Bisleri's Tushar Malhotra on why brand love doesn’t need complexity

At the e4m Neons OOH Conference 2025, Tushar Malhotra, Director Sales and Marketing at Bisleri International, captivated audiences with a compelling account of the brand's transformation journey, from a legacy water company to a powerful cultural force aligned with Gen Z, sports, and cinema.

Malhotra challenged the convention of product-centric marketing, urging brands to look inward and reimagine their consumer connections.

Understanding that hydration resonates deeply with Gen Z’s wellness-oriented mindset, Bisleri strategically aligned itself with sports. “How do you amplify hydration? The answer is simple: sports,” Malhotra stated. From being the official hydration partner for five IPL teams to launching crores of limited-edition team-branded bottles, Bisleri leveraged its core product to fuel athletic performance and brand love alike.

The formula extended to football, with seven Indian Super League teams onboarded, and even roped in Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor to lead an energetic campaign with football stars. From cricket to golf, table tennis, hockey, marathons in Ladakh and Ras Al Khaimah, and even chess, Bisleri positioned itself as a hydration ally across more than 30 sports and international events.

Taking its approach beyond the field, Bisleri forayed into cinema partnerships, targeting fandom at scale in Southern and national markets. The strategy was clear: limited-edition bottles featuring cultural icons. From Rajinikanth to Kamal Haasan, Chiranjeevi, and Prabhas, Bisleri’s bottles became collectible items during major film releases, triggering massive brand recall and consumer delight.

Post-campaign evaluations affirmed the impact, Bisleri ranked first in brand recall, followed by competitors, with the Bisleri-celebrity bottles emerging as a distinct recall factor.

This entertainment strategy scaled nationally, with stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Deepika Padukone, and Hrithik Roshan gracing bottles linked to blockbuster releases like Jawan, Tiger 3, Fighter, and Kalki. Even global franchises like Transformers and Gladiator 2 were part of the limited-edition lineup.

What stood out through Malhotra’s address was Bisleri’s unrelenting focus on “simplicity” as a guiding principle, applied to both sports and entertainment collaborations. “We have agility and scale to amplify movie releases,” he noted, citing the brand’s ability to sync 52 film-themed packs with weekly movie launches, driving in-store excitement and retailer engagement through POS materials.

Wrapping up with three minutes to spare, Malhotra’s message was clear: brand love doesn’t need complexity. It needs cultural insight, contextual relevance, and operational agility.

With hydration as the hero and pop culture as the bridge, Bisleri’s marketing playbook proves that legacy brands can thrive in modern narratives, by simply staying relevant.