As Fanta comes up with Rang Ja, a celebration song for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, Piyush Pandey and Arnab Roy tell us all about the colorful campaign

• Fanta, from the house of Coca-Cola, has come up with a celebration song for the ongoing ICC Men's T20 World Cup called Rang Ja.
• The campaign, Colorful fans, is in line with the global campaign Colorful People launched earlier this year.
• We caught up with Arnab Roy, Vice President and Head-Marketing, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia and Piyush Pandey, Chairman Global Creative & Executive Chairman India, Ogilvy who told us all there is to know about the campaign.

Fanta, the colorful, fruity beverage from the house of Coca-Cola recently announced its partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. To commemorate this partnership, the brand has rolled out a new campaign called ‘Colourful Fans’, in line with its global campaign ‘Colorful People’, which is a celebration song for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

The campaign, which comes on the back of Fanta’s refreshed positioning aims at celebrating the vibrancy of life and connect with every kind of audience - those who are young & also those who choose to stay ‘young at heart’ forever.

The campaign has been conceptualized by the brand’s long-term creative partner, Ogilvy. he Celebration song is titled ‘Rang Ja’ and is created by Music composer Dub Sharma partnering with Indian Idol participant Poorvi Koutish. It features Superfans - Wives and Girlfriends of Cricketers; Dhanashree Verma (wife of Yuzvendra Chahal), Natasha Stankovic (Hardik Pandya’s wife), Sanjana Ganesan (wife of Jasprit Bumrah), Jassym Russel (Andre Russel’s wife), Erin Holland (Ben Cutting’s wife). This is the first time, the Company has associated with die-hard fan groups like Bharat Army, Barmy Army, etc & Deepika Ghose, Sachini Nipunsala from Sri Lanka. The video has been shot across eight different locations around the world - Australia, London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sri Lanka, Bombay and Delhi with more than half of the footage shot on a phone. The Celebration Song will be released in five languages, namely, Hindi, Telegu, Kannada, Tamil and Sinhala.

To understand what the campaign is all about, we spoke to Arnab Roy, Vice President and Head-Marketing, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia and Piyush Pandey, Chairman Global Creative & Executive Chairman India, Ogilvy.

Fanta’s global campaign last year titled Colorful People which came after a hiatus of almost 4 years was all about celebrating colourful people and encouraging playfulness. When it came to making a version of the ad targeted at India, “Fanta has always stood as an antidote to a world that is dark and grey. It is bubbly, always smiling, extremely playful and colorful. After the global campaign, we realized India was one country where the idea fits perfectly. There’s probably no other country that worships and enjoys the power of color as much as India does. It was a beautiful fit,” said Roy.

Speaking about why the campaign is special to him, Piyush took us back to his life in Rajasthan. He said, “I was born and brought up in Rajasthan which is a state of colors. Nature did not give Rajasthan color, it didn’t give it greenery or blue lakes. Rather it gave it a desert and harsh temperatures. So what did Rajasthan do? What nature didn’t give it, it gave itself through colors. It’s not for nothing that you see so much color in their attire, their music and in their way of living. Having said that, if you go anywhere in this country, it is all about colors. So I think Fanta’s positioning is great, it suits our country phenomenally. We are people who are known to come out of drudgery with resilience to bounce back, to me that is color. And our song is all about adding color to people’s lives after the tough times we’ve faced.”

Piyush has always been very vocal about his love for cricket, so was it doubly special to work on this campaign? “It was very exciting for me. Cricket is in my blood, and color is where I was born and Fanta is something I have grown up with, so what more can one want,” he asked with a laugh.

In terms of media mix, the campaign will be social-first. “This was an opportune moment for us to try out things which all of us know that the consumers are moving into, but have not experimented with. We first launched the audio last week and then launched the video yesterday. But for the time during which the ICC World Cup is going on, you will see us experiment a lot, with music streaming channels and social media platforms. We will also work extensively with influencers. All the people that we've taken are either proper or micro influencers and for all of us, it’ll be a good opportunity to learn. While we understand we need to invest more in digital, we’ll know this time because we're going to take it very seriously and put in some big money behind it as to what the impact is, whether it's improving our overall brand health scores, what's the spontaneous recall, both of the brand as well as of the ad campaign. That would be the first phase and we will follow it up with another small piece on Fanta,” shared Roy. Revealing a trivia, Roy also said that close to 60% of the campaign had been shot on a phone.

This is also perhaps the first time that the brand is launching a campaign in the fourth quarter. On why they were comfortable going against the norm of advertising during the summer months, Roy said, “As the brand matures, we want to be open to not being active just in the summer months. India is a seasonal market and it's an opportunity for us to do some interesting things even in the fourth quarter, and it happens all around the world. We’ll see what the impact on the brand is after we finish this leg but we’re clear about one thing, you cannot be off investments on some of your large brands. Fanta is an extremely important brand for us. And at the end of the day, if you don't feed the brand, it will get hungry and start faltering. And that’s why we had to come back.”

On what is that one thing about the campaign that he loves and feels people will instantly connect with, Piyush said, “I’ve always loved the idea of the personality of a campaign, and the personality of Rang Ja is that its immersed in colors and in spreading happiness. There’s no gyaan here, its just a behavior we are encouraging and for a brand to do this, to be able to spread happiness and bring a smile to people’s face, is the most exciting thing for me.”

The roll out of the campaign and the Celebration Song includes a music distribution partnership with Universal Music along with making the Celebration Song available on digital streaming platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Saavn, Apple Music, Prime Music, and other leading platforms. The song will also be aired on leading radio stations. The campaign will rope in digital influencers to collaborate and try out the innovative AR filters, dance filters and challenge other influencers to try out these filters and share their renditions with their fans.