In India soft drinks perhaps one of the most hard fought categories in all regards be it distribution, communication, media, events, pricing etc. almost every year it maintains a consistent position of being one of the top categories on television whereby making it phenomenally a competitive segment. During the world cup and the festive time in 2007, there was a clear and predictable pattern showing the two specific peaks of ad spend. Aerated drinks are one category which is heavily advertised in movies, music soaps and cricket.

Almost every year the cola companies take on as the official sponsors of World Cup- Cricket, therefore major part of advertisement cost is attributed to this category. The cola giants are also sponsoring other sports as wrestling and soccer. There is 10 per cent of advertising of aerated drinks concentration on music channels, whereas MTV and Channel V scores over other music channels. It is basically in the general interest segment that about 98 percent of advertising of aerated drinks is concentrated which is an interesting insight. On the contrary concentration of only 2 per cent advertising is on film magazines, business, youth, women, in-flight, education and career related magazines.

It is the media spend distribution pattern that is mostly followed by brands in the soft drink category. It is Coke and Pepsi that follow a different pattern. In order to avoid the ‘ad clutter’ or overlap of advertising messages the broad group of targets for the brands can be similar and could be reached through varied combinations of media vehicles. This however does not imply that the marketwise strategy would remain the same for each brand. It could be specific for each brand.