Mumbai: Seagram’s Xclamat!on, Pernod Ricard’s latest launch, is turning heads with its innovative social media campaign aimed at engaging urban youth. The campaign brought the brand’s philosophy of living life in “Xclamat!ons” to life in a playful, interactive manner.
As part of the campaign, Seagram’s Xclamat!on Mixers partnered with popular keyboard app Bobble AI, which has 75 million monthly active users, to temporarily disable the “!” punctuation on users’ mobile keyboards for a day. Messages like “Good Morning” and “Hey” suddenly felt incomplete, driving curiosity and engagement across digital platforms.
Influencers including Kusha Kapila, Rahul Dua, Srishti Dixit, Tanmay Singh (Scout), and Mohak Narang joined in, posting humorous reactions to the missing exclamation mark, while #AddXclamat!onToLife quickly became the #1 trending topic on X.com India. Two days later, the “!” returned to the internet, marking the official launch of the brand and reinforcing its energetic persona.
Debasree Dasgupta, CMO, Pernod Ricard India, said, “Built into the brand name ‘Xclamat!on’ is the amped up energy that connects with its youthful target audience. The ! symbol is key to the brand and is expressed boldly right from its packaging to its communication. There’s a difference between saying just Hello and saying Hello! Adding the “!” makes all the difference. Taking Xclamat!on out of the equation makes you wonder what life without it would be like. What better way to get consumers to experience the essence of the brand? The consumer engagement is heartening, and our idea was to use creativity to unlock brand awareness and ultimately, business results.”
Prakash Nair, President, Ogilvy North, added, “While brainstorming, we asked ourselves: how do you make people feel the meaning of ‘Xclamat!on’? Simple – you take away their ‘!’ and suddenly every message feels flat. That tiny mark carries a world of emotion. Removing it became our fun, slightly mischievous way of showing the brand’s essence.”
Ajay Gupte, President, WPP Media South Asia, noted, “In just a few days, this idea captured the internet’s imagination, trending on X.com and driving sustained participation from young audiences. It’s a powerful testament to how meaningful creativity and smart media choices can come together to deliver disproportionate impact. The campaign didn’t just build awareness for the brand, it created a cultural moment that introduced the brand with excitement and scale, ensuring that a large part of our audience now knows about it.”
Ankit Prasad, CEO of Bobble AI, said, “This collaboration is a truly unique use of technology to bring the brand’s story to life, and the engagement we’ve seen across Bobble AI ecosystem has been remarkable. This is one of the most creative and highly synergistic campaigns for us, and we are excited to have rolled this out together.”
Renee Mitra, Executive VP Blink, added, “Tying in the role of the brand on this activation was the most important part. The youth are looking for conversations, and that’s where marketing like this really works, rather than pushing content to them.”
The campaign stands out as a creative, tech-driven approach to brand engagement, effectively turning a simple punctuation mark into a symbol of energy, expression, and cultural relevance.
Credits:
Client: Pernod Ricard India. Brand team – Debasree Dasgupta, Joydeep Basuroy, Tanvi Swami, Anandini Arora. Media & content team – Pierre De Greef, Shwetha Nair, Siddhartha Virkar, Bhavika Manchanda, Chandini Malla
Bobble AI: Ankit Prasad, Lovely Kukreja, Vikrant Awasthi, Kamal Matharoo, Anu Aswal, Mayur Agarwal
Creative Partner: Ogilvy India – Prakash Nair, Nitin Srivastava, Anuj Kala, Waebhav Yadav, Varun Shenoy, Tanya Khattar
Media and Content Partner: Wavemaker India – Ajay Gupte, Priyambada Choudhury, Aarti Bal, Abhishek Gupta, Navya Arora, Vaibhav Pankaj, Twameka Kumar, Sahejpreet Kohli, Priyanka Senapati
Social Media Partner: Blink Digital – Renee Mitra, Nicole Ferraz, Dia Kirpalani, Urvi Dalmia, Saadhak Malhotra, Yogesh Shirke, Anuj Rathod, Aishwarya Kadam
