Advertising analysis – Pepsi
Pepsi is one of the most competitive carbonated beverage makers. Then where do their thinking hats go when its time for daring, creative concepts?
The mobile advertising campaign started with a teaser called ‘Ye Pepsi Kis Ki Hogi?’ which shows a quarrel between two stalwarts of Pakistan – Shahid Afridi and Misbah-ul-Haq over a bottle of Pepsi. Cricket fans fanatically voted over this on various online forums. Apparently, a number of fans believed that it was actually a fight over captaincy, which is projected as a Pepsi bottle in the commercial.
Apart from the fact that the commercial was a shoddy remake of a rather intelligently-shot film, its communication was also meaningless.
Soft drinks are not exactly referred to as items of necessity. People can live without them. But strangely, while being stranded on an island, hunting for food and trying to make it through each day, the most important thing for Misbah and Afridi was the lone bottle of Pepsi. How has that bottle even survived through the years is beyond my imagination.
And just when we thought we’d finally find out who the champ out of the two is, quite surprisingly the result disappointed most of us. The question that Afridi asks in the end, ‘Yeh kahan se aagai?’ is exactly what we’re all also wondering. On an isolated island in the middle of nowhere, how did a woman show up all decked up? Not that futile communication where woman are used as product of sale should be of any surprise to Pakistani viewers but this time around we’ve actually all failed to answer the question. Yeh waqai kahan se aagai? And what is more surprising is how her appearance left the two men helpless.
And if a woman could so conveniently show up on the island, how could the two men not find their way out of the trap? Are they really this incompetent?
Unfortunately, the ambiguity doesn’t end here. As far as communication is concerned the entire concept shatters on one major point. At the end of the commercial, the message Pepsi put across is that “Duniya hai dil walon ki” and as far as we understand in our language, “dil wale” means those who are respectable and generous with a kind heart. And If these are indeed the traits of the Pepsi consumers, then why didn’t they just share the bottle?
The writer is a New Media Design Manager at Dawn.com
You have to know something about advertising (the science and practice of it) before you can analyze an advert and whether it is effective or not. Seat of the pants impressions are interesting but worthless. (Even the blogger seems to lack any analytical ability.)
Anyone who doesn't understand this ad, kindly consider taking a course in advertising & promotion.
in the current era there is a lots of blunder y and fantasy concepts and production coming onAir as we touch the high edge of intelligence and directions
Hahaha interesting ad. what about when both player through the bottle on beach and run for the box? what does that mean?
it is commercial, an entertaining commercial that's it. Don't involve the politics in commercial now….
Excellent analysis. Those who hated this article are either the fans of the cricketers shown, will drink pepsi even if they hate the ads, or some people who do not know the ABC of business, marketing, and/or consumer behavior.
In analyzing an advertisement or commercial, it is best to start with a theory (or theories) that really good copywriters generally know of. In this case, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by Petty and Cacioppo comes to mind. There are basically two routes to persuasi.on and attitude change – central route to persuasion applies to complex products in which a consumer puts a lot of effort and thought to understand its attributes and how they will benefit him/her. insurance ads or car ads may come to mind. (Lots of risk involved in not making the right decision.) The indirect route to persuasion and attitude change is for "trivial" products like soda or beer. Attractive spokesmen (as the the personalities in this commercial) provide the credibility to the product. If Afridi drinks Pepsi, then I, his fan, will also choose Pepsi. (Advertising uses the A-I-D-A model to attract one's attention, then create interest, then desire – atttitude change – and finally action, such as purchasing the product and consuming it. Whether this particular ad meets all its communication objectives (and these need to be selected before dsigning the ad) is to test it with target audiences. Ads are not aimed at eeryone.
Happened to watch Pakistan tv channels for 2 months – and was shocked by the lack of professionalism in tv ads. I find ads made in India much professional and chic. Ads were also way too lengthy and boring like one for a cooking oil and one for washing powder. Editing is not sound either. Moroever as i kept flipping between Indian and Pakistani news and other entertainment channels, couldn't help noticing the differences amongst the content (subject) of advertisements as well. While most Pakistani tv ads were for soft drinks, cell phone service provider, washing powder, cooking oil and curry masala in tv news channels (like in samaa tv etc), in contrast, indian news tv channel were playing ads for laptops, new IPOs being floated, latest cars, universities offering various degrees, overseas holiday planners etc. I guess our tv ads have a lot to say about how we are doing. The striking difference between the 2 nations on the telly was pretty apparent for anyone to see.
Improve the quality of ads please. Make them short and sweet like under 30 seconds – max 1 min. And you guys have to do something definitely about lack of professionalism.
The Author here fails to know the basics of Advertising. Its not a reality show but a commercial for CSD Consumers. Most advertisements are given an aspirational feel. One level up into the fantasy land if you understand what I mean. I would ask the author to find me a woman who says, "Teri Mehrbaani" like the one who was portrayed in the U-Fone commercial. Or maybe the next question from the Author would be to find out "who was shooting the film if Afridi n Misbah were alone on the Island?" Another question could be, "Who actually does "BRrrrrr" after have a chilled Coke?" Or maybe we should all just ignore this article and let the Author find more questions and write ridiculously lousy articles to fill up the space.
First time I watched this ad, I thought of this girl representing a character of Angelina Jolie in Beowulf
why r u so upset about the ad hahahaha just chill out and by the way this is an Advert not reality so anything can happen in a advert be fiction or nt hahahaha kyun KAI dunya hai dil wALO KI
Meestah Shah,
Mostly the creative types use the willing suspension of disbelief to justify lapses in fiction. But even that has its limits. The point is anything can just not happen in a piece of fiction. A tiger cant have a heart attack mid air while leaping at a hapless anyone. Mindless, brain dead entertainment, commercials taking the cake, do make a lot of us upset. Aap jaisay dil walay brain dead kay saath khush raho
It would have made sense had there been M. Hafeez instead of the Girl. Hafeez winning the T20 captaincy.