The domination of Thums up remained untouched and unmoved till Pepsi entered the Indian market in 1989. However, Thums Up enjoyed a much higher market share as compared to Campa-cola, or even other cola brands of the time like Double seven, McDowell’s thrill and Double cola. One of the campaigns of those times, used the tagline – “Food, friends and Thums Up” and showed Thums Up being enjoyed with typical Indian snacks like samosas and dosas. It was during these years, that Thums Up used every possible trick a cola brand could use to market itself – sponsoring cricket matches, building associations with music, etc and did everything possible to reinforce the aspirational, young, lifestyle image and tried making cola a normal part of eating out. However, their markets remained limited to their own regions of origin and neither attempted to become a national leader. People say it was equivalent to the coming down of the Berlin Wall! It was the return of the civic liberties and the sense of a student revolution that had been successful.įor several years after 1977, Thumbs Up and Campa-cola had a free reign free from any major competition from international brands. For most, it was a sense of second independence. There was also another subliminal interpretation to the punch line that can be best appreciated if one knows what it was for a young Indian, when the Emergency ended in 1977. Thums up had been launched with a logo showing a red thumbs up hand gesture with a slanted white typeface, and what was one of India’s first truly lifestyle oriented campaigns with the line, :Happy days are here again!”, a clear promise to consumers that the refreshing taste of cola was back in their life! The campaign celebrated the ‘Thums Up lifestyle’ with a multi-star cast of the top models of the day, exotic locations and a catchy jingle. Though this is not the single factor that can be attributed for the success of the latter, but it is a reminder that creating a substitute is not always a good strategy, While Pure Drinks created Campa-cola as an obvious substitute for Coca-cola, including the name which was phonetically similar, Parle came up with a product and brand that was quite different. Parle then launched Thums Up as their lead cola brand alongside their other brands – Limca and Goldspot. When Coca-Cola made its exit, both these companies saw it as an opportunity to launch their own bottled drinks. One important thing that is never obvious to a consumer enjoying his favourite bottled drink is that quite apart from the imagery associated with the brand, a very real and critical strength of a soft drink is the network of bottlers and distribution that is available to a brand, so that it is available to the customers within ‘an arm’s reach of desire’, to use the phrase coined by Coca-cola itself.Īt that time, the biggest bottlers of Coke in India were the Chauhan brothers of Parle in Western India, Sardar Charanjit Singh and his company Pure Drinks in the North. Thus, it can be said that ti was a curious political development, rather than a marketing initiative, that created the much needed window of opportunity for Thums Up. The exit created a vacuum in the Indian bottled drinks market, which now became bereft of cola. It is also rumoured that George Fernandes, the then Indian minister for Industries, had insisted that Coca-cola divulge its secret recipe, and this also formed one reason why the brand made its exit. This was not much of a surprise, since India is a country where Nimbu Pani is the refreshing cool drink of choice for many.įollowing the lifting of the Emergency in 1977 and the change of Government at the centre, multinational companies like Coca-Cola had to make their exit from India. The bottled drink consumption in itself was not very high and the leading carbonated drink in the market had been Limca. Up to the mid 70s Coca-Cola was dominant, and for all practical purposes, the only Cola brand in India. To understand the mystique of Thums Up, one needs to go back to the 70s.
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