Kaha na war hai? Coke, Pepsi cross swords over Shah Rukh, `Hrithik' ad

Kaha na war hai? Coke, Pepsi cross swords over Shah Rukh, `Hrithik' ad
DEV CHATTERJEE & RAJIV MASAND

MUMBAI, MAY 12: The Cola war between the American multinationals is set for an another acrimonious legal battle as Coca Cola is threatening to sue arch rival Pepsi over a Hrithik Roshan spoof TV commercial created by Pepsi. The ad, featuring Shah Rukh Khan making fun of Coke's latest wonder boy Hrithik Roshan, has been disliked by noted filmmaker and Hrithik's father Rakesh Roshan, who wants Pepsi to withdraw the ad immediately and apologise.

The ad is shot in a bowling alley and shows Shah Rukh telling a young girl that she would have to kiss the person in whose direction the Pepsi bottle points. He then spins the bottle which stops to point at the Hritik lookalike who wears braces. Shah Rukh asks the lookalike to smile and when the latter smiles, showing the braces, they go `ping' and Shah Rukh teases him saying `enjoy' -- a dig at the ad-line of Coke, which Hritik Roshan endorses. Of course, the lookalike does not get the kiss from the girl, which ultimately is the honour of Shah Rukh.

The ad does not make any attempt to hide the fact that it is a dig at Coke and Hritik which has incensed the latter enough to prompt him to shoot off a protest letter to Pepsi and his father to demand the withdrawal.

``Not in my lifetime,'' says Prahlad Kakkar, veteran ad filmmaker with ad firm, HTA who has directed the Pepsi advertisement. ``They (Coke) want to create a controversy... I think it (Pepsi) is a very good ad which would complete its full one year term. Rakesh is overreacting and unnecessarilymaking noise."

Roshan retaliates: ``I don't think I am over-reacting. I am upset that Pepsi chose to do something like this. And we suspect the reason they did this was because Hrithik decided to endorse Coke over Pepsi though both the companies approached him. We are yet to decide whether we should sue or not.''

Sources close to Shah Rukh Khan say that the actor has not received any complaints from the Roshans. The over-a-minute-long ad at one point pokes fun at a macho guy wearing braces who wears an uncanny resemblance to Hritik Roshan. Khan has told friends that he was merely a model in the Pepsi commercial, and was in no way connected with the script and the content of the ad. Therefore, he is in no way responsible for the controversy.

Kakkar says the reports that he had apologised to Roshan about the ads are untrue. ``I've not apologised to anybody. Why should I? For being myself?'' he questions.

Says a HTA official from New Delhi: ``This ad is a continuation of the Yeh Dil Mange More series which is basically a fun ad with a strong story line revolving around romance.''

While Pepsi officials say the ads have done extremely well as per their survey, Coke officials are keeping a wait-and-watch policy on the issue. ``We've nothing but affection for Hrithik. The young man in question in the ad, in fact, looks nothing like him,'' says a Pepsi spokesman.

As per industry estimates, Coke has paid a staggering Rs 7.5 crore to Hrithik for endorsing its brands while Pepsi has paid a similar amount to Khan for a three-year contract.

Thus, the stakes are high and every bit of the market share is being fought for with acrimony and bitter marketing and advertisement gimmicks.

Pepsi, which is known for some extremely innovative advertising strategies, has moved into an aggressive gear as Coke grew at a rate faster than Pepsi's (in terms of number of cases sold) by as much as three to four per cent in the last quarter of 1999 for the first time since it re-entered India. Till September 1999, Pepsi had been growing at a steady 32 per cent to Coke's 24 per cent. An ad war, therefore, was inevitable.

The reason for the Roshans (on behalf of Coke) making a hue and cry over Pepsi's retaliatory ad is the fear of ``Nothing Official About It'' campaign during Cricket World Cup in 1996. Though Coke was the official drink for the World Cup, Pepsi launched one of India's biggest ad campaign featuring India's biggest cricket stars saying there was nothing official about it (Pepsi). The phrase has since then become a way-of-life statement and stole the shine off Coke.

On the other hand, Atlanta-based Coke wants to keep its grip over the Rs 4,000-crore Indian soft drink market through a similar ad strategy. The company has already taken a loss of $ 400 million from its India operations and hopes to make money in the ``near future''. Films are one arena out of Coke's five identified channels of communication where it wants to create a niche for itself. Hence, the multi-crore endorsements by film stars.