Pepsis international strategy for sports marketing can best be described as:
How PepsiCo made a global Champions League campaign during a pandemicThe soccer fans among you will have been pleased to see the Uefa Champions League return to your screens this week, an occasion that PepsiCo brand Lay’s marked with the launch of a new global marketing campaign fronted by Lionel Messi, Lieke Martens and Paul Pogba. Show
A 30-second spot promoting the campaign sees Barcelona stars Messi and Martens kick off a carnival-like atmosphere in an apartment block. People from different flats promptly rush out to their balconies to enjoy the game together while simultaneously being apart – a reality that all of us have grown accustomed to while sport stays behind closed doors. But as I watched Messi rip open a bag of crisps, blissfully unaware of what the first leg of Barcelona’s last-16 tie had in store for him, I was left wondering how exactly campaigns like this come together in the midst of a pandemic that has upended the normal ways of doing things. So I thought I’d better ask Sebnem Erim, the global VP of marketing for PepsiCo’s global foods group, who explained that the Apartment Arena is all about bringing the stadium experience into peoples’ homes. “One thing consumers told us during Covid [is] they’re so fed up with all the Covid communications,” she said. “If you think about the Covid communications, for a while it was all the same, the tonality. “People love to have some joy in their life, which is very true to our brand, so whether Covid or no Covid, this is our brand purpose. I’m not talking about happiness, but little joys in their lives to connect with one another, and almost getting out of that Covid moment and really being in that joyful moment.” Erim told me that PepsiCo has been taking what she described as “a Lego approach” to its marketing campaigns during Covid-19, which allows the company to both be flexible in the face of a fluid situation and strike the right tone with consumers whose lives have been dramatically altered by the health crisis. Some brands have considered it a significant risk to sell their products alongside sporting events during the pandemic, but PepsiCo made sure it did its research. This particular campaign, Erim said, came together over six months, during which time the company conducted social listening and real-time testing, and even enlisted social anthropologists in an attempt to read the room. Not being able to bring Messi, Martens and Pogba together physically also created logistical challenges – PepsiCo had to send teams to Manchester and Barcelona – but Erim said virtual shoots “are working really, really well”. She also thinks the experience will enhance how PepsiCo produces future campaigns in a post-pandemic world. “I think those challenges and limitations make you think very differently and outside the box,” Erim added. “It’s very important to understand what consumers are going through. You don’t want to sound tone deaf with a campaign, celebrating everything and then people are worried about their jobs. So you have to really strike the right balance in terms of tonality. “It also brings agile ways of working as well. So maybe some of the stuff we used to do, which doesn’t really add value, or no added value in terms of timing, we created some shortcuts, which we would like to leverage – Covid or no Covid – in the future.” Good play callHats off to the NFL, whose decision to swap out branded seat coverings for LED message boards for the Super Bowl seems to have paid off for its sponsors. The move meant that brands could be rotated throughout the game, and analysis by AI-powered sponsorship analytics platform GumGum Sports found that the new inventory generated some US$38.6 million in media value for the five most visible sponsors during the event. Here’s GumGum’s brand-by-brand breakdown of who received the most media value from Tom Brady’s big night.
Back on courtLast week I had the opportunity to catch up with England Netball chief executive Fran Connolly, who was in a buoyant mood ahead of the start of the 2021 Superleague season. Connolly has plenty of reasons to be positive given that the national governing body has just secured a record-breaking broadcast deal with Sky Sports and extended its partnership with Red Bull, which during the pandemic continued to fuel players during their home workouts. As well as discussing all that, I asked Connolly whether she thinks the growing interest in women’s sport we saw from brands pre pandemic will pick up again when some normality prevails. “We’re certainly not seeing a drop in that interest from a netball perspective, and from discussions across sport there still seems to be a real appetite for women’s sport,” she said. “The nation seems to have rallied around women’s sport and really wanted to protect that momentum from a government level even. So I feel positive. “I think the couple of years leading up to the pandemic we saw some great partnerships between brands and sport, and we saw those sports grow. In terms of viewing figures we doubled in our reach and in terms of spectators in arenas we saw a similar growth, so we’re really confident that we can offer something really compelling and meaningful to brands going forward. “I think we’ll see it return, it might return slightly slower than we hope, but I feel confident that it will return.” Top dealersIn case you haven’t noticed, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has been b-u-s-y. Last week saw the governing body reveal its second deal with one of those new online car retailers everyone keeps talking about, announcing Cinch as its new principal sponsor. That was after roping in Cazoo, the other online car retailer everyone keeps talking about, as the principal partner of The Hundred. Online vehicle sellers aside, since the start of December the ECB has also signed pacts with Microsoft, LV= General Insurance and Unilever, as well as an extension with Vitality. Who said you can’t make deals during a pandemic, eh? NascarouselI’ve got a lot of time for Nascar’s early contender for sports activation of the year, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t usually have a whole lot of time for stock car racing. Five deals you might have missed
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Enjoy this newsletter? Got a story worth shouting about? Feel free to let me know here or @ me on Twitter. You can also tell your friends to sign up here. What is the marketing strategy of PepsiCo?Pepsi's pricing strategy is driven by their competitors' prices and customer demand. The company encourages bulk sale, with the cost of higher volumes of Pepsi being cheaper per ounce than smaller volumes. This strategy helps foster the distribution channels they have in place.
What is Pepsi's brand positioning?As a brand, Pepsi has positioned itself as one that embodies young energy, and this can be seen throughout their marketing and advertising campaigns. Pepsi's customers are mainly aged between 13 and 35 years old from lower middle class to upper class with a busy and modern lifestyle.
Who is the target market of Pepsi?The target market for PepsiCo products is the population aged between 13 and 45 years. Since this population mostly comprises of young people, Pepsi sells its products in restaurants, schools, colleges, fast food stores, and other places that this target market frequents.
What makes Pepsi unique?"Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, so right away it had a big advantage in a sip test. Pepsi is also characterized by a citrusy flavor burst, unlike the more raisiny-vanilla taste of Coke. But that burst tends to dissipate over the course of an entire can, and that is another reason Coke suffered by comparison.
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