Soft drink brand Thums Up is bringing in real-life sports heroes for its latest campaign. With colas losing fizz globally, can these athletes help the brand keep its thunder intact in India?
Soft drink brand Thums Up is bringing in real-life sports heroes for its latest campaign
It was action time for the global hero in June. Cristiano Ronaldo was all set to take questions at a press conference ahead of the opening UEFA Euro 2020 match against Hungary in the third week of the month. Within seconds, the Portuguese skipper shot at his target. Miffed to see two Coca-Cola bottles lying in front of his microphone, Ronaldo pushed them aside, picked up a bottle of water, and raised a battle cry by saying ‘Agua’—which means water in Portuguese. “No Coca-Cola,” he said.
A month later in India, it is action time for Indian sports heroes. Bajrang Punia, the only Indian wrestler to win three World Wrestling Championship medals, is the first to hit the mat. The celebrated grappler, who is representing India in the 65 kg freestyle category at the Tokyo Olympics, is seen gulping a bottle of Thums Up, the fizzy brand bought by Coca-Cola in 1993, in a commercial released last week. Punia then turns the bottle upside down. Other Indian athletes—shooter Manu Bhaker, boxer Vikas Krishan Yadav, and archer Deepika Kumari—follow suit and mimic the act.
A voiceover at the end of the advertisement drives home the message: ‘Toofan wahi jo sab palat de’ (the real storm is one that turns everything upside down). Thums Up, which has a tagline ‘taste the thunder,’ rolls out global partnership with the Olympic Games and aims to instil ‘thunder’ of hope among consumers.
The storm in the bottle is not hard to miss. Thums Up is making a transition from reel superstars to real heroes. A brand, which has had Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh as endorser since December 2016, is now conjuring up heroic tales of athletes who have battled odds to succeed. The fizzy brand—which had always oozed masculinity, banked on its distinct strong taste, and had wagered on the popularity and fictional brawn of actors Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan to woo masses—is now undergoing a change in its narrative.
Arnab Roy, vice president, (marketing), at Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia, explains the shift. This year, he underlines, the brand is making an evolution from ‘pure physicality’ that it has been conventionally associated with to ‘real world heroism.’