Kathmandu, April 10

In a clear sign that Nepali ad developers have finally come of age, master brand among soft drinks - Coca-Cola - has launched a replica of a festive campaign that has successfully run in Nepal since 2015 in the Indian market.

Bottlers Nepal - the local bottler of the American multinational soft drink company - witnessed a considerable increase in sales following the launch of the campaign titled ‘celebrating relationships'.

Consequently, the Coca-Cola Company in India has launched a similar campaign some two weeks back from Gurgaon.

Talking to The Himalayan Times, Gaurav Ramdev, country marketing manager at the Coca-Cola Company India, who also looks after the Nepal market, said that as Nepal and India share similar culture, the campaign ‘celebrating relationships' is expected to garner the same mass appeal that it generated in Nepal.

The idea for the campaign in Nepal was pitched by Prisma Advertising in 2015. Targeting the major Hindu festivals of Dashain and Tihar, the campaign under the tagline ‘Mann kholaun Coke sanga', which translates to ‘Let's open our hearts with Coke', the Coke labels featured 15 different relationships - buwa (father), aama (mother), didi (older sister), dai (older brother), saathi (friend), among others.

For the campaign duration, Coke had removed its logo and labelled different relationships on its bottles. “The campaign was a massive hit during the festivals, when the importance of relationships holds much precedence,” said Ranjit Acharya, CEO of Prisma Advertising and the architect of the concept.

“It was a pleasant surprise for us that the campaign designed for Nepal has been replicated for the Indian market.”

Acharya further said that the campaign was the localised version of Coca-Cola's most powerful campaign ‘share a Coke', which is regarded as an exemplary campaign among marketing fraternity. While localising the ‘share a Coke' campaign in the context of Nepal, Acharya came up with this idea