Cola wars -- the next generation

Cola wars -- the next generation
Alok Lall

Tara Sinha's `Pop goes the fizz war' (June 15) surprised me. Also it amusing to see yet another attempt by Coke to discredit Pepsi's hugely successful marketing effort in India.

Sinha had been for a large part of her career a paid employee of Coke and later its emissary as its advertising agent. Her protective instincts about Coke as a brand are natural and admirable. Knowing her, we did not expect her to be unfaithful to Coke and she has not let us down in that respect. However we did expect her to be correct in her recollection of events but there she has let all of us down.

Frankly one expected greater objectivity from your newspaper. Your newspaper has always had the enviable reputation for being grounded in reality and has been the only one to challenge the establishment. We may not have been wrong in thinking that The Indian Express has always been ``The choice of a new generation''.

Sinha's article has a strongly biased point of view. Nobody with a half-decent memory could have said that the early Pepsi advertising ``bombed'' or did not deliver the objectives that were set for it. In fact, Pepsi advertising in this country is material enough for a case study on how a brand remains young and how a brand connects with the youth in this country. Pepsi, incidentally, just received the MTV youth marketer for the decade award this year.

Which brings me to the most obvious question that challenges Coke's advertising credibility. What have they won or achieved in the time that they have been here? Coke's hilltop commercial was a complete eyewash considering it heralded its re-entry into this country. In fact, Coke's attitude, as depicted in its initial advertising (Hilltop, World Cup 1996), seemed to signal that here was a brand which was actually doing the average brown-skinned Indian a favour by being around and being available.

Sinha in her article mentioned that Pepsi spoofed the `Eat Cricket, Sleep Cricket, Drink only Coca-Cola' campaign by using Azhar and Sachin, when it was actually Azhar and Jadeja who had figured in that particular Pepsi commercial.

She has also raised the question of stars and celebrities having taken over Pepsi advertising. I would like to point out that this seems to be the case with Coke's Hritik commercial. Coca-Cola seems to have forgotten that they are in the business of selling soft drinks and not making cheap adaptations of popular feature films. In fact Coke's snooty and arrogant attitude is once again reflected in this commercial where Hritik tells an innocent little boy that he can only meet him if he has a Coke in hand.

Sinha in her article has made an assumption that the most recent Pepsi commercial the spinning-the-bottle one has failed. One would like to ask the basis for such a statement. In fact, I would like to bring to her attention research conducted by IMRB that indicates the contrary. The latest Pepsi-Shahrukh commercial scored a high 110 index points on likeability against Coke's Hritik commercial indexed at 100. On the parameter of originality, the Pepsi commercial leads again, this time by 20 points.

On empathy, memorability and uniqueness, it leads by an even bigger margin of 26 points. Despite the entertainment value that Hritik Roshan currently has, the Pepsi TVC leads by 4 points on being entertaining. And finally when it comes to `the big idea', Pepsi leads by 72 points! Need we say more?I would also like to mention one last factor that demonstrates Pepsi's success like no other the fact that Coke has been following Pepsi's marketing and advertising around. This is clear even to the consumer and imitation is, after all, the best form of flattery. Finally, for me and the rest of the youth in this country, Pepsi will always be the elixir. Yeh Dil will always Maange More.

The writer is the client services director, Hindustan Thompson