This Friendship Day, Pepsi India Takes You BackToSchool

If you want to see a bunch of adorable kids melt your heart, you shouldn’t miss watching this one. In a new film celebrating friendship, Pepsi has taken us back to school, quite literally. The 4.14 minute video film takes us on a school journey through the lives of a gang of teenagers at their farewell party. The initial setting gets you all nostalgic when they are seen writing sweet ‘forget-me-not’ messages on each other’s school uniforms.

Soon they visit the empty hallways and the classrooms and reach the classroom from where the friendship began. They are then replaced by their little avatars trying to open a tiffin box for a little girl – while the class is on.

As the lid is finally popped open, it falls out of one of the boy’s hands to drop onto the floor along with the snacks. The teacher punishes them in typical style, where they stand outside the classroom for the rest of the period. Another boy is seen standing outside for being punished for eating in class as well. He offers his food to them and they all hug to become buddies. The memories take you through many other school days, while they chat on about how school has ended, but not their friendship.

The storytelling is accompanied by a touching ode to friendship that begins with – “Jaise phoonk aur gubbara, aisa tha apna yaarana..”

The video has garnered more than 500K views since its upload on Pepsi India YouTube channel on the 25th of July. Understandably, it has been well appreciated on social media too. On its part, the beverage brand has invited people to share their school memories through their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Users have narrated really long stories of school days.

Jaise phoonk aur gubbara, aisa tha apna yaarana. Bring alive those memories with #BACKTOSCHOOL this Friendship's Day! http://t.co/WveaDcuFfl

— Pepsi India (@PepsiIndia) July 28, 2014

Striking the right chords

Pepsi has struck the right chords with #BackToSchool. The subject of ‘Friendship’ is an evergreen one, almost relevant across all age groups. Be it school kids, teenagers, young adults, the middle-aged or the elderly, everybody connects with this bond and has fond memories of school friends.

Associating the brand with friendship by taking us down memory lane right to our school days, is something that can lend itself to many ways in brand communication.

Apart from capitalizing on Friendship Day, Back to School ensures it reaches out to a larger audience than Pepsi’s regular target group – the impulsive youth. It is also refreshing to not see brand ambassador Ranbir Kapoor play the lead role in the gang of friends. However, it would be interesting to see the campaign take shape beyond digital and social, and not die down after friendship day.

This Friendship Day, Pepsi India Takes You BackToSchool