MAM
Pepsi ropes in Sharman Joshi as brand ambassador for 7Up
MUMBAI: Food and beverage company, PepsiCo India, has appointed actor Sharman Joshi as brand ambassador for its natural lemon flavoured drink, 7Up.
The brand has also roped in renowned film director, Rajkumar Hirani, to direct the new on-air campaign around the theme, ‘Gussa Hatao, Chill Machao‘. The campaign that includes two television commercials is expected to go on air by the end of March.
The on-air campaign will be supported by outdoor, online and on-ground activation.
Says PepsiCo India Beverages Category Marketing Director (Flavoured Carbonated Drinks) Alpana Titus, “Sharman, with his calm, unruffled and extremely affable personality is a perfect match to highlight the brand‘s positioning of a cool, refreshing drink. With Raju Hirani creating his magic with the ad films, we are confident that our consumers will not only enjoy the campaign but also identify with the theme of ‘Gussa Hatao, Chill Machao‘. We look forward to a great summer season; kick starting with this exciting campaign.”
The campaign highlights issues of anger management. The TVCs revolve around these instances and Sharman as the new 7UP guy proves to the enraged characters that their anger is misplaced. This is best to douse it with a chilled bottle of 7UP, through a series of witty and offbeat questions.
Director Hirani said, “I am very selective about the TVCs I direct, but the scripts that I received for 7UP were very interesting. I saw the scope of adding value to the message, since this campaign is not just about giving gyaan. The thought behind the characters‘ self realization of stupidity while getting angry is superb.”
The first TVC revolves around a man who has been splashed with mud by a speeding truck and gives the truck a chase on his two-wheeler, hell-bent on teaching the driver a lesson. The second film is about a fight that breaks out between two fans of rival soccer teams while they are watching a match. A fight made even more ridiculous by the fact that neither of them has any connection whatsoever with the countries playing. In both TVCs, Sharman appears as the cool voice of reason, diffusing their anger with 7UP.
“Every minute you spend in anger, you lose 60 seconds of cool! With growing instances of mindless flare-ups that we see around us every day, this philosophy is sure to resonate with the youth,” said BBDO India executive creative director Sandipan Bhattacharya.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
