When we speak about Pepsi, military is probably the last word that would come to our mind. We’ve all read stories about how Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been on a Cola War, their brilliant marketing campaigns, but we may not know that for a brief period of time Pepsi had the 6th largest military in the world.
It all happened in the Cold War Era, and the U.S. President wanted the Russians to experience American culture and hence set-up a fair in Moscow in 1959. The then U.S. Vice President Nixon was sent as the American representative. And during the exhibition, the Soviet leader Khrushchev and Nixon had a heated argument and something came to their rescue.
The Vice President of Pepsi who was present at the fair offered a glass of the cool American soda to the Soviet Leader and that was the stepping stone to their marketing in the USSR. It became very popular and they striked a deal with Pepsi and thus it became the first western product to be sold there.
There was one major issue, this was in 1972 and that time there was no global currency, so what would be the medium of exchange? They offered to pay Pepsi with what they had in abundance- Russian Vodka! Fast forward to 1989, when the agreement for Pepsi had to be renegotiated, Vodka wasn’t the solution as Pepsi had invested a large amount in setting up manufacturing infrastructure and there was a ban on Russian products in the USA.
But the Russians loved their Pepsi too much and this time the Russians offered to pay with military equipment! And thus Pepsi was paid 17 submarines and more naval equipment for three billion dollars worth of Pepsi! And thus, this great exchange made them the 6th largest military power in the world.
Even though ultimately they had to sell the equipment to a Swedish company, the Pepsi chairman had reportedly told the US National Security Advisor that , “We are disarming the USSR faster than you”. It would have been another tale if they actually waged a military war on Coke instead of their perennial marketing war 😛
Image credits: Medium
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