Hey, everyone, this incident and welcome to a brand new episode of Let's Do Shots, the recent ban on Pobjie from India and the immediate introduction of an Indian clone called Fauji reminded me of nineteen seventy seven when similar circumstances Coca-Cola was driven out of the country and a slew of homemade cola brands were launched. Pumps are being one of them. But all of this was happening under some extraordinary circumstances. So let's do some cola shots.

Ask your parents and they'll tell you that the 70s was a crazy decade, no, not because of the offbeat fashion choices and the music, but because of the country's political environment. In 1975, the government had declared an emergency, and in 1977, Indira Gandhi was removed from office. India was in shambles economically and under all of this was quite a grand, which sold cold drinks Coca-Cola.

Now, here's what is happening. The big foreign companies in India at the time, these companies are making a lot of money in India with the recent rise of the middle class and a wave of consumerism hitting the nation. But all of these profits were sent back to their home country. None of it was being reinvested in India. This was also depleting our forex reserves to solve this and to grow the Indian economy.

The government introduced some new laws which made it necessary for foreign companies like Coca-Cola to reduce their ownership to 40 percent and have at least 60 percent ownership by an Indian company. Now, this is something that was not going to work for Coca-Cola, not because of the financial loss. There were more than happy to bear that. But this meant that the most well-kept secret in the world, which is Coca-Cola recipe and the secret ingredient, would have to be shared with the 60 percent partner.

This was a NO-GO and the government successfully drove Coca-Cola out of the country in 1977. The ruling party at the time saw this as a victory for the CDU movement, much like the Make in India movement of today, and within days they announced the launch of a government owned Coca-Cola clone in India and named it double seven.

The name was a reference to the nineteen seventy seven, which was the year that the Marathi design led party removed Indira Gandhi from office and launched this drink as a celebration of the same. The drink also came to be known as the Sakari Cola. The drink, however, was a massive failure and died a slow death, but a slew of other Indian cola brands started gaining prominence.

thumbs-Up was one of them, and they went on to become one of the most loved COLA brands in the country. Coca-Cola finally came back to India after the 1991 liberalisation, and in 93 it acquired thumbs up the same brand which took almost all of the market share left behind by Coca-Cola in nineteen seventy seven.

At first, Coca-Cola cut all advertising four thumbs up so that people move to drinking their flagship cola instead. But instead of moving to Coke, people started moving to Pepsi, their biggest competitor. So Coke decided to position thumbs up as a direct competitor to Pepsi and started advertising it again. Coca-Cola focused on the 12 to 25 year old age group and youth thumbs up to target the twenty five plus year old age group.

Almost all kinds of ads were targeted directly at Pepsi, calling it a sweet drink, and the position comes up as a grown up drink for a more mature audience, for the strong fizz and spicy taste. In most countries around the world, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are always the first and second round beverages. But because of this unique history, India is the only country where they're ranked third and fourth behind Sprite and thumbs up. That's all for today until we meet next time on electroshocks.