Nothing Official about Cola Wars Anymore

Forget currency wars for a moment, and spare a thought for India’s cola wars.

Forget currency wars for a moment, and spare a thought for India’s cola wars. Festive season ad campaigns for Coca-Cola and Pepsi have duly hit TV screens, but anyone looking out for intrigue, ambushes and spy-vs-spy madness would be disappointed. Not only are the two cola brands not at each other’s throat (‘throat share’ being what they are after), they seem to have settled into some sort of truce, each content to woo different consumer audiences altogether.

Coca-Cola’s latest spot, ‘Khuley toh baat chale’ (‘Open Happiness’ in English) is set in what looks like Ladakh. It oozes with India’s-got-it-all gooeyness, with cola-conjured Warli motifs playing tricks on a young backpacker’s mind as he longs to go home for Diwali. All’s well with the Great Indian Family, by the look of it.

Pepsi’s ‘Youngistan ka Wow!’ thrives on confounding that very same family, meanwhile, with impish youngsters getting the better of it. The brand’s latest ad, starring Ranbir Kapoor, takes a grinning wink at its youth audience. Set in a traditional living room with an arranged marriage tea scene in progress, it has the would-be bride’s college buddies storm in to scandalise everyone out of the arrangement, with Ranbir dummy-playing her suitor’s closet lover.

The divergence between Coke and Pepsi has never been wider. Where they converge is in their broad marketing strategy: both want to consolidate the mindspace of consumers they already have. “It’s a gentleman’s handshake,” says Jayakrishna Kayalakal, CEO, Caffeine Digital India, a market watcher. It was only in the early phase, he adds, that the two were vying for market share bottlecap by bottlecap. “Now, both companies have matured in the Indian market and have established their target audience. Coke is for the family, while Pepsi is for the youth. They no longer really need to fight.”

Guess that’s that, then. Maybe the joys of truly fizzy market competition were too good to last.

About The Author

TCA Sharad Raghavan