Heading #BackToSchool, Pepsi celebrates Friendship's day!

This Friendship’s Day, take a trip down memory lane with PepsiCo’s digital campaign #BackToSchool, launched recently with a heart-warming video that celebrates the joy of togetherness. The video, launched over the weekend, has been creating waves, bringing friends together by urging them to share their most cherished memories with their school buddies. The campaign has reached out to over 10 million users across the web in just four days since its launch and the video has over 5.5 lakh views and more than 2.5 lakh shares.

Advertising maestro and popular author, Anuja Chauhan, who helped conceptualized the video, says, “The school farewell is a rite of passage that's been neglected in advertising. It's a day of looking forward, as well as of looking back, when you’re hopeful, excited and extremely nervous. People think teenagers are too young to experience nostalgia – but they do! Am glad tiffin-chors across age groups want to go #BACKTOSCHOOL”

As you hit play, you see four young friends Ranvir, Arjun, Manjot and Meeta, celebrating their passing out from school, looking back at the journey of how they became friends, and built not only memories, but relationships that will last a lifetime. You see them party their way through the farewell, sharing bottles of Pepsi and sneaking Lay’s from each other’s packets, just like decade old buddies. They go down memory lane as they walk through the corridors and classrooms reliving the makings of their special bond. You see them in the playground, for one last swing on the merry-go-round, as they look forward to their future and how they know they will continue to cross paths as they go through life.

The four best pals in this video see no boundaries to their friendship even on their last day of school. And the strain goes “School Khatam Ho Raha Hai… dosti nahi!” brought to life by Anuja Chauhan’s magical lyrics and a very hummable, almost anthem-like melody by Vipin Mehra.

So sing along as you share incorruptible memories from school like a #ClassPhoto from the good old days, scribbling day anecdotes from the #LastSchoolDay, your cherished moments with your #SchoolBesties, even your favourite #GetOutofTheClass story and the awesome #MySchoolCanteen food.

PepsiCo India’s Head of PO1 Digital Marketing, Rishi Dogra says, “They say, your best friends are the ones you made back in school and they are irrevocably tied up in your life stories. This friendship day, we wanted to celebrate those unbreakable bonds you share with your best buddies. Our campaign with Pepsi and Lay’s forms a beautiful backdrop, sparking a vibe that makes you relive those amazing moments you spent with your school friends. This video is just the starting point and we hope it takes you #BackToSchool and spurs you to share those memories with us and   your closest friends.”

Directed by Abhishek Kapoor of Kai Po Che fame, the video tugs at nostalgia, mesmerizingly capturing the vibrant journey of a group of friends who eat together, grow together, play together, sharing a lifetime of memories as they go through school, finally preparing to face the real world, but not without their ‘buddies’. The video has been written by Anuja Chauhan and while the production company was Firecracker.

Commenting on the campaign, filmmaker and director of the video, Abhishek Kapoor says, “The friends we make breathe life into every moment and keep them special over a lifetime. I've cherished these bonds most dearly. As a filmmaker, it's always special to be able to translate these emotions into a storyline and evoke a joyful déjà-vu that takes us down memory lane and brings us back with a smile.”