The Pepsi Refresh Project

A thirst for change

Group 7
Sandeep Kumar Nayak 18A3HP650
Pinak Paritosh Patro 18A3HP649
Tanusha Shrivastav 18A2HP455
Sanchita Thakur 18A3HP644
Mohit Agarwal 18A2HP408
Executive Summery

With the idea of establishing the Pepsi brand as a socially responsible company,
among the blame game for obesity caused by soft drink companies, Pepsi brand
kicked off the refreshment project to get the customers more involved in the
companie’s decision making process and to make them feel more attached to the
brand. The positive impact of the initiative not only impacted the company in terms
of increased brand image, it gave the customers a proud feeling of getting directly
involved in the social changing initiative, thus elevating the brand respect. Among the
dip in sales of 5%, resulting in slipping to the 3rd position in cola industry, standing
after Coke, Pepsi brand diversified its product portfolio of “good-for-you” to sustain
in the market. This initiative also gave the brand a chance to establish its vision
through action. Targeted mainly at the millennials, the initiative wants to increase its
market share by developing them into ”The Pepsi generation”.

While the campaign gave the brand the positive brand image, it is yet to get converted
in terms of number of sales.

Q1. Should the Pepsi brand team continue to fund the Pepsi refresh project in 2011?
Why or why not?

Ans. The Pepsi brand team should continue funding the Pepsi refresh project, even in
2011. The reasons for the same are as fallowing.

The project was successful in 2010 and it created a trend of positive buzz as a
socially responsible company for the brand. Sudden discontinuation of the project can
damage the brand equity created as well as a local and national buzz around the brand
Pepsi.

The customers felt a feeling of belongingness with the company by getting

involved in the decision-making process of the company operated program. Also, the
participation in the social welfare driven initiative gave them a pride of social
association, which in turn increased the brand value of the company.
The initiative gave them empowerment of bringing change to their community
and feeling of pride.

For all the above reasons the brand association of Pepsi increased significantly.

Q2. If the Pepsi team Continues to fund Pepsi refresh in 2011, what changes would
you make to the program to better achieve the brand’s objective?

Ans. It can invest in a larger or more popular cause rather than many problems around
the nation. This will help Pepsi to emphasise on specific segment and strengthen the
people support for the cause of greater good.
Deep level engagement with the consumer for the campaign to actually mean
something so that close consumer interaction could help in better brand preferring
and trust over others.

Pepsi should consider integrating their actual product in their Pepsi Refresh
campaign, as it creates a disconnection between their values and the products they are
offering.

Company did engage its bottler partners and employees by giving various
distribution targets.

By the end of November 2010, the people submitted 182,931 ideas across all ages from
50 states and over 57 million people voted for an idea. Still they emphasized on long
goals through various NGO programs. After this Pepsi-Cola’s volume share fell by
4.8% and diet Pepsi by 5.20% but Coca-Cola eked 0.1 percentage percent gain.

Q3. Is the Pepsi brand team focussed 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 the billions of impressions generated by the Pepsi Refresh
Project?

Ans. The first significant goal was to increase awareness and interest in Pepsi Refresh
project and place Pepsi as a change platform.

The metrics used were the amounts of concepts presented on the website and
the amounts of votes obtained, which in just 72 hours was the correct way to evaluate
achievement. With at least 1 submission from each state, the site achieved the 1000
idea submission threshold for the first month. Over the first 3 days of voting, more
than 141,000 votes were cast, meaning a lot of consciousness was generated.

Talking about customer commitment, Pepsi's participation with the crowd was
extremely effective as they linked with their customers in a manner that would assist
them bring beneficial adjustments to problems that the public deemed important. This
made the audience feel as though they were part of the Pepsi family and generated a
goodwill for the brand. The project provided a nice social ROI and improved the
equity of the brand. Consumers felt that Pepsi was a brand that cared about the
community and provided Pepsi with the perception of a forward-thinking, innovative
brand.

Three million Facebook users and 53000 Twitter supporters were added to the
project during 2010. In addition, there were produced 3.24 billion media impressions,
estimated at $66 million in earned media value. Although the amount of supporters
has risen, sales have not risen significantly.
Q4. Do you agree with Pepsi’s decision to not advertise during the 2010 Super Bowl?
Why? What did the gain and what did they sacrifice by moving advertising dollars
from traditional advertising? Should they advertise the Pepsi Refresh project on the
2011 Super Bowl?

Ans. Both from the brand positioning and ethical point of view, we support the
decision of Pepsi not to advertise in the 2010 Super bowl. The points to substantiate
from the business point of view are as fallowing.

 $2.5 million was the price of 30 second ads during super bowl 2010, which
costed more when compared to the refresh project
 Though Pepsi didn’t put advertisement in the 2010 super bowl, they were still
the 2nd in “hot topics” or most conversed about brand during the super bowl
2010.
 After the advertisement Coca Cola managed to gather 390000 followers on
social networking sites, however Pepsi managed to gather 300000 followers
without any advertisement
 Hence considering refresh project going so well, it was a good idea to retreat
from the super bowl 2010
 Pepsi’s underestimating traditional advertising and not managing any increase
in sales without advertisement was a sacrifice on the part of Pepsi.
 What they lost?

Awareness.

But; What they gained?

Authentic and credible customer base.

 For 2011 super bowl, Pepsi should continue its advertisements and manage
funds to continue refresh project and super bowl ads.

Q5. Is Pepsi the right brand for a cause-marketing program like Pepsi Refresh Project?

Ans. The process of cause marketing is a procedure extensively used by many

companies such as Pepsi, Coca cola and other key brand giants.It is quite
comprehensible that a major company such as Pepsi would try to be part of such
a campaign in order to achieve more awareness to its brand.
The "Pepsi refresh project" was the answer that Pepsi felt would turn the brand
image around, to a brand that not only takes, but also gives back. It positioned itself
as a brand that is concerned about people. This program would consist of contests
and programs allowing consumers to create ideas for helping charities and
giving back to communities. Pepsi allowed other people to endorse these ideas
and sponsored campaigns ideas of about $250,000.
There are both positive and negative aspects of such a project. Being labelled
as a leading factor in obesity among younger people, requires a mandatory
change in the image of Pepsi, in addition studies by Pepsi were undertaken in
order to evaluate the consumer's response to companies with social responsibility.
Pepsi Refresh project seemed to be a distinctive, risky and unpredictable
advertising move. However, with Pepsi’s assets, risks could be handled easily.
Moreover, each brand has the right to market itself in whichever the way it wants,
unless and until the campaign is highly unethical. The only thing that needs to be
kept in mind is how real that project was. If there is no conflict of interest and
objectives, Pepsi had the right for a cause-marketing program like Pepsi Refresh
Project.