It’s quite common for us to see the Nepali dubbed versions of the TVCs produced in India on television. The MNCs don’t bring the ad campaign ideas to make the ads especially for Nepal, but most of them just bring the TVC from India and simply dub it in Nepali instead. How convenient! As a result, those ads suck. Not trying to be mean, but they actually do. But honestly, we actually wonder where do they get those voice artists from who sound so much like Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor and other Indian celebrities who endorse those products and appear on the original ads.

Anyway, for a change, there’s now a campaign launched by Coca Cola in the Indian market that is inspired by a popular campaign in Nepal by the US-based soft drink company. FOR REAL.

A campaign called ‘celebrating relationships’ – the localised version of Share a Coke campaign – was launched by the Coca-Cola company in Nepal under the tagline Mann Kholaun Coke Sanga (Let’s open our hearts with Coke) in Dashain-Tihar of 2015. According to The Himalayan Times, Bottlers Nepal – the local bottler of Coca-Cola – had witnessed a considerable increase in sales following the launch of the campaign. During the campaign, Coke had replaced its logo with the labels of different relationships on its bottles. These labels featured 15 different relationship titles including buwa (father), aama (mother), didi (older sister), bahini (younger sister), dai (elder brother), bhai (younger brother) and saathi (friend), among others.

Coca-Cola has recently launched the campaign in India , and the brand name has been replaced with words like bhai (brother), didi (older sister), ma (mother) and papa , among others, on one side of the label. The company marked the beginning of the initiative by releasing a 40-second ad that features Bollywood actor Tahir Raj Bhasin who is known for his villainous roles in films like ‘Mardani’ and ‘Force 2’.

The ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, that came to Nepal almost around 3 years ago, actually dates back to 2011 when it was originally launched in Australia. The original concept didn’t have the relationship titles; instead, the Coke label had some of the most common names of the people in the country.

The campaign was a huge success; and as as result, the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign was replicated in over 70 countries. In its varying renditions, the Coca-Cola logo has so far been replaced by the names of people, countries, sports teams, song lyrics, and of course, the title of family members and relationships — the idea of which was pitched by Prisma Advertising in Nepal.

According to The Himalayan Times; Gaurav Ramdev, country marketing manager at the Coca-Cola Company India, who also looks after the Nepal market, said that as Nepal and India share similar culture, the campaign ‘celebrating relationships’ is expected to garner the same mass appeal that it generated in Nepal.

Well, there aren’t many examples of Nepali advertising campaigns grabbing the international attention; and we’re glad at least this one did.