A Pepsi too Far!!!

Coca-Cola recently completed 140 years of existence, which, for a drink consisting largely of sugar, coloured water, and a formula guarded more carefully than nuclear launch codes, is not bad going at all.

Invented in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton as a refreshing alternative to coffee, Coca-Cola has since risen from humble medicinal beginnings to the status of a global deity. There are tribes in remote jungles who may not know the capital of their country but can identify the Coke logo from three kilometres away in dim light.

I often ask my students why marketing professors speak of Coca-Cola in the hushed tones usually reserved for saints, freedom fighters, and retired cricket captains. The answer, of course, is simple. Many companies sell products. Coca-Cola sells emotions, nostalgia, happiness, friendship, Christmas, American capitalism, and occasionally, if time permits, soft drinks.

From a nutritional standpoint, Coke contributes approximately the same value to human health as eating sweet sugar pills. Yet millions consume it with tears of joy in their eyes. That, ladies and gentlemen, is marketing.

The company’s famous line” that there are places where water is unavailable, but Coke is not” sounds at first like a cheerful advertising slogan. On closer inspection, however, it resembles a declaration of planetary dominance issued by a highly sophisticated empire.

Last year, Coca-Cola Company reported revenues touching 48 billion dollars, which is larger than the GDP of nearly 100 countries. There are governments which, if Coca-Cola executives sneeze during quarterly meetings, begin checking their fiscal deficits nervously.

The disaster began, as many great disasters do, with student volunteers carrying trays. At first everything had gone splendidly. The auditorium was full, the microphones were functioning, which in itself bordered on the supernatural, and our distinguished guest from Coca-Cola India sat upon the dais radiating the serene confidence of a field marshal inspecting conquered territory.

Then came the refreshments. To this day, I maintain that the students were innocent. Young minds, though energetic, cannot always grasp the intricate blood feuds of multinational beverage corporations. To them, cola was cola.

And so, smiling brightly, they placed before the Coca-Cola executive... bottles of Pepsi. What followed cannot adequately be described as surprise. I have seen people react with greater calmness upon discovering cobras in bathrooms.

The lady’s eyes widened to dimensions rarely achieved in nature. Her expression suggested that she had just witnessed the assassination of civilisation itself. One almost expected distant thunderclaps and the sound of cavalry bugles.

She turned slowly towards Dr. Madhusudan Kota a former Coca-Cola man and loyalist of almost medieval devotion and began whispering with the urgency of a wartime intelligence officer reporting enemy troop movements.

At that point I understood that immediate action was required if the institution wished to survive the afternoon. I summoned a volunteer with the desperate authority of a ship captain ordering lifeboats lowered and instructed him to remove the offending bottles before the guest decided to quit.

Our explanation, though truthful, did not help matters. “Madam,” we said weakly, “Coca-Cola is not available in the canteen.” She looked at us with the sorrow one reserves for morally collapsed societies. Then came the immortal line.

“No issue,” she said with icy dignity. “Give me water. Tea. Coffee. Buttermilk. Coconut water. Boiled rainwater collected from tree leaves. Anything. But I will not share the dais with that thing.”

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The decline of reading habit and my experiment to revive it!

 

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The chappal theory of modern Marketing – The case of AJIO Mother’s day advertising campaign

So, this is where advertising has finally reached, absolutely rock bottom. The first time I watched the AJIO Mother’s Day advertisement, I watched it absent-mindedly. The second time, it felt slightly uncomfortable. By the third viewing, it had become so jarring and disturbing that it compelled me to write this piece.

Let us first understand how all this began. Greeting cards and gifts always existed. People have always exchanged tokens of affection. But it was the brilliance of companies like Hallmark that transformed greeting-card giving, and later gift-giving itself, into something almost mandatory to prove love and affection.

Slowly, new “special days” began appearing everywhere. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Grandparents’ Day. Friendship Day. Valentine’s Day etc. And hold your breath, even “National Nothing Day” where one was encouraged to give a card or gift for absolutely no reason at all.

Marketing had discovered something very powerful: emotions could be packaged, sold, and monetised. Surprisingly, in India, this concept of formally “celebrating” parents with gifts on designated days never fully worked for many older-generation families. Perhaps it still does not, even today.

My father was at his sarcastic best whenever we mentioned such occasions. He would acidly remark: “What Mother’s Day and Father’s Day? You live with us, we love you, and you love us back. There need not be one single Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Every day is a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day.”

Then he would mischievously add that the words “Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day” sounded suspiciously like “Amma Dinam” and “Nanna Dinam”, which in Telugu could almost sound like mother’s and father’s death anniversaries!

