Pepsi plans to rope in the childhood story of the worlds fifth most powerful women,Indra Nooyi, into its advertising campaign.I believe after all the pesticide issue this advertisement would be an attempt to get an sympathetic corner in the minds of the consumer via pepsi's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ventures.
It shows how at the age of 5 the current CEO used to wake up at dawn to fill buckets of water.It links her vision of finding more ways to generate water and how PepsiCo is making a difference with its water harvesting activities in Indian villages.What sounded weird to em in this article was that it that water is an issue close to Ms Nooyi’s heart.She has been quoted as saying she still feels guilty filling a bathtub with water. She has stated publicly that she and her family used to wake up in the early hours to fill every bucket in the house, and they had to learn to live off two buckets of water.Now its well known that the manufacturing units setup by these cola companies are one of the major reasons of depleting water resources in their vicinity.
One of the best examples is the coke unit in village of Plachimada in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Plachimada is a farming village of about 800 families, many of them tribal.This unit alone for its massive operation requires a lot of water: around one and a half million litres of groundwater per day in fact. That’s five times the amount of water that ends up in the bottles.
Quote from the website ecologist "A year after Coca-Cola arrived, the water in the local wells turned a strange colour, and villagers began complaining of fever, stomach pains, headaches and diarrhoea. Child mortality rates also increased suddenly. It was as late as August last year that the district medical officer eventually told the people of Plachimada that their water was toxic and unsafe for drinking. Now all 800 families have no choice but to make a four-kilometre round trip on foot, twice daily, to collect water from outside the toxic zone."
This does give an idea as to why cola companies are looking for new ways to generate water that to under the umbrella of activities concerning social cause.This is the reason i find this ad so contrasting , since they are the very people who have contributed in a big way to this water crisis .But on a positive note its nice to see that the MNC companies are at least looking for options to compensate for the harm they have done to the society.
It shows how at the age of 5 the current CEO used to wake up at dawn to fill buckets of water.It links her vision of finding more ways to generate water and how PepsiCo is making a difference with its water harvesting activities in Indian villages.What sounded weird to em in this article was that it that water is an issue close to Ms Nooyi’s heart.She has been quoted as saying she still feels guilty filling a bathtub with water. She has stated publicly that she and her family used to wake up in the early hours to fill every bucket in the house, and they had to learn to live off two buckets of water.Now its well known that the manufacturing units setup by these cola companies are one of the major reasons of depleting water resources in their vicinity.
One of the best examples is the coke unit in village of Plachimada in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Plachimada is a farming village of about 800 families, many of them tribal.This unit alone for its massive operation requires a lot of water: around one and a half million litres of groundwater per day in fact. That’s five times the amount of water that ends up in the bottles.
Quote from the website ecologist "A year after Coca-Cola arrived, the water in the local wells turned a strange colour, and villagers began complaining of fever, stomach pains, headaches and diarrhoea. Child mortality rates also increased suddenly. It was as late as August last year that the district medical officer eventually told the people of Plachimada that their water was toxic and unsafe for drinking. Now all 800 families have no choice but to make a four-kilometre round trip on foot, twice daily, to collect water from outside the toxic zone."
This does give an idea as to why cola companies are looking for new ways to generate water that to under the umbrella of activities concerning social cause.This is the reason i find this ad so contrasting , since they are the very people who have contributed in a big way to this water crisis .But on a positive note its nice to see that the MNC companies are at least looking for options to compensate for the harm they have done to the society.
