Cola Wars Hit Youtube Pepsi Spoofs Thums Up

After Coke recently made a mockery of Pepsi's 'Youngistan' campaign with 'Sprite spoof ', Pepsi is now hitting back with a spoof of the 'Thums Up' campaign that featured actor Akshay Kumar but the interesting point is releasing of the ad for this spoof on Youtube before releasing it to mass media. Pepsi is in the midst of a huge ad campaign following up its couple of Youngistan ad camapigns with Ranbir and Deepika with IPL Dhoni's Rajnikant spoof ad and so was unable to release this campaign on TV and JWT the agency handling pepsi's account decided to release this ad on Youtube.
Soumitra Karnik, creative head on the Pepsi account at JWT says “It is more than a spoof as Youngistan is an attitude and here to make a statement. It also represents the old-versus-new tussle, and that prompted us to go in for a new format, given the constraints”
Though Youtube was used because of constraints still it marks a trend in first time use of online social media for pure brand advertising in India .So far it hasn't been much of a success generating 10,000 views only in 12 days but it is a start and I believe success rates might be greater on local sites like ishare and when Youtube goes desi when Youtube India launches later this month.
This is the first time when Pepsi as a Mother Brand has taken on any such spoof Coke on the other hand usually let its sub brands ( Sprite and Thums Up) handle spoofs. ( via ET)