That old-school Indian mindset may sound amusing today, but there was wisdom in it. Relationships were meant to be lived daily, not reduced to annual shopping festivals. Advertising, however, has become extraordinarily skilled at converting emotions into consumption.

Coca-Cola, for example, helped popularise and commercialise the modern image of Santa Claus. Many believe that the predominance of red associated with Santa today aligns beautifully with Coca-Cola’s own brand colours and Christmas campaigns. It shows how deeply advertising can shape public imagination and cultural memory.

And now we come to the AJIO advertisement. The advertisement shows mothers “practising” and warming up as though preparing for combat. One may initially assume they are training to shoot enemies. But no, their targets are wooden dummies representing their own children. And how do they attack these dummies? With chappals.

Now, in India, hitting someone with a chappal is not merely punishment. It symbolises contempt, insult, humiliation, and public shaming. The visual itself carries a deeply negative emotional undertone in Indian culture. So what unforgivable crime have these children committed? They gifted their mothers coffee mugs or cushions carrying sentimental messages like “Best Mother in the World.” Apparently, according to the advertisement, such gifts are “useless.”

So, mothers speaking different languages are shown violently attacking dummies with slippers because their children gifted them inexpensive but affectionate presents. And all this is packaged as “therapeutic” in the advertisement.

At this point, one uncomfortable question arises: Since when did a mother’s love become measurable by the price tag of a gift? Any normal mother would probably be happy with almost anything given with affection, a simple phone call, a handwritten note, a rose, a hug, or yes, even a modest tea or coffee mug saying, “Best Mom.”

Are we now telling young people that unless they buy expensive dresses, luxury handbags, or vintage watches, their love is somehow inadequate? Certainly, elegant gifts are wonderful. Nobody is arguing against gifting. A beautiful saree, a dress, jewellery, or a watch may indeed make a mother very happy. But was there no better way to communicate that message without insulting both the gift giver and the gift receiver?.

That is where the advertisement collapses completely. In one stroke, AJIO managed to antagonise both the customer and the consumer. It indirectly mocked youngsters who may not have the financial means to buy expensive gifts. Worse, it attempted to create guilt around small but emotionally meaningful presents.

The symbolism became even more absurd when the advertisement suggested: “Gift anything,  even a chappal. That is better than gifting a coffee mug.” That line alone probably destroyed whatever warmth the campaign was attempting to create. And then they showed mugs literally breaking. Wonderful.

Nothing says “Mother’s Day emotion” quite like smashing sentimental gifts with aggression and contempt. Perhaps AJIO wanted to create a disruptive advertisement. Perhaps they wanted controversy, conversation, outrage, and virality. In today’s digital advertising ecosystem, shock value itself has become a marketing strategy.

If that was the intention, then perhaps the campaign succeeded brilliantly. But emotionally? Culturally? Creatively? The campaign failed spectacularly. Instead of celebrating mothers, it reduced Mother’s Day into an exercise in material comparison and guilt-driven consumption.

This advertisement may well enter the annals of advertising as one of those campaigns remembered not for brilliance, warmth, or emotional intelligence, but for how completely it misunderstood the very emotion it was trying to monetise. And perhaps that is the tragedy of modern advertising. Somewhere along the way, emotions stopped being felt and started being packaged.

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The Zoo, KFC, and the Magic of Creative Marketing

What a beautiful thought process. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the Hyderabad Zoo proved exactly that. More importantly, it showed that inspiration can come from any quarter.

Today, anyone with the name “David” was given free entry into the zoo. You may ask, why? The occasion was the 100th birthday  anniversary of David Attenborough, the world-famous wildlife photographer, broadcaster, naturalist, and conservationist. Brilliant, wouldn’t you say? But the idea itself is not entirely new.

When KFC entered Hyderabad in the mid-1990s, it pulled off a very similar marketing stunt. On the opening day of its first outlet, KFC came up with a wonderfully innovative sales promotion. Anyone whose name started with the letter “K”, Krishna, Kavita, Kranthi, Kushal, Keerthi, and so on was given a 50% discount.

Of course, in those days, people had to produce proof such as birth certificates, college ID cards, or other identification documents to avail the discount. Simple idea. Memorable execution.

That is the beauty of creative marketing. Sometimes the most effective campaigns are not the most expensive ones, but the ones that make people smile, feel included, and talk about the experience long after the event is over.

A campaign like this does more than attract customers. It creates curiosity, generates word-of-mouth publicity, and gives people a story to share with friends and family. Long after the discount ends, the memory of the experience remains. That is the real power of creative marketing.