all over the place with no clear message or brand association. They come across as a confused, wannabe set of people. They indiscriminately sign on celebrities who have no connection to anything that the brand stands for, thus ending up with a fuzzy brand image.