Company Background
Company BackgroundPepsiCo, Inc. is based in Purchase, NY, United States and is one of the leading multinational food and beverage companies. It was ranked as third largest FMCG company worldwide in 2013 and as leading company in the U.S. and Canada with North American sales amounting to 38.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2013.
PepsiCo entered India in 1989 and has grown to become one of the largest food and beverage businesses in India. PepsiCo India has been consistently investing in the country and has built an expansive beverage and snack food business supported by 37 beverage bottling plants and 3 food plants. PepsiCo India’s diverse portfolio includes iconic brands like Pepsi, Lay’s, Kurkure, Tropicana 100%, Gatorade and Quaker. Within 2 decades, the company has been able to organically grow eight brands that generate Rs. 1,000 crore or more in estimated annual retail sales and are household names, trusted across the country.
PepsiCo India is driven by its global commitment to sustainable growth, Performance with Purpose: PepsiCo’s promise to provide a wide range of foods and beverages from treats to healthy eats; to find innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment by conserving energy and water and reducing packaging volume; to provide a great workplace for our associates; and to respect, support and invest in the local communities where we operate. In 2009, PepsiCo India achieved a significant milestone, by becoming the first business to achieve ‘Positive Water Balance’ in the beverage world, a fact verified by Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd. The company has been Water Positive since then.
Soft Drink Market Trend
India is the world’s fastest growing major economy and has already made it to the list of 10 biggest economies of the world India is a major manufacturer and importer of soft drink beverages. The Indian soft drink industry is vast and is has been rapidly growing by the day. No matter what time of the year it is, soft drink beverages are consumed in great volume. The volume of soft drinks consumed in India stood at a whopping 11,755 million litres in 2013. These numbers suggest that there was an increase of about 170 percent in the consumption of soft drinks in comparison to 2008. It is further expected that the sale of soft drinks may go up by an annual 19 percent till until 2018.
Campaign Objective
To create long term brand equity and good consumer engagement by capitalising the IPL fever.
Campaign Background
The global campaign “The Pepsi Challenge” integrates social responsibility with popular culture on social media. The yearlong promotion had signed on Usher, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt and Jerome Jarre to recruit consumers to participate in a series of challenges meant for the social media generation.
Every month, Pepsi Brand ambassadors used social media to issue a new challenge, many of which incorporates corporate social responsibility with the popular youth culture which encouraged consumers to “do something different.” All the challenges were focused on social media in some way, and involved technology, music or sports. At the India level, Pepsi blended cricket with user creativity and launched – Crash the Pepsi IPL.
Campaign Strategy
Approach:
Today’s youth are inspired creatively and are eager to take on new experiences and live life in the present. Globally Brands creating content through innovative collaboration and a sense of disruption that challenges the norm. Brand Pepsi has always inspired youth imagination and challenged convention with its irreverent spirit.
Mechanics:
‘Crash the Pepsi IPL’- An unprecedented, first-of-its-kind brand engagement program during Pepsi IPL! Pepsi challenged consumers to create 30 second ads that played on air during Pepsi IPL 8!
www.crashthepepsiipl.com was created wherein the consumers can submit their entries. Consumers were asked to create 30-second ad for Pepsi, upload it on YouTube and submit the link on aforementioned website created specifically for the campaign. The website also contained useful resources for consumers like Pepsi Tool kit. The Pepsi tool kit was replete with essential resources to make the ad: “Painter Babu” for the brand logos, “Music Da” for the official soundtrack, “Camera Boss” for the video clips, “Sound Anna” for SFX sounds like bongo, pour, last sip, etc., and “Idea Guru” for ideas.
Pepsi launched an ad to invite people to make ads. The 35-second ad film featured Pepsi brand ambassadors Ranbir Kapoor and Virat Kohli in a hilarious script where a family was teaching them how to make an ad.
Submitted entries were showcased on the website and were shared on the various social media platform. Pepsi created a running list of finalists, each of which received Rs. 1lac and VIP access to the Pepsi IPL 8.
The jury selected the winning entries, which went on air during the Pepsi IPL 8, April 8 to May 24, 2015.
Agencies: Digital Agency: 101010 / Creative Agency: JWT
Content co-creation
Crash the Pepsi IPL campaign connected the new age millennials and enabled them to showcase their creativity. The benefits of user generated campaign are many Campaign lets consumers be a part of the brand story.
It gives fans opportunity to add their own associations with the brand.
It lets the consumers to re-interpret brand the way they want.
Pepsi created bank of 30-second commercials & ideas created by the enthusiastic fans, which can be used further marketing and promotions.
The incentives given were in line with the target group. Every youngster would love to see their Ads to air on television during the IPL, Cash prizes and YouTube festival passes.
Social Media:
Crash the Pepsi IPL created buzz through the brand’s social media assets. It ran a contest on Twitter and asked them to share their idea for the next Pepsi ad with the hashtag #PepsiAdInATweet. Winners won the passes to the YouTube festival.
Results
More than 2600 entries was received, 900+ ads were shortlisted out of which 5 ads won and were played during IPL. with 2600+ user-generated ads, the Campaign was definitely disruptive. It was about unearthing the creative potential of Indian consumers by making them the brand custodians. Pepsi took the low risk strategy, where the campaign ended up creating hundreds, of user-generated video clips that Pepsi may use to market later on.
The brand reaped benefits of launching the multichannel campaign. Due to this the Campaign Awareness, Social Media Engagement & Customer Engagement was very high.
Sources: www.crashthepepsiipl.com, www.pepsicoindia.co.in, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi, http://business.mapsofindia.com/top-brands-india/top-soft-drink-brands-in-india.html
