Its a thumbs up to Bisleri and gold spot'in Cuba!

My childhood memories of visiting India during annual vacations from the Middle East have always had a two-fold effect, when it came to identifying brands. 

Firstly, it would be the human calculator effect of contrasting the currency valuation of Middle Eastern brands against the Indian counterpart. 

The second effect was the difference in the quality of the product that was served in the Indian subcontinent. The non residents have always lauded the foreign Kit Kat, Pepsi and other global brands, as not having that sweet taste, when the same brand produced them locally. 

Is the reason, the difference in cultivating the crop to wither the Indian weather or Indian weather being temperate to the global giants?

Among the nostalgic moments that I savor, was being asked about the choice of fizzy drink to go with a meal when dining out. The choices were Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot and Citra. The child in me never cared about the food – all that mattered was the bubbly drink. 

The long rusty reused bottles, with the floating straw and me leaning against the table, slurping till the last drop foamed at the end, as I look at the brand name with eyes glinting for more. Oh, they still do.

I realized that aerated drinks and brands have one thing in common. They fake flavors and stay united with the coloring. Cola wars have always had their counterparts fighting with teams of black original cola, sparkling lemon and bubbly orange lining up against each other. 

While trying to make out the branding strategies from their campaigns, an interesting observation is how they segregate the drink across their target age group along with gender variation.

A thought of Russell Peter brand of standup comedy, taking on Indians, Chinese, Arabs crept up my mind - 

You are shown a slideshow starting with a strong alpha male (Arab) with the original black cola and Russell Peter asking 'What do you think?'

Next, a bunch of young girls (Chinese) hanging out with the orange drink and the same question. 

Followed by a picture of tired oldies (Indians) relieving humidity and acidity with a lemon flavored sparkling drink – and popping the same question 'What do you think?!'

Thankfully, the Indian marketers managed to lure us without the Russell Peter kind that I had mentioned. Few of the brand campaigns that we happily obliged to:

Pepsi: 'Yehi hain right choice baby', 'Nothing official about it', 'Yeh Dil Maange more', 'Oye bubbly', 'Yeh hain youngistaan meri jaan'

Coca Cola: 'Thanda matlab Coca cola', 'Jashn mana le', 'Open happiness'

Thums Up: 'Toofani thanda', 'Taste the thunder'

If you ever wondered, today, what is Coke and Thums Up (both dark colas) doing under the Coca Cola brand umbrella - the story behind it is how the Chauhans single handedly ruled the Indian cola industry under the Parle brand before exiting and handing over the brand to Coca Cola. 

Parle products was owned by the Chauhan family in Vile Parle, Bombay. They were successful in establishing operations across 3 major business verticals: Food, Beverages and Water. 

The beverages was handled by Ramesh Chauhan who sold five established brands namely 'Thums Up', 'Limca', 'Citra', 'Gold Spot', 'Maaza' to Coca Cola in the year 1993 for 60 million USD. Ramesh who was passionate about his brands would have had to see Coca Cola kill Thums Up and thump stamp its legacy 'Coke' brand onto the Indian market. 

However, the popularity of the brand name with Indians made Coca Cola rethink their business strategy and chose to retain the Thums Up brand under its umbrella.

After the exit Ramesh continued his entrepreneurial journey by venturing into the untapped Indian packaged drinking water, under the brand name 'Bisleri' which today owns the lions share in that vertical. 

Thats right, if Xerox is synonymous with photostat, Google it could simply mean to search on the internet - in the same way Bisleri for the layman is packaged drinking water. He may possibly delve deeper to tap for Himalayan spring water, if Indian market grows up to the likes of Perrier brand.

Today 20 years later, Parle under Ramesh is all set to re-enter the cold drinks market with their coffee flavored carbonated drink named 'Cafe Cuba'.

Would the Indian market give a thumbs up to his coffee flavored carbonated drink? Fingers crossed.