New Delhi: Coca-Cola India’s soft-drink brand Thums Up has on-boarded Shahrukh Khan as its brand endorser, continuing its legacy of using Bollywood’s A-list celebrities to back the beverage brand.
Earlier this month, The Coca-Cola Company announced that the home-grown Thums Up brand became a billion-dollar brand in 2021—the first to reach the milestone from its portfolio of drinks in India.
The new campaign has been launched to mark this key milestone.
The campaign, conceptualized by Ogilvy, celebrates the coming together of two iconic Indian names—the largest carbonated beverage in the country Thums Up, and the reigning King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan, the company said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
Khan joins celebrities such as Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan who have endorsed the brand in the past. In 2020, Salman Khan was roped in by rival PepsiCo to endorse its Pepsi brand.
“Thums Up has deep partnership with the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and cricket, and salutes the spirit of real heroes who stay true to their determination to achieve their dreams and challenge every odd that life throws at them. Teaming up with King Khan, the brand amplifies this core vale and adds an action-packed cinematic storytelling with SRK portraying both reel and real-life hero in the ad-film," the company said.
Thums Up is an over four-decade-old brand and the largest brand in the Coca-Cola India portfolio.
"When we launched #PalatDe last year, the upside-down bottle of Thums Up became symbolic of the #PalatDe spirit - turning down every naysayer who cast a doubt on your ability. Building on this platform, we are thrilled to team up with Mr. Shah Rukh Khan to tell the story of the #ThumsUpStrong spirit. The strong unique taste of the brand is naturally weaved into strength as an emotion, that urges the drinkers to stay strong and believe in their dreams," said Sumeli Chatterjee, Head of Integrated Marketing Experiences, Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia.
In the new campaign, Khan asserts ‘Soft Drink Nahin, Toofan’ while asking the audiences to stay resilient and strong in pursuit of their dreams.
The integrated campaign will run across television, social, digital, shopper and OOH.
“Thums Up is not a soft drink, its toofaan. And as Thums Up moves out from the soft drink category to a category of its own, we partnered with the biggest toofan to talk about this move. With signature toofani stunts and thrills, this is SRK on a train but like never before," said Ritu Sharda, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy India (North).
