Thursday, July 31, 2008

Pepsi vs Coca : the mother of all Arab stars

Boycotted until the beginning of the 90’, Coca is still running behind Pepsi in the Middle East with only 35% of the market shares. Although the area is priceless for soft drink producers, with a terrific demography of (presumably) non-alcoholic young drinkers, Pepsi should keep leading the run.

A few days ago, Pepsi launched its last advertising campaign for the area. Sea of stars (بحر النجوم), the first promotional full-length arab movie, has been released, simultaneously in many arab countries. Not a great event on the artistic side, the movie could be nonetheless a hit thanks to the participation of five famous stars of Arab pop music.

At a time US policy in the area does not use anymore the expression anymore but, instead, new concepts like “the Muslim world” (what could it be !!!) or “the New Middle East’, it is interesting to note that Pepsi advertising campaign focuses on something called the “Arab world”.

Otherwise, what could be the explanation of a such a casting gathering, around the leading sexy Lebanese trio (Haifa Wehbe, Carole Samaha and Wael Kfoury), an “oriental” singer (Ruwaida Al Mahrooqi) and another one (Ahmed El Cherif) from Maghreb (meaning "Occident" in arabic) ?

A remark which leads to another reading of the movie pitch : indeed, the forgotten island which needs a new impulse for its future, it is, of course, the Arab world. United, this world will be able to face up to its destiny. Of course under Pepsi umbrella!

The more elaborated post in French following that link and the moovie trailer

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