TVC: Pressure is good–Pepsi
By Malay Desai By: JWT India Pepsi’s new ‘pressure is good’ film features Indian cricket team vice-captain Virat Kohli chatting with a TV journalist in a dressing room about ‘pressure’. He then proceeds to walk out to bat, the reporter in tow, and mentions the ‘free ka pressure’ that the world gives him, followed by the South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis starting his run-up. Kohli halts him before he bowls, opens a bottle of Pepsi (its crown going for ‘six’), chugs down the cola and resumes batting. ‘Yeh hi hai moment, live it abhi’ the voiceover sings. Do we Like? What’s common between Virat Kohli, South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis and actor Vijay Raaz? There wasn’t much, until someone at JWT, Pepsi’s long-time agency in-charge of its youngistaan-friendly communication,thought of this ad.Their idea was one-third right, of picking the unofficial president of the nation’s collective machismo/swear words, the 25-year-old Kohli. Having repeatedly failed of late, Kohli has been under scrutiny from the media. Riding on his low days is a safe bet, for the batsmanwon't be dropped anytime soon, but is rather likely to return to form in the ongoing series. Little did Kohli know though, that he will be used to flaunt the ergonomics of a new cola bottle and talk about the brand’s amazing carbon dioxide. He’s assigned to deliver something promising about ‘flourishing under pressure’ but is accompanied by the second-worst journalistof Indian advertising (top honour being the girls asking ‘Kya apke toothpaste mein namak hai?’). Why is Vijay’s English broken, or why is he gaudy/lazy, is a Raaz. To ensure the film looks like a tribute to Rohit Shetty’s mindless comedy, Kohli halts Kallis in his action (in a direct lift from Kapil’s ‘Deewana Bana De’ film for Max), then magically produces a Pepsi bottle, uncorks it with gloves on and tosses the crown for a six. Somewhere in South India, a few B-grade film-makers applaud. The only salvaging moment is the line ‘Yeh sports quota toh philosophy honours nikla’, penned possibly by Anuja Chauhan, who’s been behind Pepsi’fizz from its ‘Yeh dil maange more’ days.But among Pepsi’s illustrious taglines,‘Live it Abhi’ ranks somewhere near the bottom. For me, the best use of a cricketer’s misfortunes was by Birla SunLife in the ‘Jab tak balla chalta hai’series and the worst was Ganguly’s unintentionally hilarious question in 2007, ‘Bhoole toh nahin?’, by surprise surprise, Pepsi again! Let's hope others in the PepsiCo stable aren’t thinking on these lines, else they’d cast Saifto connect the ‘gas’ in his movies to the air in Lays packets. Relieve the pressure Virat, have an Eno. (To watch this film abhi,feed this link in your browser - bit.ly/liveitabhi) Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe Zuck in India for internet.org The Facebook boss was in India over the weekendand much as your favourite social media columnist tried inboxing him for an one-on-one interview, the former didn’t respond so here go some shares and comments on Zuck: It was his second trip to India, the first being in 2010 when he came for the wedding of his friend and Dropbox founder Aditya Agarwal. This one was to meet someone who’s had a lesser impact on the world though, Mr Narendra Modi. Jibes apart, Zuck was here to talk about his ambitious project, internet.org, aiming to bring internet access (and Facebook text ads) to billions across the world. The spiking penetration levels here would’ve surely interested him, as he mentioned India as ‘crucial’ in achieving his mission. He then proceeded to do the usual gora man praising of India that Clinton/Michael Jackson et al have done – amazing culture, smart engineers, smart scientists.Where are the core issues like blocking Candy Crush invites, Zuck? Facebook likes this Kevin Pietersenbrews storm over parody Twitter handles Former England all-rounder and active social media user Kevin Pietersen launched his autobiography last week, immediately putting him in the eye of an online and offline storm. Among other allegations, he said that three of his team’s top players, Swann, Bresnan and Broad, had access to a parody account of himself, which was used to put out defaming, negative, bullying information about him. This was only a part of a cross-section of stuff KP said that’s going on in his team. Given that England’s fans and players are all hyper-connected to social media, this revelation, if true, is only a sign of times to come when sportsmen could be targeted by insidersfor various motives, using 140 characters at a time. Around the same time, KP also put up a hand-written letter to himfrom a 11-year-old asking for a discount in coaching, and declared he’s do it for free. Fake IPL Player likes this Must follow: Terribly Tiny Tales Remember the line ‘For sale: Baby shoes, never worn,’ which is often thrown at candidates at copy-writing interviews? It’s time we give its writer Ernest Hemingway’s ghost a rest and indulge in tiny one-liners of our own. If you haven’t heard of them already, ‘Terribly Tiny Tales’ are a motley group of writers, perhaps with day jobs, who have begun the delightful mission of telling stories with minimum words. And by minimum, they mean and do create moving, hilarious and impactful stories on Twitter and Facebook. ‘Her leftover fries were his Happy Meal’ for instance. The community on FB already has reached over two and a half lakh fans and continues to crowdsource and dole out gems on a daily basis. This last weekend, they made their appearance at a new literary festival in Mumbai and held a workshop. Go follow, for terribly long tales might soon go out of fashion. Hemingway likes this
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