Pepsi's social distancing campaign Salaam-Namaste garners over 70,000 user-generated videos in 24 hours

Pepsi and brand ambassador and superstar Salman Khan launched a digital campaign on TikTok and Instagram last week to inspire the world that greeting each other with salaam/namaste is a perfect way to ensure social distancing and yet maintain connections responsibly.

The video has created a new record on the video-sharing platform in India by receiving over 70,000 user-generated videos in 24 hours. The brand cumulatively generated 3.8 lakh videos during the campaign, surpassing all records set in India for any branded challenge by the video-sharing platform.

The #SwagStepChallenge, aiming at encouraging people to use traditional greetings like salaam and Namaste, has garnered 17 billion views across TikTok and Instagram.

The campaign, started by brand ambassador and Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was carried forward in India and across the globe by popular personalities such as Bollywood stars Jacqueline Fernandes and Riteish Deshmukh;  rising star of the Indian women’s national cricket team Shafali Verma; Australian cricketer David Warner, and ace batsman AB de Villiers. Reality TV stars such as Sidharth Shukla, Shehnaaz Gill, Asim Riyaz and Himanshi Khurana were also seen grooving to the tune and encouraging their social media family to practice social distancing.  Bollywood star and man-of-the-hour in India, Sonu Sood also joined the campaign and encouraged people to adopt contactless greetings.