Pepsi NEXT: The Digital Taste Test

Nowadays it’s difficult to find an integrated marketing campaign that doesn’t include social media. If used correctly, it can be an effective way to generate awareness and connect with consumers on a personal level. While social media can help new businesses establish themselves, it can be an even more powerful tool for existing companies looking to launch a new product line.

A recent example of a brand that successfully used social media to launch their new product line is Pepsi. While the soda company has continuously had a strong online presence, they are probably best known for hosting the Pepsi Taste Challenge, a sampling event that challenges consumers across the country to see if they can taste the difference between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. This has been a huge success for Pepsi. Not only does it give consumers the chance to taste the brand’s product, but it also gives them an opportunity to show their support for the company.

So how do you move this type of sampling campaign into the digital age? Well, with the help of ad agency, The Barbarian Group, Pepsi launched the “Drink it to Believe it” campaign and created an online taste test to launch Pepsi NEXT.

To increase trial and generate buzz for the new product line, Pepsi teamed up with the popular website, Funny or Die, to create the Internet Taste Test. Users were invited to register for the Internet Taste Test on Pepsi NEXT’s Facebook page for a chance to watch themselves “taste” the new beverage through Funny or Die comedians. After analyzing consumers’ Facebook profiles, these comedians improvised what they thought these users’ experiences would look like trying Pepsi NEXT for the first time. These videos were posted on Pepsi NEXT’s Facebook page, as well as on Pepsi’s YouTube channel. To launch the campaign and get users familiar with the concept, Pepsi released a video featuring comedian, Rob Riggle, watching an impersonated version of himself trying the beverage. Pepsi also purchased online advertising to promote the campaign.

One of the impersonated videos from the “Drink it to Believe it” Internet Taste Test Campaign.

The campaign was a success and helped Pepsi NEXT reach over 70 million people in eight weeks. In addition to this, 480 fan-inspired videos were uploaded to Pepsi’s YouTube account, and the launch video received more than two million views. Pepsi NEXT also gained earned media, as users posted the impersonated videos of themselves across their social media platforms, helping further spread the brand’s message. This helped Pepsi’s online presence grow faster than it ever had before.

While it’s important for companies not to recycle old campaigns, I think Pepsi was able to successfully transform their famous Pepsi Taste Challenge into the digital age. They were able to capitalize on a campaign that has already worked well for them in the past by putting a digital spin on it. The success of the campaign shows that Pepsi understands both their positioning in the beverage market and also what appeals to their target market. They’ve always been known as the youthful, fun, and vibrant soda company that young people enjoy. By partnering with Funny or Die, they were able to further instil their brand personality while appealing to their target market. In addition to understanding that humour was the best approach to take to reach their target audience, they also understood that consumers would react best to personalized messages. While they faced the risk of insulting consumers and potentially harming the Pepsi brand, they were able to conduct enough research to know that their target audience would respond well to the campaign.

Pepsi was able to captivate their audience during the launch of Pepsi NEXT; however, the next challenge will be to engage consumers once the beverage line becomes well-known and established. Personalized messages are a unique way to create memorable advertising, but once the novelty wears off, consumers’ attention may go elsewhere. In the future, Pepsi NEXT will have to be smart in their social media strategies if they hope to continue to reach their target audience, otherwise consumers may choose Coca-Cola in a taste test.

Source: http://barbariangroup.com/2012/11/pepsi-next/

McDamage Control

They say honesty is the best policy. But how true is that in advertising? Sometimes companies stretch the truth to make a product or service that really isn’t that great stand out from their competitors. Few companies are one hundred percent honest with their customers. It’s not easy to do. And just like people, no company is perfect. So when is the best time for a brand to be honest with their customers? When they’re doing damage control, of course.

A recent example of this came last year when McDonald’s launched their new Twitter campaign. Using the hashtag, #McDStories, users were encouraged to share their positive stories and experiences about McDonald’s. While McDonald’s thought they would receive heart-warming tweets from people reminiscing about their first Happy Meal, or what it was like to eat their first Big Mac, they got anything but. After one day, users hijacked the hashtag and began sharing their negative experiences of McDonald’s. To make matters worse, the fast food company paid to have the hashtag promoted, thus increasing the amount of people that saw the negative tweets. Although the promoted hashtag was pulled within two hours, by that point the campaign had taken off and the damage had been done.

Looks like even billion dollar companies can make mistakes.

Some negative tweets from McDonald’s #McDStories Twitter campaign.

So how do you come back from such a backlash? With the help of ad agency, Tribal DDB Toronto, McDonald’s Canada launched another social media campaign entitled, “Our Food. Your Questions.”. The campaign was developed to clear up the many misconceptions surrounding McDonald’s food, packaging, and advertising. It began by McDonald’s posting a YouTube video that encouraged users to submit any questions they had about McDonald’s through their Facebook or Twitter accounts. It could be any question at all and McDonald’s promised to personally address and answer all of them. All questions and answers were posted on a separate area of McDonald’s website (http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/), with a handful of them being answered through video on McDonald’s YouTube channel. The company was immediately hit with thousands of questions ranging from what meat is used in their Chicken McNuggets, to whether or not they used real eggs in their Egg McMuffins.

Their honest approach proved to be successful, as they were able to clear up any negative misconceptions consumers had about the brand, while overcoming the #McDStories Twitter disaster at the same time. As of April 2013, over 20,000 questions had been answered and the website had received more than two million hits. Some of their video responses have even gone viral, including one that looks at why their food appears different in their advertising. In fact, the campaign was so successful they decided to turn it into an integrated advertising campaign, releasing a 30-second television commercial along with online and transit ads.

This campaign demonstrates that McDonald’s understands that by being honest with their customers, they're showing them that they value their relationship. At the same time, they were able to create trust and build their reputation as a brand. Because each response was also personalized and addressed directly to the person that asked the question, I think it  made the campaign more engaging and portrayed McDonald’s as being a friendlier company. It allowed them to create a conversation and get people talking about them in a good way.

Social media is a fantastic outlet for consumers to interact with their favourite brands; however, with the ability for anyone to say anything, brands can often get caught in the mix and face negative criticism in the process. While being completely honest in advertising can be risky, the McDonald’s “Our Food. Your Questions.” campaign proved that honesty can benefit your brand and help foster the relationship with your customers. At least until the next Twitter scandal.

Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/24/mcdstories-when-a-hashtag-becomes-a-bashtag/

http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/marketer-of-the-year-2012-mcdonalds-canada-70067