Pepsi Never Fails to Woo Indian Consumers

Pepsi is the world's most famous multi - billion dollar brand. It is a global giant which comes under the parent company PepsiCo. PepsiCo is a huge umbrella under which a lot of beverages come - Mountain Dew, 7UP, Tropicana and Pepsi. So many products manufactured but Pepsi always tops the cold drink segment. Pepsi launched its first product in India after the 1991 economic reforms. From thereon, Pepsi started engaging with its audience, sometimes with straight conversations and sometimes with interesting and luring ad campaigns. Pepsi Ad Campaign in India has always been highly influential, but the campaigns have been compared with the campaign of Coca-Cola.

1. Yahi Hai Right Choice Baby

Its first ever campaign was 'Yahi Hai Right Choice Baby' which became the epitome of the 1990s advertisements. It was the time of Liberalisation when Indians stepped into a world of great choices. Being a remarkable campaign, it featured famous celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwariya Rai and others. This campaign was an adaptation of an international Pepsi Ad Campaign.

Effects

Pepsi was one of the few FMCG companies that tried to capture the cultural diversity of India and thus was able to quickly connect to the masses. By featuring famous celebrities, this Pepsi Ad Campaign in India gained huge market share and kicked campa cola out of the market.

2. Yeh Dil Maange More

After one successful campaign, Pepsi came up with other interesting campaign 'Yeh Dil Maange More' in December 1998. It gained mass popularity and became the tagline for Pepsi.

Effects

The slogan became so popular that it was used as a battle slogan and was also used in 1999 Kargil War by Capt. Vikram Batra. This news covered all the media channels at that time. Not only this, it was used as a title for a Bollywood movie - Dil Maange More starring Shahid Kapoor. The catchphrase became a huge success for Pepsi and was heavily being used by other entities to which it responded by asserting exclusive rights on the usage of slogan.

3. Yeh Pyaas Hai Badi

The jingle used in the ad had an Indian tadka which was liked by a lot of people. Also, casting Shah Rukh Khan against this campaign was a right choice as he has always been admired by the Indian audience. It had a good execution with an outstanding look and feel.

Effects

PepsiCo was suspected for using pesticides in its products. Also, at that time the company came up with Rs 5 strategy and was aggressively pushing it. Because of the pesticide controversy, PepsiCo had to tighten its belt and cut its costs. Still, it didn't squeeze its marketing budget and replaced its 'Yeh Dil Maange More' with 'Yeh Pyaas Hai Badi'. This was a high risk investment of Rs 30 crores - but have worked for them in a positive way. This Ad made Pepsi bounce back post the pesticides controversy and were able to recover the losing volume growth.

4. #LiveitAbhi / #OhYesAbhi

Pepsi very well know the Indian craze about cricket and thus came up with an impulsive youth based Ad Campaign - #LiveitAbhi and #OhYesAbhi. This campaign helped the brand connect with millions of youth Indian cricket fans. Through this, Pepsi wanted to bring alive the pulse of the nation - to do things 'right now'.

Consumers experienced the Oh Yes Abhi fever through extensive above-the-line communication.

Effects

The campaign was taken over across various social media handles - Facebook, Twitter; consumer engagement platforms and was also carried forward to the IPL T20 Tournament. PepsiCo won the rights of the lucrative cricket tournament for Rs. 396.8 crores. This title sponsor got PepsiCo the access to a series of brand and marketing benefits. Through this campaign, youth was able to connect to the brand and brand recall happened. Choosing right celebrities connected strongly with youth. The target market found the campaign cool and exciting.

5. Pepsi Thi Pi Gaya

Through this ad campaign, Pepsi captured its brand culture of living your life spontaneously by acknowledging the fact that there are some things in life you can't say no to - just like a glass of chilled Pepsi! This ad again targeted millennial while demonstrating the great taste of Pepsi.

Effects

This ad film got mixed responses. Although it did an excellent job in case of execution and story line, the emotions of target audience have also been put to test. It is revolved around a sensitive issue - strikes by students and thus needed to be dealt carefully. It had a debatable effect on the consumers.

The ad came out to be insensitive as it was quite similar to the protest held by Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) students which lasted for 139 days.

Although without any celebrity endorsement, people found the content creative.

6. Liter of Light

Pepsi has always been a youth - centric drink, a drink for the smart and innovative youngster. It is a drink which helps you make friends, ends strikes, inspire you to do things now; but by associating itself with Liter of Light foundation, the brand has taken the initiative to illuminate several homes that remain in darkness. A Pepsi bottle is all that is needed to spread smiles and light up lives.

Effects

This initiative was taken so that people can celebrate Diwali with lights. Testimonial videos of villagers were used to target people and to their surprise these videos reached over 0.26 MN Indians. The Ad generated 59k engagement, 4 million views at an average VTR of 30%. It came under the 10 most watched Indian Ads on YouTube.