Taal turns me off coca cola

So I just finished watching Subhash Ghai's Taal yesterday. I hadn't seen the movie in its entirety in years and much of the details were hazy in my mind (even if I did remember the highlights). I enjoyed watching it this time around, mostly for its timeless music. And Aishwariya is exceptionally attractive in the first half with bare minimal make-up. Anil Kapoor was fun to watch as well. But other than that, the movie was lackluster. The writing and editing were so-so and things seemed just a bit more incredible than usual. I guess Ghai is just earning his title of "Bollywood's Showman" (though his showmanship in recent times has been very dismal).

But the thing that really grabbed my attention was that fine role of the "Bottle of Coca Cola".


Now I am no stranger to product placement. The omnipresent BMW in every James Bond movie in recent memory comes to mind. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle is another excellent example (Can you just imagine? They take a draft of Harold and Kumar go to ______, to a bunch of fast food chains. The highest bidder gets to fill in the blank!).

But in Taal? The coke had more screen time (in quality and quantity) than most of the main supporting characters. It was so brazenly marketed that it appeared in at least 4 scenes (that I can remember) where it was the centerpiece. And each of these scenes lasted anywhere from 2-4 minutes! Thats way more than the length of the average coke commercial.

From the Indian Express archives

And most recently, Coca-Cola spent Rs 1 crore on sponsoring Subhash Ghai's recent film Taal, in which the brand name figures prominently in a scene.

In fact, Taal recovered its entire production cost even before its release thanks to corporate sponsorships in the form of surrogate advertisements. Apart from Coke, brands like Kenstar, BPL and the Manikchand group shelled out Rs 50 lakh each to pay for advertising that seemed embedded in the movie's storyline.

If Mukta Arts officials are to be believed, Ghai would have swapped a Coke bottle for a Pepsi if the latter so wanted. Ghai shot two bits of the movie - one with a bottle of Coke, the other with Pepsi and then showed the snippets to senior executives of both companies. Pepsi found Ghai's asking price way too high, Coke didn't, and the rest is movie history.

OK. So coke paid a shit ton of money at the outset But they reaped untold rewards in my opinion. Actually, considering how much screen time they got, they got a pretty good deal! Now their brand is forever immortalized in a classic bollywood blockbuster that will be watched and rewatched (unlike their tv ads) for years to come.

But for me? Their blatant declaration of "We had to sell out for the money. Please bear with us as another company's brand name is shoved down your throat multiple times with the subtlety of a bear in a china shop" kind of turned me off (What kind of bear you ask? A Panda of course!). Seeing every ninny on screen with two lips and half a brain sucking down the black fizz like it was the latest weight loss miracle didn't really do it for me. Yet I have no problems with BMWs or White Castle. I one day hope to be able to afford a BMW. I also hope to do a spoof on H&K involving mad photoshop skills while taking advantage of racial stereotypes (check that).

I'm pretty sure the number of people who were put off by this corporate whoring is a lot less compared to the number of people who thought "Hey Ash really likes coca cola. Maybe if I drink it she will have sex with me!". On the other hand I do have a slight preference for diet coke over diet pepsi. So maybe the tricky bastards got to me anyways.

Touche Coca Cola. Touche.

For a much better article on this subject check out this from the IIMC magazine. Its much better researched, better written and renders this entry null and void (save for my personal opinions/thoughts/feelings. These equate to nothing, I know).

What do you think about product placement in movies? Will we reach a day where like in the movie "The Truman Show" we will be able to buy most of the items shown on the show? Will I ever be able to buy that apartment in FRIENDS on the salary of a sous chef? Only time will tell.

(How did they afford this??)