FORE School Of Management

Bonus Optional
Write-up #1
Article title: How does thumps up keep stealing the thunder

Article Source: http//www.4psbusinessandmarketing.com/11032010/storyd.asp?sid=3521

Date of Publication:

Subject: Marketing Management II

Submitted by: Ashish Arora

Contact No.: 9718214672

Contact E-mail: ashisharora@foreian.com

Due date:

Date of submission:
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Summary of the Article

The article revolves around how Thums Up- a brand originally owned by Parle has survived a

journey of life of 33 years and is at present the largest selling carbonated cola drink with a

market share of 16.4%. The year was 1977 and Ramesh Chauhan, his brother Prakash and

the then CEO of Parle Bhanu Vakil had a tough task of promoting their first cold drink, Limca

in a below average Indian market, in their hands. Shortly thereafter the exit of Coca Cola

from India due to the then FERA Act gave the Chauhan brothers the opportunity to strike

gold in the aerated drinks market with the birth of Thums Up, which became an instant hit

in the metros. Since then Thums Up has dethroned market leaders, changed the way people

think about aerated drinks, associated machismo with itself and even changed hands. Also

during the 33 years Thums Up has faced many competitors and to survive it also had to

indulge in various marketing and advertising strategies, but a look at the past shows that

despite competition-

1. from Campa Cola during late 1970s and Double Cola during early 1980s

2. and from PespiCo at present

Thums Up has stuck to very few marketing campaigns namely “Taste The Thunder” and

“Toofaani Thanda”. The Taste The Thunder has been the most breakthrough campaign for

the brand, which stands for “masculinity” that has been redefined over years, however it

needs to be noted that the punch line did not came that easily to the brand. The 1980s saw

the launch of Campa Cola which was similar in taste with Thums Up and gave tough

competition to it. It was then that the promoters of Thums Up went in for a new

communication campaign and that is the time when the legendary tag lines- Taste The

Thunder and Toofani Thanda- for the brand were born. These tag lines attached well with
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the then Indian youth because they were more rebellious and flaunting in nature, who

believed in showing off their machoism and Thums Up connected well with that. But soon

the success of Thums Up was challenged by the re-entry of Pepsi in 1988 and the re-entry of

Coca Cola in 1993 and that is when the owners of Thums Up baffled many by selling the

brand to Coca Cola. During the earlier years Coke tried to kill Thums Up, but fierce

competition from Pepsi forced them to re-launch Thums Up via tactical campaigns against

Pepsi. Tables turned when Thums Up launched the blind taste test against Pepsi and much

to the astonishment of Pepsi, it won. After that there was no stopping to the brand and

soon it became the market leader. No doubt Thums Up has evolved since time but the

central positioning of the brand has always been the “machoism” associated with it. The

success and demeanour of Thums Up can be measured by the fact that it has played its

much known “Taste The Thunder” tag for a consistent 20 years and has had only two brand

ambassadors (Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar) while its competitors indulged into various

promotional activities, trying to adjust with seasonal temptations. All these facts indicate

that the brand has been successful in striking the right chord with the Indian consumer and

that as far as the machoism concept is concerned, the thought process of people has not

changed since time.

The only new challenge left for the brand now is the competition from a few drinks which

are also trying to position themselves as what Thums Up did, but the market analysts are

sure that the brand will survive.

Issues Raised

 Thums Up is one major brand in India that proved major marketing concepts wrong

and emerged as a market leader by surviving only on one concept.

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 Building a brand is one thing, surviving that brand for long is another. Citing the

example of brands like BPL, AKAI and Campa Cola here we see that these brands

were launched in India with flair in them and a promising future, but eventually

failed to maintain their magic as opposed to their competitors. Where these brands

failed, their competitors exploited those areas and made success.

 The most important factor for the success of a consumer product is that it needs to

connect with the consumer; it needs to understand its consumer project itself

according to him rather than projecting itself and expecting the consumer to change.

 As opposed to the facts that the consumer is becoming more demanding and

innovation is the only key to success, the story of Thums Up tells that success only

requires striking the right chord with the consumer, keeping it simple and sticking to

“its” principles rather than making rapid changes.

What I learnt from the article

The learnings from the article can be related to examples of other companies who have also

followed the same practices and been success.

IDEA

Mobile service provider Idea Cellular limited is a leading GSM mobile services operator in

India with over 72 million subscribers, under brand IDEA. The brand has since its inception

(in year 2001) focused on providing most consumer friendly and competitive offering and

also projected itself as an affordable service. Abhishek Bachchan is the brand endorser of

IDEA since 2007 and has again renewed his contract with the brand. Idea has not much
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changed in its operations/activities and has focussed only on providing cheap and friendly

services to its users.

Conclusion

A conclusion that can be drawn from the article is that too much

experimentation/innovation and being too flexible sometimes, to accommodate to the ever

increasing consumer demands and providing too many choices to the consumers may fade

away the galore of the brand.