In the film Photograph, the character played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rafi, goes on a long search to find a lone factory that will let him buy Campa Cola, the impossible-to-find soft drink that is off the shelves, for his companion Miloni, played by Sanya Malhotra. She only drank Campa Cola with her grandfather as a child and Rafi was convinced he wanted to find her that soft drink as a keepsake of his willingness to seek the most difficult gift to reignite her childhood memory.
After searching hard, Rafi finds an old Parsi man who set up a Campa Cola factory because his wife loved it. If that film were to be remade some time from now, Rafi would not have to look so hard because the iconic Campa Cola is set for a mainstream comeback.
Reliance Industries (RIL) has acquired the brand as part of it strategy to scale up its FMCG business, according to a report by The Economic Times, quoting sources.
Reliance reportedly acquired the brand from Delhi-based Pure Drinks Group for about Rs 22 crore.
According to the report, RIL will relaunch the Campa brand nationally in the cola flavour to take on giants like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.
"Campa will be relaunched around Diwali through the Reliance Retail stores, JioMart and the over 15 lakh kiranas who buy products from Reliance's B2B network," an executive told the publication. "Eventually, it will be scaled up across the country when Reliance builds the FMCG distribution network."
Campa Cola was started in 1949 by Pure Drinks Group, the sole manufacturer and distributor of Coca-Cola in the 1970s. However, in 1977, Coca-Cola was forced out of India because of the run-ins it had with the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1973, aimed at protecting local businesses. To fill the void created by Coca-Cola's exit, Campa was introduced again with the slogan 'The Great Indian Taste'.
Campa flourished between the 1970s and 1990s in the absence of a foreign competitor. During the same period, Parle also introduced brands like Thums Up, Gold Spot and Limca. In the 1990s, Coca-Cola re-entered the market and acquired these famous brands from Parle, following which all local cola brands crumbled.