Summer is the time of the year when all beverage brands become super active on the marketing front. This time around, as people in India and globally are gearing up to embrace the new normal, traditional greetings such as ‘Salaam and Namaste’ have never been more relevant.
In an endeavour to make these contactless Indian greetings a part of the pop culture, Pepsi, along with brand ambassador and Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, launched a digital campaign ‘Salaam Namaste Karo Swag Se’. The video campaign aims at inspiring the world that greeting each other with ‘Salaam and Namaste’ is a perfect way to ensure social distancing and yet maintain connections responsibly.
The campaign was specially made for TikTok and Instagram.
Salman Khan’s video:
To amplify the campaign, the brand associated with over 29 celebrities and influencers to send out the message of social distancing. These influencers and celebrities copied Khan’s moves and asked their followers to spread the message of social distancing in the same way. The creative has taken the shape of a TikTok challenge now.
See here for the influencer campaign’s details:
https://www.sheeko.in/leaderboard/view/?suid=N15ETgP3uW6hY2XJgx1m9ijkYNOGAVRB&start=25-05-2020&end=04-06-2020
According to Sheeko Pepsi India’s Brandscore, the brand had 68.63 lakh video views, the posts reached more than 84 million people, with over 47,000 comments in an estimated media value between Rs 60-70 lakh.
The brand’s campaign graph on Sheeko Brandscore:
According to the graph, it is seen that the brand was not much buzzing on social media since April 2020 and then a few days ago, came up with this big-bang campaign.
The video is an extension of the youth-centric campaign – ‘Swag Se Solo’ and is based on three relevant insights. The cultural insight which recognises salaam and namaste as an inherent part of the nation’s culture; the social insight which recognises the importance of social distancing in the new world; and the consumer insight which recognises the people’s need to express themselves in a fun and engaging manner. It encourages behavioural change through adherence to social distancing norms through a simple act of doing salaam/ namaste entertainingly.
A PepsiCo India spokesperson said, “Existing habits and beliefs have never been challenged as much as they are today. Social distancing will take centre stage as people step out of their homes once again. Pepsi®, as a responsible brand, aims to champion the cause of contactless greetings by encouraging people to use our age-old traditional ways of greetings with Salaam/Namaste.”
Recently, Pepsi also collaborated with actor and now real-life hero, Sonu Sood, for its video campaign. Sood shared a fun Instagram video in which he is seen dancing to the tunes of ‘Swag Se Solo’. Sood’s collaboration with Pepsi for a social cause in these trying times comes as no surprise as he has emerged as a real-life hero in the past few weeks. The actor helped hundreds of migrant workers stranded in different parts of the country owing to the lockdown. Sood has left no stone unturned in maximising his efforts to help migrant workers by providing transportation, food supplies and more than that, hope.
Sood’s video:
Sood’s video has fetched more than 7.4 lakh views on Instagram.
The brand has become an avid user of TikTok and Instagram since last year. It also brought on board Khan as brand ambassador in December 2019. Earlier this year in February, Pepsi’s Valentine’s Day anthem ‘Swag Se Solo’ with Khan, fetched massive success with more than 55 million views on YouTube. Pepsi’s #SwagStepChallenge created a record of 49 billion hits on TikTok, and the recent ‘Swag Se Solo’ challenge had over five billion hits with over 50,000 videos.
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