Pepsi’s IPL Sponsorship : No More DLF Maximums

With a bid of Rs 396.8 crores, PepsiCo pipped Telecom giant Airtel, to win the title sponsorship of the Indian Premier League for the next five seasons. DLF after a successful five year stint decided not to participate in the bid as they had completed their objective of increasing the brand’s awareness among masses. The upcoming season of IPL would be telecasted in over 192 countries, thereby presenting a great opportunity for advertisers and marketers to grab consumer eyeballs and participate in the cricket cum advertising extravaganza. Pepsi would be hoping to leverage this opportunity to the maximum and increase their presence in the global market, while further strengthening their foothold in India. Right from Youngistaan to the last year’s Change the Game and the current Tameez se kyun dekhe campaign, Pepsi has positioned itself brilliantly in the young Indian’s psyche as a youth drink. They would be looking forward to cash in on the campaign and increase the market share of its other brands as well.

The Indian Market 

While PepsiCo’s flagship brand has done well in the market, and is the largest selling soft drink in India, its other brands – Mirinda, 7-up and Mountain Dew still trail in market share as compared to rival Coca Cola India Pvt Ltd. offerings of Thums Up, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Fanta and Limca. The pie charts give a break up of both on and off trade sales in soft drinks Indian market.

The high popularity of Coca Cola India’s drinks were vindicated in a recent survey on Most Trusted Brands by ET, where Thums Up, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Limca and Fanta were better rated in Top 50 brands as compared to PepsiCo’s Mirinda and 7-up. IPL does give PepsiCo a plethora of opportunities to expand not only in aerated drinks, but also increase its share in non-aerated drinks market. Pepsi’s Tropicana and NourishCo, a ready to drink tea (RTD) in collaboration with Tata, would love to lead in their respective segments over the rival’s Minute Maid, Dabur’s Real juice and Coca Cola’s NesTea respectively.

Stage Set for Ambush Marketing

The year was 1996 when the shoe was on the other foot. To rival Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the world cup cricket series, Pepsi kicked off Nothing official about it campaign when they decided to play spoilsports in Coca-Cola’s effort to claw back in the Indian market after an absence of nearly 16 years. The campaign was the first of its kind in India where both the big guns competed to score over the other in the first major sporting event post liberalization. Stage is set for another round of cola wars as Coca-Cola is in talks with nine IPL teams to give them exclusive pouring rights which include rights to serve its beverages in the team’s home stadiums. Although Sundar Raman, the IPL-CEO, has reiterated strict ambush marketing clauses in their contract with Pepsi, it would be an interesting new chapter in both IPL’s and Pepsi’s journey to connect with their loyalists.

Media Controls Our Capacity for Independent Thoughts?

The flurry of scams bestowed upon the reigning Indian Government highlights not only the mess India is in, but also the power media enjoys in a democratic setup. The galvanization of masses under Anna Hazare, the helping role social media played to help Arab Revolution and the awareness of society regarding socio-economic setup in the country and around the world, counters to the argument of media controlling one’s independent thoughts. Rather, it’s the augmentation of one’s thoughts and public opinions, which the media has helped to build in the last few years.

India has come a long way from the times of Independence and emergency. While during the former, the British controlled how public opinions were formed, the latter emphasized a darker phase, where several leading Indian Newspapers, including Indian Express, faced the wrath of the India’s benevolent dictator, Mrs. Gandhi. Any word, against the government meant persecution. Soon after emergency was lifted, a revitalized Press Council of India was formed whose sole aim was to maintain and improve the standards of news papers and news agencies in the country. Indian media has grown leaps and bounds after the brief period of turmoil, and has become the biggest news market in the world, with over 100 million copies sold worldwide, and having more than 80 news channels. Leading Indian news papers like - The Hindu, The Times of India, etc. have become a platform where countrymen can voice their opinions, and contribute towards a holistic, independent thought making process that encourages healthy debates on various issues having political and economic ramifications. Magazines like Tehelka, and The Caravan, offer the readers an alternate take of events through the medium of investigative journalism. Such plethora of easily accessible information has given the citizens the impetus to be more responsible and participate actively in all community and government decisions.

