CASE 39

Cola Wars

Jagadri is a dusty town in the hinterlands of North India in the state of Haryana, whose 60,000 citizens get by on a combination of farming and trading. This out-of-the-way place seems an unlikely forum for a marketing war between multinational corporations. But that’s what has been going on there for the past 18 months. The combatants are PepsiCo Inc., and Coca-Cola Co., each of which claims over 50 per cent of Jagadri’s soft-drink market.

THE CLASH

The soft drink market till early 1990s was in the hands of domestic players like Campa, Thums Up, Limca, etc. but with the opening up of the economy and coming of MNC players, Pepsi and Coke, the market has come totally under their control. Pepsi entered the Indian market in 1991, ...

Get Cases in Rural Marketing now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.