Pepsi: Challenging Category Benchmarks the Pepsi Way

Credits & Description:

BRAND: Pepsi
BRAND OWNER: PepsiCo
CATEGORY: Drinks (non-alcoholic)
REGION: China
DATE: September - December 2015
AGENCY: Mindshare
MEDIA CHANNEL: Online,TV
Pepsi Challenge is a phenomenal global campaign asset, which had been successfully interpreted in myriad ways across the world. It is all about inspiring the youth to step out of their comfort zones, try something new, live for the moment, live for NOW! But millennials were not going to be moved to action just because Pepsi said so. Especially in China where frankly they are overloaded by campaigns targeting them to seize the moment. And more so if all it was going to do was another 30 second TVC featuring a bunch of celebrities most youth did not feel were relevant to their worldview or their real life.
Mindshare needed to bring the spirit of the Pepsi challenge alive in a culturally relevant manner.
A 2015 Ipsos study found that with the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, Chinese people rank as the most materialistic people in the world. Over 70% of youth regard money as the most important measure of success. And this materialistic set of values results in over 75% of young professionals feeling that their career is simply unsatisfactory.
The agency used this cultural tension among millennials and capitalised on the love that Chinese youth have for variety shows (65% love watching).
It worked with one of the top Provincial Satellite TV channels in China – Zhejiang PSTV – to come with a new variety show format that would have both the spirit of Pepsi Challenge at the heart and an engaging way to connect with Chinese youth.
Strategy
Mindshare created a new show with Zhejiang PSTV called Pepsi Challengers Alliance. A variety show featuring some of China’s hottest stars like Fan BingBing engaging in a series of Pepsi challenges that were designed to make them both approachable to youth and show their human rather than celebrity sides and also challenges that would play on the cultural tension mentioned earlier.
It tasked these celebrities to take a shot at living the work lives of ordinary Chinese people. Jobs where their celebrity status and fame could not really help them much. From being a security guard to a taxi driver to a waiter to a tourist guide, they did it all.
In doing so it elevated everyday jobs into something worthy and showed the youth of China that it wasn’t just about the money but the skills they had to achieve success earning their everyday livelihood were worthy of acknowledgement. And the fish out of water challenges demonstrated the spirit of Pepsi Challenge.
Execution
Variety shows and reality shows in China sell at phenomenal premiums. So the key for Pepsi was the fact that the agency worked with the channel right from the concept stage to design the show. By getting in early it paid perhaps one-tenth of what it would have had to pay if it had gone through the normal upfront bidding process.
Also because the show was designed from an early stage around the Pepsi Challenge it could incorporate many cues to the Live for Now spirit. In fact all told it was able to get in 3,000% of the channels committed in show exposure for Pepsi.
By working directly with the channel and not the stars the agency was also able to avoid hefty celebrity fees as FanBingBing sipped Pepsi in the show on multiple occasions and even Coca Cola ambassadors Lei Chien and Kris Wu were surrounded in blue through the show.
The show was telecast for 13 weeks just after peak summer season catching Coca Cola completely by surprise as they pulled back on investment on Television and prepared for Pepsi to the same. And beyond Television we took it online as well across the five major online video channels – Youtu, TenCent, Iqiyi, LeTV and Sohu.
And it is well worth noting that all this was done with an investment one tenth of Coca Cola’s spends!
Results
When it comes to results in award entries targeting millennials it is easy to get caught in the hyperbole. The key results were the brand health results:-
Compared to start of year:-
• Top of mind for Pepsi increased 3% while Coke declined 2%
• Brand I love and brand that sets trends increased 4% each while Coke grew just 1%
• Cool brand rose 3% while Coke saw no gain at all
Where it can go a full year and see only 1% of change in brand health, these were outstanding results.
As were the consumer engagement numbers:-
• Highest rated variety show launched in 2015 with a peak rating of over 3 TVRs
• More than 500 Million Chinese viewers reached on TV
• Close to 1.8 Billion online video views
• Over three billion social media impressions
• Over 90% of social comments on brand integration were positive
By leveraging true consumer tensions and creating a culturally relevant show and not ripping off a foreign format Pepsi China engaged the youth of China and won in 2015.