NEW DELHI: Coca Cola claims to have stolen a march over arch rival Pepsi with its new thanda theme TVC yielding much more dividend than anticipated.

Coca Cola India CEO and president Alex Von Behr said at the recent CII-organised marketing summit The Business of Marketing, that Coke's cool new commercial with Aamir Khan in the lead had a higher recall than Pepsi's ad featuring superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

Quoting Continuous Consumer Track data culled from small towns and those falling under SEC C & D categories, Behr said that while Coca Cola's thanda commercial had a recall value of 21.3, that of Pepsi was a mere 8.9 as measured on 10 May this year. On other days too, Coke's thanda ad was ahead of Pepsi, he claimed. On 15 March, the recall value for Coke's ad was 0.6, while that of Pepsi's was 0.5, on 22 March, for Coke it was 2.9, while that of Pepsi was 1.3. Over a period of time, the data shows the recall value of Coke's ad has been rising, he said.

Dwelling on the juices market, Behr said that teens and young adults (12-29 years) constitute the core of Maaza volumes currently. "However, this is also the core target group for all carbonated drinks too," he said, adding, "Maaza or any other juice drink as a category can never compete with carbonated drinks in terms of visibility or appeal of proposition (imagery)." That's why, Behr pointed out, Coca Cola India took the risk to "position Maaza to a target audience that affords better growth prospects." So, Maaza is being repositioned to target mothers of 7-9 year olds from young adults. The communication strategy is also being changed from a combination of health and fun to friendship moments (between mother and child) with fresh and healthy Maaza, he said.