On the sidelines of the starry adda, t2 sat down for an ‘active adda’ session with Debabrata Mukherjee, vice-president, marketing and commercial, at Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia, the man behind the Coke-e Food-e Pujor Mood-e initiative...

This is the second year of Coke-e Food-e Pujor Mood-e. How has the campaign grown this year?

It’s good that you’re calling it a campaign. What usually happens is, you do something for a year and you do something different the next year and then something even more different, so the consumer loses consistency. This is the second year of Coke Adda... and we incorporated a couple of things we had learnt. We started early and tied up with food outlets well in advance and by Puja, Coke, food and adda got established in the consumer’s mind. Even during Puja, in the adda zones we made sure we tied up with the right kind of food as Bengalis are foodies, we got celebrities who are approachable and bring a good set of values and are popular... so everybody had a fantastic time. We started early, planned better... more food, better food. We scaled up through multiple platforms like radio and social media, and selfie contests and gratifications added to the texture.
 
Have you done this campaign in any other city? 

In places where there has been a Durga Puja. In Gurgaon and Delhi it’s the exact visual identity system, and also in Mumbai, and Bangalore. It’s not just a Calcutta thing, it’s a Puja thing. We run it across the country and very successfully, because when you go into a stall to pick up food and see ‘Coke-e Food-e Pujor Mood-e’, there’s an immediate connect, and of course, there’s adda, where Coke catalyses adda significantly.
 
Was the celebrity interaction replicated in other cities as well?

The adda hangout zones were specific to Calcutta but the same visual identity system was used across cities. We gave the same look and feel of the programme in other cities and tied up with food outlets with a Bengali relevance. I think we’re taking baby steps. People change but campaigns are for a lifetime. Seeing the success, we can replicate this in Delhi as well, since Durga Puja in Delhi is also very big, and bring in celebrities — Bengalis or non-Bengalis — because India is a secular country, and at the pandals, it’s not just Bengalis but all kinds of people. 
It will take a little bit of time but hopefully, in the next two-three years, we’ll be able to activate places like Delhi and Mumbai as well, and take it across the country.

Are you yourself an adda person?

I’m a huge adda person. However, I think Bengalis are losing the adda connect. There’s an active adda and a passive adda. Somebody thought over an adda a hundred years ago to form a football club and they eventually went and beat the British. A lot of times Coke with adda leads to something big. When I want Coke to be in an adda, I want it to be a catalyst, to invigorate; it’s a deliciously uplifting drink. 

This one time, Babul (Supriyo) and I were watching a game and both of us have girls and there is a lot of focus on the girl child. So we thought of doing something for the girl child. We created a song, Javed Akhtar wrote the lyrics, I wanna fly, we got Anupam (Roy) to give the music, and Babul and his daughter sang it in Coke Studio Season 4. 
This is the kind of active adda I’m talking about, where you move the needle somewhere. I don’t get the time for it as it’s an intensive thing to manage so many brands, but yes, whenever I get the time, I keep it for a happy adda.
 
So you want Coke to be an essential in an active adda, which is intellectually stimulating as opposed to just gossiping?

Absolutely! If I can catalyse something, it makes a huge difference. I mean maybe it’s a big, audacious goal but it doesn’t matter. It is an uplifting drink. If you ask someone how they felt after having Coke, they can’t describe it, but they’ll say… “Arre yaar, I was having a bad day, I had a Coke and I felt better, I felt uplifted!”
  
If you had to describe Coke in one word, what would it be?

I would say ‘Uplifting’. Only one word for Coke is it uplifts me. At any point in time, in whatever frame of mind I’m in, it uplifts me, and I think that’s a good way to describe the brand.
 
Which Calcutta food do you think goes best with Coke?

I’m a Bengali and I love food. There’s no food I’ve ever had which wouldn’t go well with a Coke. But if you forced me to choose, I’d pick the Calcutta biryani with deem and alu, with Coke. I’ve grown up eating the Calcutta biryani, and the Bengali in me absolutely loves it (laughs).

You launched Coke Zero in India last year. What has the response been like?

It’s very good. I believe our products are a part of a choice of beverages we offer our consumers. We are very excited by the response. When we ask people, they say the taste of Coke Zero is very close to Coke and people who want to balance their diet and have a less sugary drink go for it. 
At the end of the day, these are just calorie and low-calorie options for people, and at this point of time, we’re very happy with what Coke Zero has achieved for us in the last 365 days.
 
Which Coca-Cola beverage sells the most in the country?

Actually, Sprite is the number one beverage in the country, followed by Thums Up. Thums Up has been around for the last 40 years, while Coke came back to the country in 1994, so we’ve got some catching up to do. However, it’s doing really well and the good news is that all the brands are healthy and growing and I can’t pick one brand over the other.
 
Have you signed any new brand ambassador we don’t know about?

There’s no new signing. The last celebrities we signed were Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan. I think one good thing about the portfolio of brands I handle is that the beverage brands are really large. I don’t need a celebrity to endorse the brand, I need the celebrities to bring their values and the brand’s value to amplify the voice of the brand.

Which is your favourite Coke ad?

I have many. But my favourite is actually an international one. In, 1968, when the world was at war, Coke got people from different nationalities on a hilltop and the song went like this, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company, I’d like the world to sing in perfect harmony”, because the world was getting disintegrated. 
All brands should have a cultural point of view and to me that stands out as something which is pathbreaking. In India, we did ‘Thanda matlab Coca-Cola’ with Aamir Khan, which is very popular.
 
Do you have any fond memories with Coke?

I’ve got wonderful memories of Coke. I know Coca-Cola since before it left India... now you know my age (laughs)! Imagine, as a marketer, if I could have a small bottle of Coke, a small moment of happiness, a small moment that uplifts in everybody’s bag, that to me is an ultimate dream as a marketer. This reminds me of a jingle jeta ekhono aamar mone achhe, “Shokale beroye Bangali sathe thake jhola, jokhon phere baari, unki maare Coca-Cola”. 

Who is a Coke person?

I think Deepika Padukone would be a fantastic example of a Coke person. She went through depression and she’s been open about it. If you meet her, she’s optimistic, bubbly and energetic. She’s one of the happiest persons I’ve met! A candid person, who is able to come out and talk openly about their lives, who is uplifting, refreshing, optimistic, and bubbly, is a Coke person. Years ago, when Aamir Khan did ‘Thanda matlab Coca-Cola’, he was synergistic with the brand. Same when Akshay Kumar did Thums Up. Like Salman Khan and Thums Up now are a beautiful synergy. We’re very careful about choosing the celebrities, we see to it that the voice of the brand matches the voice of the celebrity.

My favourite soft drink is... 
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