Pepsi knows no advertising spot is wanted as much as one on Superbowl Sunday. Traditionally all the brands advertising during the big game use every trick in the book to create the most memorable, noteworthy commercials. Pepsi has always been present on Superbowl Sunday, but not anymore from now on.
After 23 years of advertising on Superbowl Sunday, Pepsi has decided to invest the money in a $ 20 million dollar social programme.
On January 13, Pepsi will launch their programme called ‘The Pepsi Refresh Project‘. People can contribute by naming a project in their community that needs help. The projects that get the most votes will receive help from Pepsi. With this project Pepsi hopes they will create a wave of do-gooding on a smaller scale with people funding community projects themselves.
ABC says the step Pepsi has taken is a risky one, opening up a Superbowl spot for Coca-Cola (who haven’t decided on advertising on Superbowl Sunday yet). Also, a brand that spends most of its money on television ads has to be certain this will work out, having lost quite some revenue in the past year.
In my opinion Pepsi is not a do-gooder brand at all, even though they produce their goods in a climate-neutral way and donate to charity. To me that’s not part of their image so I can’t imagine asking them to fund a project in my community. And even if this project does get off the ground, Pepsi still has to make an enormous leap to get even close to Coca-Cola’s social domination. Do you think leaving Superbowl for social will do Pepsi good? Or will they just dig themselves a deeper hole in regards to trailing behind in the social scene?
