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The cricket icon, Sachin Tendulakar who have been a brand ambassador of soft drinks major Pepsi since 90s, was dropped by the company. The decision came on the backdrop of Pepsi axing the other two members of the Indian batting troika - Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly - earlier this year.

“The decision was also influenced in a big way by the premium amount demanded by the batting maestro,” the sources added.

The Pepsi contract with Sachin, who is earning Rs 3-4 crore from Pepsi every year through promotions and ads, was expired in May.

A company source said that he had not “got back” to a request to “lower his price” for renewing his contract, which expired around two months back.

Pepsi had made it clear its intention to go with youngsters as part of a new campaign for 2008, ‘Yeh hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan; and roped in Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma while dropping Dravid and Ganguly.

Other insiders said the Master Blaster had asked for a “huge” hike. “We went back to the drawing board to see if it made more sense to put money on young cricketers who fit into our Youngistan campaign than shell out a huge sum for someone like Sachin,” the source said.

Tags: Cricket, Dravid, Ganguly, Pepsi, Rahul Dravid, Sachin, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Youngistan

Indian cricketers Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid are dropped by pepsi as its brand ambassadors and the two emerging cricketers Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma are signed in place of them, as told by Sandeep Singh Arora PepsiCo India Executive Vice President, Marketing(Cola).

“The new campaign targets the youth of the nation, not only youngsters but also people young at heart.’Youngistaan’ represents a never failing attitude, desire to take on challenges and the power to turn things around,” Arora said.

No final decision is disclosed about master blaster Sachin Tendulkar, who has been Pepsi’s brand ambassador for a long time. While Ganguly and Dravid have been dropped from the one-day team, on Tendulkar who is a part of the team, Arora said, “It would be inappropriate to talk about him at this point of time.”

As Ishant and Rohit are the emerging stars in cricket at present and showing appreciable performances in the ongoing Tri-Series in Australia, Pepsi decided to take them in.

Their new decision is a part of the company’s focus to position Pepsi as a youth brand, for which it has also kicked off its new campaign for 2008, ‘Yeh hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan’.

Tags: Dravid, Ganguly, India, Pepsi