The Zing Thing, Bring Back Coca-Cola

That brand was Gold Spot, one of the oldest domestic carbonated soft drink brands in India – introduced much earlier, in 1952. It was one of the brands including Limca, Maaza and Thums Up operated by Ramesh Chauhan’s Parle Agro, which together accounted for 60% of the soft drink market in 1993, the year the global beverages company Coca-Cola bought Chauhan for 60 million. Bought in dollars.

Why on earth did Coca-Cola kill the Gold Spot?

This must be the question plaguing Coca-Cola’s headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia, after looking at its brand’s sales numbers for FY21 in India.

Three decades after Coke re-entered India, the world’s best-selling cola still lags far behind domestic Thums Up. In fact, the other erstwhile Parle brands – Maaza and Limca – are also bigger than Coke in India – with Maaza selling 2,826 crore in FY 2011, and Limca, with sales of 2,061 crore in FY21.

And thumbs up? Thums Up is now a billion dollar brand ( 7,500 crore) and is soon set to be launched globally in other markets.

This is a considerable change from the knowledge gained in 1993. At the time, Coke essentially paid for Parle’s market share. Coke sharply left India in 1976 after the Samajwadi Janata Party government rejected his application for a wholly owned operation in India. And it was desperate to catch up. By the time Coke decided to make a comeback in the Indian market in 1993, arch rival Pepsi had gained a seven-year lead in the Indian market and had already captured a fifth of the market.

less firepower 200 million for 60% of the market in the world’s second most populous country – a hot country to boot – sounded like little beer. This expected Parle’s customers to easily shift to its own brands – Coca-Cola and Fanta. Given its deep pockets, marketing savvy, and experience selling fizzy drinks in almost every country in the world, Coke executives expected an easy move.

Gold Spot and Citra were quickly killed. Coke didn’t have a mango drink, and needed one to compete with Pepsi, which had made Coke by buying Mumbai’s hyperlocal brand Duke and replacing it with Slice, so Maaza stalled. Thums Up and Limca were also retained. Limca because Coke didn’t have its own version of the “cloudy” lemon drink at the time, and Thums Up because, well, it was the biggest cola brand in India by some margin. But this was considered to be only a matter, the time before them also rubs the dust.

Why did Thums Up refuse to die? Well, like other global food and beverage companies like Nestle and Kellogg’s, Indians have a strong preference for local over global when it comes to matters of taste. And Thums Up, with flavors from Indian spices like cardamom, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, is a clear household favorite. A clear marketing line helped, too. Thums Up saw Salman Khan as a brand ambassador when it looked like Pepsi is snatching the youth market and has embarked on the great Khan’s ride from stardom to superstardom.

Ditto for Limca, which imitated India’s all-time favorite thirst quencher, nimbu-pani (lemonade), and maaza, which exudes the distinctive Indian mango flavor.

Of course, the gold spot was not ‘Indian’. In fact, it was so synthetic that one could legitimately doubt whether it originated on Earth! But, for a brand that has been dead for 30 years, the recall shows the power of its engagement with the Indian market. Clearly, Indians, once they fall in love with something or someone, are never out of love. Ask the then unknown South Indian actress who modeled for Gold Spot’s memorable “Live a Little Hot, Sip a Gold Spot” campaign – Rekha!