Insight
Since 1963 Pepsi has strived to be the ‘choice of a new generation’. The emerging teenage market is key to both short and long term success. Teenagers drink twice as much soft drink than their parents, ambivalent to the high sugar content and associated calories, making them a primary source of volume.
Flavour and brand preference remain in the taste buds for many years to come. So, while a difficult task, winning a teenager’s support is the start of a long term profitable relationship.
The Cola Wars in New Zealand were less of a battle and more a case of outright domination by Coke-a-Cola. Coke NZ media investment is a staggering 145 times more than Pepsi. Stronger trade and distribution relationships also gave Coke an enviable market advantage.
For Pepsi, its David vs Goliath.
As market leader, Coke is locked into driving mass appeal. Pepsi cannot appeal to everyone, so with a very small budget OMD focused all this communication on teenagers. It needed to change their brand perception from just ‘another Cola brand’ to a brand seen as a ‘brand for teenagers’. Brand research tracked Pepsi at only scoring 2% against this statement.
Pepsi also tasked OMD to increase statements “Brand I love” +25%, “Cool brand” +18%, spontaneous awareness +5% and social media engagement +30%.
Strategy
Teens are a small percentage of the population and don’t have a lot of money, making them unattractive to marketers and media owners. Additionally, they are notoriously suspicious of ‘big brands’, making it difficult to resonate.
Teenagers are at a stage in life where they are ‘in-between’. Not a kid. Not yet an adult. Too old for the playground. Too young for the pub - and amongst teens there was a distinct lack of anything or anywhere they could truly call their own.
This insight gave OMD a powerful opportunity to connect with this elusive audience, becoming more than just another cola brand.
The strategy was for Pepsi to create a place that this audience could claim was ‘just for teens’. THEIR place made possible by Pepsi - giving permission to genuinely speak to them in their own world.
“THEIR” PLACE - They needed a physical place to congregate and share experiences together. Real world experiences would enable Pepsi to create content and share these memories with teens from all over the country. This lead to the creation of the Pepsi Party House.
“THEIR” MEDIA - Based on size and disposable income, teens were a largely ignored demographic in the media landscape. A number of media closures meant that a mass media channel exclusively targeting teens no longer existed. Creating a teen media channel would give the audience a media place to call their own while enabling OMD to amplify Pepsi Party House content. It needed up to date, teen relevant content, both local and international as they are highly influenced by overseas popular culture.
To ensure quality the strategy was to recruit teen ambassadors to help create and curate editorial content. This lead to the creation of ON, a digital platform and a global first for Yahoo in native advertising.
Execution
“THEIR” PLACE – OMD built a real full size house for the Pepsi Party House - from the outside it appeared to be a typical family home. Through the front door it expanded into a series of epic teen parties. Every teen’s dream – a party at home without your parents.
For the launch Pepsi exclusively brought MKTO (a popular American band) to NZ. This ‘money can’t buy’ experience kick-started the creative platform, setting the tone for the remaining parties. Each uniquely themed, and Pepsi branding seamlessly integrated. Mixologists created mocktails at the ‘soda bar’ and encouraged social sharing by charging a selfie uploaded to #pepsihouseparty as payment. The parties were filmed and content distributed across Pay TV and digital video.
“THEIR” MEDIA - OMD partnered with Yahoo to create ‘ON’ - a native channel on the Yahoo platform. Yahoo provided: Existing teen audience, Access to Tumbr and Spotify, strong teen brands and access to international music, fashion, celebrity and tech news.
The agency recruited a number of teen ambassadors representing different content pillars; fashion, music, technology and gossip. Each had a strong Tumblr following and created credible content complementing international stories from Yahoo globally. These ambassadors covered each party, sharing through Tumblr which was then pulled through to ON. This delivered Pepsi branded content within a commercial free environment.
Pepsi leveraged Yahoo’s relationship with Spotify to create teen playlists within ON. Audiences were driven to ON by promoting the destination in all communications across Pay TV, social, paid digital including Yahoo, and radio.
Results
The Pepsi Party House rocked. Colmar Brunton brand tracking:
• "A brand for teenagers" jumped from 2% in January to 20% by December
• “Brand I love” +25% & “Cool brand” +18% objectives were met
The Pepsi Facebook fan base increased by over 10,000 (20%) and average engagement levels increased 85% over the campaign exceeding the 30% target (Facebook analytics).
The impact of the campaign can be seen overlaying social reach and engagement with media spend, proving the target were responding to the branded content.
Once the campaign was developed media targets were established measuring the effectiveness of Yahoo’s ‘ON’ (Nielsen Online Ratings).
• Unique monthly users target of 8,000. Every month it over-delivered, peaking at 22,930 +186%.
• Time spend target of 2.5 mins was smashed, achieving an average of 4.1 mins. +64%
Although this case study focuses on the change in Pepsi brand perception, sales increased 7% year on year at a time when Full Sugar Cola declined -6.3% in convenience and -2.5% in grocery (Aztec sales data).