"Coke vs Pepsi" - The Unforgettable Debate

We the first year students @ LIBA have been debating regularly for the past few weeks on every tuesday afternoon. So today being tuesday we met and debated this topic "Coke vs Pepsi". We had 3 speakers each taking sides of one of these two big brands and a moderator steering the debate in the right direction by sprinkling some "extra-gyaan" here and there.

Well the debate went on very well and was carried forward by audience for another one hour or so and was about to die its natural death when our moderator mentioned a billboard ad shown above. He asked our opinion about this ad and this was enough to reinvigorate the audience and the debate went on for another half an hour. The only "small" thing our moderator forgot to mention was on which day this ad was put up(wait for the climax).

So almost everyone  gave his opinion on "what made Pepsi to come up with such ad?". The agreements and disagreements could be heard all over the room. Someone said that Pepsi was trying to cash on the brand value of coke. Someone said the reason for this bonhomie was Pepsi wanted to convey this message to consumers that they don't perceive Coke as a competitor. Our moderator himself gave two good reasons behind Pepsi coming up with that ad(I don't remember his reasons though).

I also gave my opinion that this ad is more of a satire. It has humour in it. I asked the moderator about the year this campaign was launched and he was not sure about that. Well the motive behind me asking the year/date was to establish that Pepsi being a new-entrant to market might have used Coke's brand equity to build its own or to get some easy publicity. And then I gave this example of a lesser known girl putting up this message on billboard saying "She is less beautiful than Aishwairya Rai". Almost everyone agreed that the girl will be noticed and get publicity. They were able to draw analogies between the little known girl and Pepsi. And honestly speaking I felt proud that I have impressed people.

After the debate got over we went for tea in the canteen and excited, as I was, I came up with more examples wherein some brands use promotion strategies similar to Pepsi. The Jockey tagline "The next best thing to naked" was one of them. My logic was here Jockey is encashing on the comfort of "nakedness" perceived in consumers mind( don't get me wrong). So my whole point was it is not necessary that you equate yourself with some already established brand or idea, sometimes projecting yourself lower than that is very rewarding.

So after this eventful day at college I headed back to hostel feeling proud and happy. But my happiness was shortlived. Being an Ad-fanatic I googled for this particular Pepsi ad and when I took a good look at it the embarassment of being "April-Fooled" in February dawned on me shortly. This ad was put up on April 1st,2000. Trust me after these brief embarassing moments I laughed out loud on everyone who was part of the debate on this ad. On moderator, on the rest of audience and above all on myself. For a change I really enjoyed being fooled and hope others would also have.