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Vintage Cold Drink Ads from India


Plaintiff 
A simple fight over a Limca
Strategist
A Chairman who serves Limca to members of a bored meeting
Thirst - Aid - Limca.  It's so veri lemoni-lime

A Limca Ad from the 80s
The drink was often used as grandma's cure for acidity. Blame the emphasis on lime (and some thing called isotonic salts).
(check out old video ad for Limca featuring Salman Khan)







When you are Thirstee or Even Hungree
Drink ice - cold
It's Tastee
Energee ad from 80s

It's a Bombay (now Mumbai) based flavored milk drink produced by the Maharasthra State Diary Products company and apparently still very popular.This ad was part of the campaign that created the brand.

Double Seven
Lime-Lemon
The taste that Tingles!

Double Seven Ad from 80s. The brand, a government owned brand, was probably a substitute for Seven-Up. It eventually lost out to private brands like Thums Up and Campa Cola.
I found the copy for this ad really funny. Sample this:
Let me tell you about a fantastic new
way of enjoying yourself
It's called Tingling.
Tingling is like laughter,only it isn't
fattening.
Tingling brings a kind of attractive
gleam to your eyes and highlights the
fluttering of your eyelashes.
Tingling is irresistible. And you can 
do it anywhere.
You can Tingle at home. You can
Tingle at a party. You can even
Tingle with someone you love!
Now, if you are wondering: where are the giants of world cold drink industry - the Coca Cola and Pepsi ?- well, Pepsi gained entry to India only in 1988 and as for Coca Cola here is what happened:
According to one version Indian government threw the company out in 1977 and according to another version the company just walked out. Indian government wanted foreign companies to reduce their equity holdings in subsidiaries to 40%. The man widly believed responsible for all this commotion was socialist leader George Fernandes, Minister of Industries at the time in Morarji Desai headed Janata Party goverment that had recently defeated Indira Gandhi lead Congress that was suffering from public backlash for enforcing Emergency. Interestingly, these companies were booted out under FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act) that was enacted by Indira Gandhi. Fernandes claimed Coca Cola was making  a large profit of 10-15 million rupees annually on an initial investment of only 600,000 rupees. According to him, "[...] 90 percent of India's villages did not have safe drinking water, whereas Coke had reached every village[...]".
Cola Cola showed interest in complying and restructuring but refused to part with its secret formula for coke syrup. Coca Cola pulled out/ got booted out. Another company that walked out/got kicked out was (just pre-computer revolution days) IBM.

And so Campa Cola, Thums Up (ad from 80s here), Limca, Gold Spot (watch old tv ad) and many other government owned entities got to rule the soft drink roost in India. Most of these brands vanished (Campa Cola, Gold Spot ) or got adsorbed (Thums Up, Limca) when the giants returned to India in the early 1990s.

Also, it was under these conditions that certain ribald jokes were doing the rounds in India, circulated through Joke Books of  Khushwant Singh, jokes like:

"What does Morarji Desai say when he serves the Prime Minister of Pakistan?
Answer: Coffee? Tea? Or Pee?

-0-

Update Contains no fruit juice or fruit pulp (Somehow it always makes fruit juice and fruit pulp seem bad):


Break Away! From The CommonPlace

Sprint. Clearly Above the Ordinary!
Agency: Lintas

Sprint, a cold drink brand from the 80s. Notice the eStraw. You were supposed to pour the cold drink in an nice glass, open the fridgerator, take out some ice cubes, add them glass and then sip on a straw. It was quite a ritual in the 80s. It was Thums Up that put an end to the straw cult.




Now some Milk drinks from 80s. Notice the eStraw. It's probably the only space were the straws still thrive for lack of a better alternative (although there have been attempts to dislodge the estaws from this space too).



