In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic, an unprecedented Black Swan event shook the entire world. India like all the other countries was struggling to adjust to this new reality. We announced one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, but once the lockdown was revoked, people started mingling with each other without respecting social distancing (meeting/greeting with physical contact). With no playbook to tackle this crisis, many were unsure of the new codes of social conduct, especially when it came to human contact.

OBJECTIVE:

With number of Corona cases increasing, the burden on Indian public healthcare was rising. Imagine what would have happened if 1.3 billion people would have started shaking hands! To adapt to the new normal, Pepsi encouraged Indians to follow Social Distancing, instead of reverting to earlier ways of meeting and greeting with handshakes. Pepsi asked, “Why not make social distancing cool? With the youth as influencers showing the way!”

IDEA:

India, one of the youngest nations in the world revives the oldest greeting in the world – Salaam-Namaste, as the right way to meet & greet in the new normal.

To counter the spread of Corona, the first step was social distancing - one had to avoid proximity and physical contact when meeting people. We dug into our culture & tradition, approximately 5000 years back, and found the answer in India’s original contactless greeting - Salaam and Namaste! Creating the world’s one and only social distancing hook-step, Pepsi re-introduced India’s thousand-year-old greetings Salaam & Namaste as a social distancing dance challenge on TikTok. Many celebrities/influencers and even frontline workers adopted our move and turned it into a movement. “Say no to handshakes, instead greet with Salaam-Namaste” became a national trend! This one-of-a-kind fun tutorial on social distancing showed India swag lies in contactless greetings, not in flouting the norms.

AUDIENCE: Vibrant changemakers, who want to make a difference in the fight against COVID.

INSIGHT: Youngsters, who are always known as the rule breakers, realized that in this new normal being cool was about following rules and not breaking them.

CULTURAL DISCOVERY: India’s the land of the original contactless greetings, ‘Salaam’ & ‘Namaste’. Gesture that could be an indigenous solution to world’s social distancing issues.

PEPSI’S STRATEGY:

There was social distancing information all around, but they weren’t influencing safe behaviour. During Covid crisis the general mood was bleak with grim, instructive “follow regulations” public service messaging. People needed positivity and reprieve from the gloomy mood of the time. Pepsi wanted to make this an irrepressibly positive movement around spreading social distancing. We wanted to shift the focus from ‘being instructive’ to proudly spreading and sharing with swag an Indian solution to a social-distancing issue the world is facing.

This thinking led PEPSI to create ‘A FUN & UPBEAT SOCIAL DISTANCING MOBILE PLAYBOOK WITH SALAAM-NAMASTE”.

1) CELEBRATING INDIAN PRIDE.

Execution was rooted in pride of India - our own tradition and contactless greeting being brought back in vogue by the youth.

2) A MOVE THAT TURNED INTO A MOVEMENT.

By tapping into mass passion points of Music and Dance, our ancient Indian greeting got Pepsified and re-introduced as a cool dance step challenge. One of country’s top influencer/youth icon and movie superstar Salman Khan broke Salaam-Namaste down through a #SwagStepChallenge tutorial on TikTok & Instagram. Massive social currency was churned with celebrities and 100+ influencers from Cricket (AB deVilliers, Warner) Movie, Television (Covid hero Sonu Sood) & Music industry who launched this new hook step with its own interactive filter. Soon 500,000 youth joined in and became our influencers adopting, recreating, and sharing their social distancing steps on TikTok.

1.WITH 5,00,000 JOINING THE MOVEMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA, THIS WAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST VIRAL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS OF 2020 THAT BROKE THE NET & SET NEW RECORDS.

•Biggest social media challenge: #SwagStepChallenge surpassed 100 billion views across TikTok & Instagram

•Whopping 5,00,000 User Generated Videos doing Salaam Namaste during campaign (75,000 UGC videos under 24 hours!)

2.FROM REEL HEROES TO REAL HEROES, THIS SOCIAL DISTANCING TREND SPARKED INDIA’S IMAGINATION

•Frontline workers like doctors, nurses, military, and police officers participated generating 2.1 Billion overall engagement on social media.

3. PEPSI WAS ‘CHOICE OF THE YOUNG GENERATION’:

•Meteoric rise in Brand Equity score (H1’20 vs H1’19) beating Coke on key KPIs of ‘YOUTH’ with positive movement of 10 points.

4. PEPSI’S BUSINESS DOUBLED:

•Doubled business growth over last month during Covid (April vs May 2020) with 96% positive sentiment

5. GOT MASSIVE BUZZ & NEWS

• PR Value worth $1.2 Million (USD).