The Pepsi Refresh Project: A
Thirst for Change
Presented by,
Group 1 - Melvin Joy
Nigin G K
Niranjan A R
Nikitha Akula
Poornima Santhosh
Priyadarsini C
Sonu Sanjeevan
Facts
● Brand Pepsi is owned and managed by PepsiCo.
1898: Developed by Caleb Bradham as a hand mixed carbonated creation.
Diverse portfolio of snack foods, beverage and food brands
Including Fritos, Doritos, Lay’s, gatorade, Tropicana, Sobe waters, Aquafina, 7-Up, Mountain Dew, Quakers Oats, Rice-
a-Roni and Aunt Jemima
1960s: “The Pepsi Generation”
Ran award winning advertising campaigns
1975: “The Pepsi Challenge”
Blind taste tests showing that people preferred Pepsi to Coca-Cola
Energized Pepsi sales and shot Pepsi to the #1 slot for best-selling soft drink
1985: “The Choice of a New Generation”
Used Pop-culture as a marketing tactic (Michael Jackson)
1997: “GeneratioNext”
Reinvigorated the message for a new generation of consumers
Used influential music artists such as David Bowie, Faith Hill, Shakira, Britney Spears.
2
● 2010: “The Pepsi Refresh Project”
○ Planned to give away $20 million in the US to fund ideas, large and small, that would create a change in
communities.
○ Pepsi’s Partner Network
○ Employee Engagement Programs
○ Bottle Engagement programs
○ Social Media Programs
○ Traditional Media Programs
○ Sports Marketing Programs
○ In -Store Programs
Goals of Pepsi Refresh Project
● Raise awareness in the campaign itself, along with Pepsi as a company.
● Increase brand engagement and brand equity.
● Position Pepsi to be a forward thinking company focusing on creating a positive change for communities.
● Generate buzz to support the brand’s goals.
● Encourage consumers to visit the [Link] website to register and submit their ideas.
3
Results of the Campaign
● Forbes magazine named the program among the “ best ever social media campaign”.
● 1.6 million unique visitors and 3.3 million site visitors.
● Average time spend per visit is 3-4minutes
● 0.4million visitors registered in the website [Link].
● UGC are 5.7 million
Key Issues with the campaign
● Campaign did not connect back to the product, impeding a drive in sales.
● Caused negative impact on revenue and market share.
● As campaign was running, Pepsi was consistently losing market share, falling behind Coke and Diet Coke.
● No standard to measure success of campaign.
● Pepsi was not able to vet many of the non-profit organizations, resulting in fraud.
● Supporting organizations nationwide caused less concentrated results, giving the appearance of a smaller impact.
4
Should the Pepsi brand team continue to fund the Pepsi Refresh Project in 2011? Why
or Why Not?
● Pepsi should continue the project because it made a great impression on people that it wants to help the society, abrupt
discontinuation of the project can damage the brand equity created.
● The project helped to create a very positive image for Pepsi, made it look like a socially responsible company, directly
improving the good will of the company.
● Project helped Pepsi to create a massive presence over the internet and social media which exposes them to a large
chunk of their target market.
● Project made the public feel that they were directly involved in the decision making process of Pepsi, increasing
their feeling of belongingness towards the company.
● Only thing they could have done is, they could have modified the project , tried to link it to sales of their product, use
all the presence they created.
5
If the Pepsi team continues to fund the Pepsi Refresh in 2011, what changes would
you make to the program to better achieve the brands objectives?
● Be clear with success metrics
● Linking the Pepsi Refresher program with sales.
● Redefined project in order to strengthen its brand position and more awareness in the market.
● Advertising the program in the super bowl, so that sales and public awareness will increase.
● Increase more consumer engagement in digital platform.
● Converting more millennial people into their consumers through the project.
6
Is the pepsi brand team focused on the right metrics to measure success? What is the value of
consumer engagement? How should they calculate the value of facebook fans, twitter
followers, and billions of impressions generated by the Pepsi Refresh Project?
● The metrics used by the Pepsi brand was the number of ideas submitted on the website as well as the number of votes
received.
● This was the right way of evaluating success because in just 72 hours site has reached site has reached 100 idea submission
limit for the first month with at least one submission for every state.
● More than 141000 votes were cast in the first 3 days of voting.
● Pepsi was highly successful in customer engagement as they connect with the consumers to bring positive changes to issues
that were important for the public.
● During 2010 the project added 3 million Facebook fans and 53000 Twitter followers.
● 3.24 Billion media impressions were generated.
● Although the number of followers increased, there was no significant increase in sales.
7
Do you agree with pepsi’s decision not to advertise during the 2010 Superbowl? Why? What did
they gain and what did they sacrifice by moving marketing dollars from traditional advertising?
Should they advertise the Pepsi refresh project on the 2011 superbowl?
● Pepsi Refresh Program was not a good decision by the company.
● The program gained publicity and reputation to the company but not any economic value.
● Moving from the traditional advertising helped to build a brand equity buy it doesn’t converted into ROI.
● The project was engaging with the customers but sales were happening years later
● Excessive focus on social media led the company in the wrong direction.
● Advertising the Refresh project in Super Bowl is risky as when the campaign has already failed to motivate the consumers
by giving any tangible reasons.
8
Is Pepsi the right brand for a cause marketing program like the Pepsi Refresh Project? Why
or Why not?
● Pepsi was not the right brand for this project as there was no clear link to Brand’s mission which is most important in a
Marketing Campaign.
● It offered no health benefits to the customers, many believed Pepsi is one of the major contributors to America’s Obesity
problem due to high amount of calories & soda consumption.
● Despite of innovation, lack of direction & logistics challenges involved in this project created an obstacle from making it
successful.
● This project was not brand relevant & added little value to brand’s core equity.
● It was risky to build an marketing campaign around the cause that did not give any tangible reason to consume the product.
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