ThumsUp ft. Allu Arjun

A hand with a heavy ring twists the cap off a glass bottle and the fizz catches the light. The man holding it looks up through a curtain of hair and beard, somewhere dark and blue with lightning going off behind him, and asks whether you have got it. Then he drinks, lowers the bottle and tells you who he is. Thunder.

Thums Up ft. Allu Arjun is the 15-second film that brought the star of Pushpa into what Thums Up calls its thunderverse. It went out on 14 November 2024, three weeks before Pushpa 2: The Rule opened, under Ogilvy India's campaign line Thunder Hai Main. Atul Kattukaran directed it for First December Films.

At a glance

• Brand: Thums Up (Coca-Cola India)
• Agency: Ogilvy India
• Production house: First December Films
• Director: Atul Kattukaran
• Featuring: Allu Arjun
• Campaign: Thunder Hai Main
• Launch: 14 November 2024, after a silhouette teaser on 7 November
• Running time: 15 seconds
• Languages: Telugu and Hindi versions, with an English-captioned cut on Allu Arjun's own channel

The brief

Thums Up has sold itself on strength for fifty years: strong taste, toofan, thunder. Its ambassadors are the biggest stars in the country, and in late 2024 the biggest story in Indian cinema was Allu Arjun, whose Pushpa 2: The Rule was due on 5 December and expected to be the year's largest release. Thums Up signed him, and needed a way to announce it that felt like an event rather than a logo swap.

Sumeli Chatterjee, Category Head for Sparkling Flavours at Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia, said the brand was "setting the stage to keep our consumers on the edge of their seats" for December. Ritu Sharda, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy, put the creative ambition in one line: "Allu Arjun joins the thunderverse and announces it in his own inimitable style."

That is a brief with a very specific trap. The audience already knows the star. A film that explains him, or gives him a plot, wastes the fifteen seconds. The film had to do what a fan expects from him and what the brand needs from him at the same time, in one look and one drink.

The idea: the announcement is the man

There is no story, no product demonstration and no supporting cast. The whole film is Allu Arjun, a bottle, and weather.

• A close-up of the cap coming off. A ringed hand, a glass bottle, foam rising in the neck.
• He looks up at the camera through his hair, bottle held loosely at chest height. Behind him, blue smoke and a flash of lightning.
• A line to camera. On the English-captioned cut it is two words: got it?
• He drinks. A long pull, head back, lightning again.
• He lowers the bottle, looks straight down the lens and claims the title. I am Thunder.
• Final frame: the bottle thrust at the camera, foam spraying out of the neck, and the Telugu super Maname aa Thunder beside the Thums Up logo.

That is the entire script. It works because the brand's idea and the star's persona are the same word. Thums Up has called its drinkers thunder for years. Allu Arjun, in Pushpa, is the definition of a man who does not back down. Put him in the frame and the claim makes itself. Nobody has to say strong taste; the drink and the lightning say it.

Fifteen seconds, one performer, one bottle, one word. The film is a title card for a partnership, and it plays like a scene from the movie.

Directing a star in fifteen seconds

The craft here is restraint. The camera stays close and low, so Allu Arjun fills the frame and the audience is looking up at him. He is never asked to do more than look, drink and speak once. The Pushpa silhouette, the long hair, the beard and the olive jacket, is kept intact, so the film reads as the character his fans came for without ever naming the film.

Hair stylist Aalim Hakim and make-up artist Maniasha, both credited on the sheet, are there to hold that silhouette exactly. Costume stylist Kazim Delhiwala dressed him in the rough olive jacket and open collar that the frames are built around. Everything is arranged so that the first frame of the star is already the poster.

The shoot

Satchith Paulose shot it on a dark set lit in blue, with hard practical flares behind the star and lightning built in later. Art director Avinash Kolla's space is deliberately nowhere: stone pillars, smoke, a floor that catches the light. It is not Pushpa's forest and not a Thums Up bar. It is the thunderverse, and it exists only for these fifteen seconds.

The bottle got its own department. A product specialist, Onkur Khan, and a food stylist, Payal Gupta, are credited, because in a film this short the cap, the fizz and the final spray of foam are three of the six shots. The bottle has to be cold, wet and lit like a jewel every time.

The credit sheet also has sync sound by Royston, which matters: the two lines are delivered live to camera and the film wants his actual voice, not a dub.

Post

Ravi Khandelwal cut the film, Vineesh Vijayan graded it, and Rohit Padwal at After Studios handled the online, including the lightning that punctuates each beat. The grade is a single idea: everything blue and black except the red of the Thums Up label and the amber of the drink, so the bottle is the warmest thing in every frame. Tilak Goswami composed the music and did the sound design and mix at Boing Recording Studios, building the lightning and the fizz into a track that peaks on the last line.

Where it sat in the campaign

• 7 November 2024: A silhouette teaser on the Thums Up channel, Thunder is coming soon, released the day after the Pushpa 2 trailer.
• 14 November 2024: The reveal film goes live on the Thums Up channel in Telugu and on Allu Arjun's own channel with English captions, under the hashtags Thunder Hai Main and AA ka Thunder.
• Mid to late November 2024: Launch coverage in Exchange4media, Best Media Info, Deccan Chronicle, Medianews4u, MediaBrief and Adgully, with special-edition Allu Arjun cans announced.
• 5 December 2024: Pushpa 2: The Rule releases.
• 26 December 2024: First December Films publishes its cut.

This was not First December Films' first Thums Up job. Earlier in 2024 the same team made the Thums Up Toofan film for Ogilvy, also directed by Atul Kattukaran.

What the film proves

This is the reference to reach for when a brief needs any of the following:

• a star announcement that plays like a scene rather than a press release
• a 15-second film carried entirely by one performer and one product
• a bottle shot to a beverage-category standard: cap, fizz, pour and spray
• a look built from lighting, smoke and grade instead of a location
• a film timed to a movie release and cut to run in Telugu and Hindi

See more of our work, the director's reel and credits, or send us a script and a date.

Credits

• Client: Thums Up, Coca-Cola India
• Agency: Ogilvy India
• Production house: First December Films
• Director: Atul Kattukaran
• Executive Producer: Ganesh Pareek
• Senior Producer: Imran Patel
• Producer: Ankit Singh
• Director of Photography: Satchith Paulose
• Art Director: Avinash Kolla
• Offline Editor: Ravi Khandelwal
• Grade: Vineesh Vijayan
• Online: Rohit Padwal, After Studios
• Music and Sound: Tilak Goswami
• Featuring: Allu Arjun