Pepsi's Salman double-role summer film hit 250M impressions and a meme fest

Create 'pathbreaking storytelling' distinctive enough to cut through a space where many brands compete, running across television, digital and the Indian Premier League.

Written by Devaiah Bopanna, Puneet Chadha and Deep Joshi — the team behind CRED's most-debated ads — and directed by Ayappa KM, the film took almost three months and paired writing craft with technology; media buying by GroupM put it inside IPL broadcasts, and the brand seeded meme templates to amplify it.

Around 250 million digital impressions by early April 2022 (per the brand), a wave of organic and paid memes, and viral tweets calling it 'trippy' and 'some different level only'.

Pepsi's 2022 summer campaign in India starred Salman Khan in an unconventional double role — 'a double dose' of the superstar — blending nostalgia, technology and quirk. PepsiCo India Category Lead for Cola Saumya Rathor told exchange4media the goal was 'an unskippable ad that is disruptive with pathbreaking storytelling', in a season where 'a lot of brands are competing in the space and we wanted to be distinctive'.

The film came from the creative team behind CRED's most-debated advertising: written by Devaiah Bopanna, Puneet Chadha and Deep Joshi, directed by Ayappa KM. Viewers immediately noticed the stylistic kinship — one viral tweet during IPL asked 'How are people not talking about the new @PepsiIndia ad... Subtle wala CRED ad bana diya'. Rathor said the nostalgia-plus-double-role idea came from the creative team, not the brand, and that the film took almost three months, showcasing creativity 'in terms of writing but also using technology'.

The distribution plan was as deliberate as the film: TV and digital, with IPL as the high-impact anchor ('Our TG definitely watches the league'), media bought by GroupM, and meme marketing with real budget behind it — though Rathor noted content creators and meme pages then picked up the templates organically. The brand counted around 250 million digital impressions by the time e4m published its making-of in early April 2022.

Casting Bollywood's nostalgia anchor in a double role gave the film a built-in conversation: which Salman is which, and why.

Hiring the CRED writers imported an audience that already debates ads — the premise felt designed for quote-tweets before it aired.

IPL placement put the film in front of a mass audience in a format built for repetition, feeding both reach and meme production.

Engineer for the meme: cast the nostalgia, hire writers the internet already argues about, and push the first template — then let the crowd run.

By early April 2022 the film had logged roughly 250 million digital impressions, spawned organic and brand-seeded memes, and continued running across television, digital and IPL broadcasts through the summer.