Coca Cola India takes pitches from PR specialists for content creation

 15th January 2015    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

Coca Cola India is in the process of taking pitches for what Deepak Jolly, Vice President, public affairs and communications, Coca-Cola India describes as PR for “specific things” and is looking for a “sparkling centre”, referring to communication mandates.

Kamlesh Sharma, Director, public affairs and communication, Coca-Cola India & South West Asia, told PRmoment India that, “At this point what I can tell you is that we have initiated conversations with some communication specialists which can help us create and disseminate content that generates two way consumer and stakeholder conversations.”

Sharma adds that, “This will include content that can be used on a proactive as well as reactive basis. The brief for these specialists is to create content that is “liquid and linked”. “Liquid” so that it travels through traditional and new age mediums and “linked” to the core values of the company and its brands.”

Sharma also clarified that, “As regards to the existing work, Perfect Relations continues to be our agency on Record. We however remain open to new and exciting ideas, regardless of who brings it to the table.”

Perfect Relations has recently been in on and off talks with buyers including MSLGROUP and even an offer by Perfect Relations founder, Bobby Kewalramani to buy out his co-founder Dilip Cherian.

Ever since Coca Cola entered the Indian market in 1993, the beverage giant has enjoyed massive attention both from Indian consumers and from marketers for the so–called ‘Cola wars’ with Pepsi, fought through aggressive ad campaigns.

Now that the scope of advertising is moving into integrated marketing which increasingly includes PR and content, it would make sense for Coca Cola to move content to a central communication plank.

One of the PR challenges Coca Cola faces at the moment is the cutting down of its work force in India by an estimated 4 to 5 percent, as part of a global initiative by the Atlanta based company to cull its employees.

In the last two years, Coca Cola has done interesting campaigns such as the interactive vending machine between India and Pakistan and the school initiative with NDTV.