MAC WEEKLY

New Modes of Marketing Strategies Adopted By PEPSI-CO for PEPSI

Pepsi Unveils Social Vending Machine

At a trade show in Chicago, PepsiCo rolled out a prototype interactive soda machine that lets you send a drink as a gift to a friend or a random stranger. You can buy a drink for yourself, but you can also send one to someone else by entering their name, mobile phone number and a text message. The machine can also record a

short video message. The recipient gets a code to redeem the gift at another Pepsi social vending machine, with a way to send a thank you or to forward the gift to someone else. "Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase," Mikel Durham, PepsiCo Foodservice's chief innovation officer, said in a press release. The machine also allows what Pepsi calls "random acts of refreshment,'' the ability to send a drink code "as symbol of encouragement (to) someone in a city that has experienced challenging weather or a congratulatory beverage to a student at a university that just won a championship."

Pepsi Cricket World Cup 2011 Campaign: Change the Game

For the cricket world cup 2011, Pepsi came up with the ad campaign Change the game. A lot of cricket stars like MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Sehwag, Suresh Raina and

Kevin Peitersen were the brand ambassadors. The ad campaign showcases Pepsi as one of the main factors in these cricket players learning a few special skills which sets them apart on the field. Dhoni learns his helicopter shot, Harbhajan spins his doosra, Pietersen learns the Palti Hit or the switch hit. This way, the ad campaign clearly establishes that Pepsi soft-drink is not only popular with these stars, but it also is an integral part of their game. Pepsi have always associated them with sport more often that its closest competitor Coca Cola. Whereas Coke is still busy promoting its Imran Khan Shadow commercial, Pepsi has quickly jumped on to the cricket bandwagon. During the FIFA world cup also they had come up with a superb commercial featuring Messi, Henry and other big stars. In the Rs 11,000-crore soft drinks market, where volume growth is significantly lower than two years back in any case, PepsiCo reported 17% volume growth during April-June 2011 while Coca-Cola grew 8%. This is the biggest gap in growth between the two cola rivals in the past three-four years when they were growing neck-to-neck.

Pepsi courts youth demographic with 2D bar codes

PepsiCo Inc. is using mobile advertising and content distributed via 2D bar codes to engage with its target audience of 18-24-year-olds and promote its Pepsi Max brand. To spread the "Pepsi Max Kicks" campaign virally, Pepsi offered consumers mobile content that they can share with their friends, including a picture of British television personality and model Kelly Brook delivered to their mobile phones via quick-response 2D bar codes, or QR codes. The QR codes appeared on 400 million cans and bottles of Pepsi across Britain, and the media campaign also integrated mobile and Web advertising. QR codes were used since they are a great way to drive consumers to mobile content, according to 3GVision. The company touts them as a cost-effective method of encouraging interaction with the target age group.