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Welcome to Pepsi’s fictitious country. Welcome to ‘Youngistaan’. Yes ‘Youngistaan’ that basically belongs to the youth. To be precise, it belongs to the emerging Indian youth. ‘Youngistaan’ is basically an attitude, a feeling as has been put forth by the brand
architects at JWT (J. Walter Thompson), the ad agency behind the new Pepsi ad campaigns in the media. The idea is fast climbing the popularity charts. The seed of ‘Youngistaan’ germinated through a recent TV campaign featuring the 'Saawariya' kid, Ranbir Kapoor, the present heart-throb of millions, Deepika Padukone, and the ever-so-smart and smashing SRK.

PepsiCo India Executive Vice-President, Marketing (Cola), Sandeep Singh Arora, while commenting on the new campaign said, "The new campaign targets the youth of the nation, not only youngsters but also people young at heart. ‘Youngistaan’ represents a never failing attitude, desire to take on challenges and the power to turn things around." ¹

Expressing his opinion regarding the ‘Youngistaan’ concept, Hari Krishnan, Vice-President at JWT, said, "Youngistaan is a feeling that is racing through every youthful nerve in the country today. Brand Pepsi will simply tap this energy and help the youth express this emotion." ²

While clarifying the thought behind ‘Youngistaan’, Soumitra Karnik of JWT observed, "While the term is new, what it stands for - the GenNext attitude - is not new." ³ He added, "As Pepsi is an irreverent youth brand, we thought of coining a term that encapsulates its young TG and brands this generation." ⁴

What’s really amazing about the term ‘Youngistaan’ is the way it is shown being coined by Ranbir Kapoor in the ad (Exhibit I). Ranbir confronts SRK while making a futile attempt at entering Deepika’s room to grab a Pepsi, Ranbir spots a poorly lit neon sign that reads ‘Young Hindustan Supermarket'. Due to the broken neon light, Ranbir spots just a few letters. When asked, where he has come from, Ranbir, based on this observation, replies, "Youngistaan".

The idea was to project the fact that today’s youth improvises really fast and they hold on to their nerves while in trouble. Punita Lal, Executive Director, Marketing, at PepsiCo, opined, "The Youngistaan idea captures the energy, excitement and irreverence of the young, confident India." ⁵

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1 "Pepsi drops Ganguly, Dravid; Ishant, Rohit in",
www.livemint.com/2008/02/17150621/Pepsi-drops-Ganguly-Dravid-I.html
2 Ibid.
3 Joshi Devina, "Pepsi to take consumers to Youngistaan",
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/perl/news/index.html?sid=20392, February 18th 2008.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.

* Contributed by -
Kisholoy Roy,
MBA (Marketing),
Content Editor, Infoedge Management Solutions.