NEW DELHI: One brand you may have seen the most during the ongoing Cricket World Cup could be Coca-Cola, but its arch-rival PepsiCo clearly doesn’t want to miss the frenzy, and helping it is an 87-year-old.PepsiCo has signed vuvuzela-blowing octogenarian Indian cricket fan Charulata Patel, whose fan moment photos and videos with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in Birmingham the other day have gone viral on the internet, as the latest face of its ‘swag’ campaign.Pepsi — which created the country’s most memorable example of ambush marketing with its ‘Nothing Official About It’ campaign during the 1996 World Cup — will have Patel as a ‘swag star’ through the ongoing world cup in England and Wales.“Pepsi is honoured to bring the story of the unassailable swag of Charulata Patel,” a PepsiCo spokesperson said. “Her passion for the game shows the world that age is no bar when it comes to living life in the moment.”He said brand Pepsi will collaborate with Patel to “pay tribute to the spirit of the Indian cricket fan”. Patel is shooting for the Pepsi ads this week itself, and the ads are expected to be across different media including television and digital.Rival Coca-Cola is a frontline global official sponsor of the ICC World Cup.It shelled out an estimated Rs 300 crore for five years . Now, observers are keenly watching if PepsiCo — whose ambush advertising campaign in 1996 had led the International Cricket Council (ICC) to draw fresh guidelines for marketing contracts — would be able to steal the official sponsor’s thunder yet again. “It’s a smart and interesting take; after a long time something bold is happening in this space,” said brand specialist and social commentator Santosh Desai.The development comes barely a day after Patel stole the show during the India-Bangladesh match in Birmingham on Tuesday by being the most committed cheerleader for the India team. Indian captain Kohli also took to Twitter to express his gratitude to Patel. “Would like to thank all our fans for all the love & support & especially Charulata Patel ji. Age is just a number, passion takes you leaps & bounds. With her blessings, on to the next one,” he had tweeted. Kohli has already promised Patel match tickets for the remaining matches India will play in the tournament.Having travelled from London to cheer the team with cheeks painted in the tricolour, Patel’s photos and videos with Kohli and Sharma were tweeted by Indian players, BCCI and ICC’s official World Cup handle. While Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra has offered to “reimburse her ticket cost”, dairy brand Amul has run an ad featuring Patel’s caricature along with children captioned ‘Grandmother Day’.Patel has told television channels that she has been watching cricket for the past many decades.PepsiCo, which kicked off its ‘Har ghoont mein Swag’ campaign aimed at young consumers in February, has actors Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani as faces of the campaign. The #SwagStepChallenge has already got more than 11 billion views, it said.A key element of the brand’s communication strategy has been its focus on “fixed and fluid moments”, the company spokesperson said. Interestingly, two years back, PepsiCo and Kohli had parted ways after the cricketer decided he wanted to promote only ‘healthy’ products.