Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002 |
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Marketing
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Promotions & Offers Pepsi ropes in Kaif to endorse soft drinks Ratna Bhushan
NEW DELHI, July 15 WITH the soccer fever having died down and the spotlight on cricket now, the cola majors take the lead in turning on the heat. The country's latest batting sensation — Mohammad Kaif — will soon be spotted on your television screens for reasons other than just cricket. Kaif, who was largely instrumental in pulling off India's incredible victory in the India-England NatWest One Day cricket series finals, will begin endorsing Pepsi in due course. "Kaif is among the cricketers PepsiCo has signed on to endorse its soft drink brands. Our advertising in the second half of the year will be linked to cricket," the company's spokesperson told Business Line. Interestingly, while Kaif's brand endorsement deal with PepsiCo was inked almost a year ago, the cricketer has not been featured in any Pepsi advertising yet. Kaif joins the company's line-up of cricket endorsers including Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, V.V.S. Laxman and Ajit Agarkar. As of now, the only cricketer being featured in any Pepsi advertising is Tendulkar, along with Amitabh Bachchan. But that was because soccer was the flavour of the season over the past six months. Apart from the regular film celebrity and music-related communication, on the sports front, Pepsi's advertising had been focused largely on soccer, obviously to cash in on the soccer World Cup. The activity included the commercial featuring real time Sumo wrestlers pitted against some big names in international football, soccer-related consumer promotions, and para football tournaments across various cities. However, now that international sporting action has shifted to cricket, the soft drinks major plans to return to cricket-related advertising in a big way. In addition to the forthcoming India-England Test series in England, there's a cricket series in New Zealand, to be followed by the World Cup Knock Out tournament scheduled for September, and then the World Cup early next year in South Africa. Meanwhile, the controversy involving the ICC and the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) over brand sponsorships is expected to be resolved on August 12.
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