Do something different! Great Shake!
It's the smashin' new taste in town
unlike anything you've ever had before
Yummy.Smooth.Scrumptious.
In three wow flavours that'll leave you
singin', shakin' and screamin' for more.
Dreamy Strawberry.Mmm Mango. And lip-smakin' Chocolate.
Great Shake.
Just one sip will get your toes tappin'


However, this product was soon re-launched as a health drink.

Introducing Great Shake 
The Food Drink
With the Goodness of Soya
The In-between Meals Meal
Great Shake.
The new rich and creamy soyamilk
shake in the ready-to-drink pack.
In four delicious flavours.
Strawberry. American Ice Cream.
Mango. And Chocolate.So the next time you're feeling a little empty, and it's not quite mealtime, reach for an ice-cold Great Shake.

Great Shake

Made from Soya The World's Richest Source of Natural Protein

(Agency:Enterprise)

-0-
Thril Ad from 80s featuring Rati Agnihotri

-0-
Check out rest of the ads in from the series here

Comments

  1. there was also a brand of cold drink by the name of RUSH THRIL & SPRINT just after Double Seven end in 1980-81. The brand owned dy Mc Dowell, do have any ad or info of this product.
    M.Sufian
    sufi_riyadh@in.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sufian,
    Thanks for the comment! I do have an ad of Sprint. Will update this post with that ad soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the ad update so soon i dnt expt it so quek Thanks once agian.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sprint was often mistaken for a harddrink.. I remember as a kid when my dad didnt allow me to have Sprint at a restaurant,

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dipen, cold drinks with 'S' name and 'Gin' color often led to such situations.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow, I remember my parents took me to India in 1990 and I used to love drinking Sprint and Gold Spot. I liked Sprint better than Sprite and Gold Spot was much better than Fanta.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Do you remember a mixed fruit drink called SOMA. It used to come in small sachets and was around Rs. 2/- each. This was around the same time when Rasna became popular in 1980's/

    ReplyDelete
  8. There was another sugary orange drink which I loved which came in small plastic sachets - Rasika! Admittedly it was cheaply produced and one out a ten drinks could well give you a diarrhea or stomach cramps... but meh... who cared for those small things back in the days! :D

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the informative article increases my knowledge. I really appreciate the work done by author.
    TV Advertisement Agency in Indore

    ReplyDelete
  10. there was another cold drink by the name of tripp and a tetra pack drink by the name of tree top in late 80s.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Yes.. and a wonderful ad wherein the girl and guy pass through a revolving door of, I guess a restaurant!
      And the jingle went "
      Tripp... Lemon flavor, a little more something..."

      Delete
    2. I remember most of the jingle by heart.. "you know you are ready for a little more in life. A little more daring, a little more excitement, a little more of the taste of real life. Tripp! Lemon flavor. A little more heady with a little more tang.. A little more of the taste of real life.
      What's tripp got that the others have not. It's got a little bit *click click* (vocal sound) MORE!!!

      Delete
    3. I used to trip on the tripp ad jingle. Possibly sing by Sharon Prabhakar. Husky voice, naughtiness, appealing for the teens and the lyrics and tune were unique, snappy and fun. I kind of remember all of it. Here goes.. "you know you are ready for a little more in life. A little more daring, a little more excitement, a little more of the taste of real life.
      TRIPP! Lemon flavor, a little tangy, a little more style, a little more grown up like you (my favorit line, back then)
      What's TRIPP for that the others have not?
      It's got a little *click click* (sound made with clicking of tongue) MORE!!!

      I found this ad do appealing.

      Delete
    4. I've been searching the net for that Tripp ad a long time! Glad that some more people remember it

      Delete
    5. Yes, one jingle Tripp can't forget ever.
      Surprised that no one claims the credit of creating such a nice one.

      Delete
  11. After the success of Rasna another me-too brand was launched called FENIA. But didn't do well. Does anyone have TV ad of THRIL featuring mithun & Rati?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Does anyone remember Tinglr. It was like Limca and I even remember the logo. Cannot find it anywhere on the worldwide web

    ReplyDelete

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