Lahori Zeera turns ad setback into a homegrown beverage campaign

MUMBAI: When one ad door closed, Lahori Zeera decided to open a bigger one. The homegrown beverage brand has turned a missed Independence Day advertising slot into the central idea of its latest campaign, taking over The Times of India across India on August 23 with a message aimed squarely at the multinational beverage establishment.

The campaign uses lines including “Apna Desi Thanda” and “The Thanda of India” to position Lahori Zeera as an Indian alternative in a soft-drinks market where multinational players have long dominated both shelves and advertising.

The choice of “thanda” is particularly deliberate. The word has deep roots in Indian beverage advertising and is strongly associated with Coca-Cola’s long-running “Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola” platform. Lahori Zeera takes that familiar territory and gives it a distinctly homegrown treatment.

But the campaign’s timing came from an advertising headache rather than a carefully scripted media plan.

Lahori Zeera had originally planned the nationwide Times of India takeover for August 15. According to Saurabh Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Lahori Zeera, the Independence Day advertising market became crowded as several companies chased the same premium inventory, pushing up costs.

“Half of corporate India had apparently had the same idea,” Munjal said in a LinkedIn post, explaining why the brand ultimately moved away from the August 15 slot.

Instead of abandoning the campaign, Lahori Zeera shifted it to August 23 and made the delay part of the story. The brand’s message is that Indian identity does not need to be squeezed into a single calendar date.

“Everyone had something to say on 15th August. We saved ours for after, because being Indian isn’t a one-day celebration. It’s an everyday feeling,” Munjal said.

That positioning comes as homegrown beverage brands attempt to gain more ground in India’s highly competitive soft-drinks market. According to figures cited by The Economic Times, newer players including Reliance Consumer Products’ Campa and Lahori Zeera nearly doubled their combined market share to around 15 per cent during January-September 2025, while Coca-Cola and PepsiCo’s combined share fell to about 85 per cent.

For Lahori Zeera, the campaign therefore carries two messages at once: one about Indian identity and another about the changing competitive landscape of the beverage business.

There is also a neat advertising lesson tucked into the execution. A campaign planned for Independence Day became more distinctive precisely because it did not run on Independence Day. By turning an expensive and crowded media slot into a reason for the campaign to exist, Lahori Zeera has made its advertising setback part of the pitch.

Sometimes, missing the big date can make for the bigger idea.