Brazilians are enjoying a series of posts about India in the blog www.meioemensagem.com.br/diariodebordo/pordentrodaindia/
This is a very good initiative as the so called Brics should really know each other better.
Last post was on India tradition of arranged marriages, still real for this country. In India culture a pre-planned marriage is a symbol of love.
PepsiCo respected the local scent and made a TV ad on its product Kurkure in the middle of the presentation of the groom to the family. The bride’s father analyses the groom and think that he is apparently very “delicate”. The groom eats Kurkure and starts performing a real “macho”, then convincing everyone. See the ad below.
That’s why PepsiCo leads the Indian “cola” market instead of Coca Cola. Coca Cola’s ads follow the world campaign and do not pay attention to local culture.
The reading of this post on PepsiCo respect for local culture in India reminded me of the recent movie The Hulk (2008) and its disrespect for Brazil’s “guarana”, a local soda. Guarana drinks and sodas are very popular in Brazil (where guarana is considered to be a health tonic), almost as popular as cola-based sodas. Sweet, carbonated guarana drinks include the popular brands Guaraná Antarctica, Guaraná Brahma, and Kuat (from Coca-Cola Company).
The first scenes of Hulk are located in Brazil, at the Rocinha (favela) and at a factory that produces “guarana”. Some errors are made at these scenes in Brazil. Movie’s enthusiasts already have noticed it: 1) packages of guarana bottles where ‘Brasil / U.S.A’ is printed on the side to show its destination. However, while Brasil is depicted with its Portuguese spelling, the acronym for the United States of America in Portuguese is ‘E.U.A.’ for Estados Unidos da América, not ‘U.S.A.’. 2) During the Brazil chase scene, the time of day appears to change from night to day and back to night again.
These are not the main mistakes however. The idea of a country whose native product, the so called guarana, is produced under so bad circumstances that a drop of Hulk blood falls into a bottle is an incredible (Hulk) mistake. Brazilian Guaraná is distributed in 1 million points of sales in Brazil and it is the third major world market of sodas. Today, the guaraná flavor is the 4th most consumed in the world and Guaraná Antarctica is among the 15 sodas most sold in the planet. Of course you will see Coca Cola in a lot of scenes of this movie. Bad marketing.
Hulk script is not just disrespectful to Brazil culture but also to people’s I.Q.
See the good PepsiCo Indian movie made by JWT ad agency in India.
BRAZIL FACTOR 