Television and News media is indeed a tool for the aam aadmi to stay connected and up to date with the current affairs. Live studio debates by esteemed guests from politics, business, and sports; engage the audience to participate actively in expressing their view point. The recently televised interview of Mamata Banerjee on CNN-IBN, where she stormed out of the studio after accusing the audience, consisting mostly of students, to be Maoists cadre, was an unadulterated example of how media has encouraged citizens to give their views even if it clashes with the egos of political leaders and influential people. Radia tapes controversy was indeed a big blotch on the entire industry that turned the sceptics into cynics, and gave then the ammunition to target the big shots of media. After the supposed blackout by major news channels and newspapers on the personalities involved in the controversy, it was again, the will of the youth, along with the power of social media, which led to the tacit admission by The Times of India, on the increasing role social media sites, like twitter and Facebook, are playing in expressing public opinions.

Satyamev Jayate, on the lines of The Oprah Winfrey Show, was ubiquitously appraised, as it had the vision to inspire the dormant middle class, and without imposing, ask them to think about the prevalent evils in society. Cinema too, is ladened with social movies (Rang De Basanti, Maachis, Salaam Bombay, etc.) that challenge the intelligence of its audience and stimulate the brains for thinking what can be done to improve the status quo. In the advertising media, campaigns like Jago Re, by Tata Tea encouraged Indians to take well informed decisions on whom to vote and, more importantly, asking them to make use of their right to vote.

It is an undeniable truth that practices like, paid news; mass advertising, etc. still persist that preys on the naïve, and is a major hurdle on the cognitive thinking of the nation, the challenge lies in not only rooting out the corrupt, but to apply the maxim – knowledge only liberates. To achieve this goal, the part media plays in a democratic nation like ours, becomes vital.

A Case For Reservation

Listening to The Bugle Podcast (a satirical show on global politics) a fortnight ago, a passing remark by the co-host Andy Zaltzman on the relationship between the most developed economies (Norway, Sweden) in the world being directly proportional to the number of women represented in the parliament, turned out to be the genesis for this article. With the chances of the hoary old bill on Women Reservation being tabled at the Lok Sabha during the budget session and the upcoming International Women’s day (March 8^th), the chauvinist in me made way for the pro-feminist.

It’s no secret that a nation whose foundations are based on an egalitarian model would be predisposed to peace and economic prosperity. Human Development Index (HDI) is a tool by which the UN studies the growth of nations. By including the parameters of standard of living, literacy and education a decisive number is obtained, which helps in ranking the countries on the condition of its citizens. A common theme if you look closely at top nations of the HDI List would be the equality of the opposites. While as you go down the list, the low HDI is indeed linked with the gender gap and is easily noticeable. India is ranked a woeful 134^th, tied with Iraq, and well below its neighbors Sri Lanka and Maldives. Here, the chauvinist I countered to this argument and said that a big nation like ours can’t be compared to smaller countries on this parameter alone. As India is a continent in itself, a rising super-power, we need to have a detailed analysis as to why we are so low on this index. So thanks again to Wikipedia (don’t know what I would do without it), here’s the list of individual states of India based on HDI. And yes, no big surprises that Kerala tops the chart with it being the only state where female to male ratio is higher than the rest of the country.

This brings us to our conundrum; do we need a reservation for women in parliament? We can certainly take inspiration from Rwanda, where women in Parliament secure 56% of the total seats and although well below in HDI, have actually recovered miraculously after the 1994 genocide (do watch Hotel Rwanda movie to learn more about it). Giving preferences to candidates solely on merit is the ultimate goal which a society must achieve. Though, this can only be done if everyone is given the same opportunity to perform and succeed. For a developing nation like ours, reservation is often a hotly debated topic. The Government has tried reservation for women before in municipalities and local elections but with utter failures. Proxy Seats, where dogmatic politicians make sure it all stays in the family, i.e., by only allocating tickets to contest elections to their female family members and as a result neglecting the fairer sex and mitigating the entire purpose of reservation.

The urgent need for the purpose to be vindicated is to make sure there is utmost integrity and sincerity followed in the rotational aspect of the bill. When Rajya Sabha passed the bill back in 2010, there was a clear directive to reserve the seats once in three consecutive general elections on the basis of a draw of lot. The same must be passed at Lok Sabha too, and hopefully the path to a long term goal of development is achieved on an even footing.