Pepsi's Inaugural Genius

There's been a lot of big change as regards the marketing of Pepsi. Something I never expected to see happen - the shifting of ad responsibilities away from BBDO which had handled the business for about 50 years, is a very real indicator of how Pepsi wants to renew itself.


How so?


Pepsi's always stood for youth and vitality -- at least throughout my lifetime. Witness this walk down advertising memory lane:











My suspicion is that there isn't a person in America that doesn't get it that Pepsi is for those who think young. But decades of using superstars to borrow relevance for reinforcing that positioning may have taken their toll. With any soft drink brand, there needs to be a strong visceral link between the consumer and the product, and I suspect that that link has been weakened over time with all this celeb stuff.


Pepsi's newest campaign is a radical departure from the past. With the central idea of "Refresh Everything," the brand is redoing its graphics and creating a populist campaign centered around rekindling brand connections. Here's a vid from the effort.





And their promotion surrounding the ascendance of Barack Obama, entitled Refresh America, is nothing short of genius. The program itself, which is HQed here online as well as on a dedicated YouTube channel, invites people from around the world to video their congrats, gripes, and ideas to the youthful new President. Here's the promo video for the event, and an online video enjoining people to send in their videos:








And here is one of the bazillions of video entries that have come in since the program broke.





This campaign is pure genius, and will go a long way to reconnecting people to Pepsi. Or, indeed, connecting young people to Pepsi for the first time.


Political associations are always a bit risky for brands, but this program really seems to transcend partisanship while continuing to project the "for those that think young" message that BBDO put Pepsi on the map with.