Public Question
Pepsi and The Superbowl
The NYT's recently reported a story
"Pepsi’s Bet on Community Projects Over the Super Bowl" http://nyti.ms/igIdDO
Pepsi for the first time in 23 years pulled out of the Superbowl last year and instead donated that money via grants. Now they're joining Doritos offering six ad spots for Crash The Superbowl contest http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/
What do you think of Pepsi's changing Superbowl strategy?
Public unpaid question.
Amy Vernon
PepsiCo got a HUGE amount of press for not advertising in the Super Bowl last year. They took a chance on the Pepsi Refresh project, and it was extremely successful. (Full disclosure: A family friend is director of an org that got one of the first grants.)
I think PepsiCo has been extremely adept at changing its strategy, and don't think it was a lack of public exposure. A lot of people theorized last year that skipping it for 2010 was a very pointed strategy and they would be back this year.
From talking to folks at PepsiCo and seeing how much mileage they got off Pepsi Refresh (I knew tons of people pushing their various Refresh projects via Facebook, and these were not people in the social media "space," as it were), I think this was all strategic and they never meant to leave the Super Bowl permanently.
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Ask Amy Vernon
PepsiCo got a HUGE amount of press for not advertising in the Super Bowl last year. They took a chance on the Pepsi Refresh project, and it was extremely successful. (Full disclosure: A family friend is director of an org that got one of the first grants.)
I think PepsiCo has been extremely adept at changing its strategy, and don't think it was a lack of public exposure. A lot of people theorized last year that skipping it for 2010 was a very pointed strategy and they would be back this year.
From talking to folks at PepsiCo and seeing how much mileage they got off Pepsi Refresh (I knew tons of people pushing their various Refresh projects via Facebook, and these were not people in the social media "space," as it were), I think this was all strategic and they never meant to leave the Super Bowl permanently.
David Wertheimer
Pepsi changed ad agencies late in 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/business/media/18adco.html
They couldn't shift strategies for the '09 Super Bowl but they were able to in 2010. Guessing that they felt a lack of public exposure by skipping it, so back they go.
