Reuters recently reported that PepsiCo had unexpectedly decided not to advertise at the Super Bowl in February for the first time in 23 years.
Pepsi has changed the focus of their communications strategy and will be focusing around a more social and cause related strategy. Pepsi has just launched their “Pepsi Refresh” campaign, featuring a new, interactive microsite where people can submit suggestions about refreshing their local communities to make the world a better place.
There will be a vote taken on 1st February, and the top rated ideas will be funded by Pepsi. The company report has over $20 million in the pot for such activity.
It works on the same basis as My Starbucks Idea, but is much more community focused. Asking for suggestions to improve communities rather than the Pepsi product seems much more genuine and I think it will be very successful.
The blog section is very informative and features environmental, health and charity news from across the world. This is an interesting way to run the blog, as opposed to posting about Pepsi and the drinks industry; it will broaden the appeal and make the whole campaign seem much more genuine.
The microsite is being backed up with other social tools such as a Facebook group with almost 300,000 fans and a Twitter account with 20,000 followers. Not only are these tools available, but consumers are being actively encouraged to use them
When someone registers a project they are prompted to enable voting on their personal blogs, Facebook or Myspace page, or Twitter accounts. The site also generates a specific URL which people can forward onto friends and family to increase their votes.
This is a fantastic example of using social media to spread online word of mouth and I’m sure it will generate lots of offline buzz too. In my opinion, this is so much more innovative, creative and effective than a 30 second ad that most people will fast forward though via the power of recordable TV.
Super Bowl ad prices have been running close to $3 million for a 30 second slot, so it’s no wonder brands are looking for an alternative. Doritos and Anheuser-Busch InBev are still advertising at the sporting event, but it will be interesting to see how this pans out in 2011.
