Social media is not new to the big brands of carbonated beverages – Pepsi and Coca-Cola have both been participating on social networking and media sites for quite a while. In matching announcements recently, both Pepsi and Coca-Cola have declared that they are going to spend less on traditional media and advertising outlets, instead opting to spend the big bucks on social media campaigns. It turns out, however, that they have been trying to connect with consumers for a while and we either were not listening or did not liked what we heard.
The Pepsi [Social Media] Challenge
Pepsi has not had luck thus far using social media to expand their brand reach online in both Canadian and American spheres. The Pepsi AMP iPhone App was a distasteful mess, leaving many people wondering: What were they thinking?! The application “Before You Score” was created as a tool to help men get women, not very classy and not as funny as was intended. In Canada, an initiative to get fans to use a Pepsi-approved cheer at the hockey events was another near miss that has left them enough negative response to dismiss any positive results that might have been achieved.
Now, Pepsi is opting to drop their usual Super Bowl commercial campaign in favour of the Pepsi Refresh Project, a $20 million dollar campaign that is pretty much the Pepsi version of Google’s Project 10^100. Muy original. The campaign was launched yesterday, but apparently already there have been problems with submission forms and buzz on Facebook about problems with the idea submission website. And while they say they want to refresh the world, what they really mean is that the ideas must benefit a community or neighbourhood in the United States.
Don’t Go To Them, Coca-Cola Will Come To You
And, mirroring the announcement from Pepsi, Coca-Cola will be turning their attention to social networks by turning focus from their campaign sites to their social networking and media presences online. The Coca-Cola Facebook page is wildly popular already (over 4 million fans), likely due to the fact that the fan page was not created by the Coca-Cola company at all. It was created and maintained by two fans of the soda, and when Facebook instituted rules about branded names only being used by the brands that owned them, Coca-Cola teamed up with the two guys who built the page, a bold and savvy move as they are truly allowing the fans to take ownership of the brand here. Their main strategy will be to put an end to the multitude of campaign websites and to divert these to social channels online. Coca-Cola’s interactive marketing manager Prinz Pinakatt explains that they “would like to place [their] activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform.”
Let The Soda Pop Social Media War Begin
Sometimes social media succeeds because of luck, sometimes because of a solid strategy that is well thought out and researched. Either way it seems to me that the Soda Kings have a long way to go. While Pepsi will likely generate some positive online buzz, not to mention offline buzz as the grants are distributed and put into action, I don’t think it is wise to drop something as important as their Super Bowl commercial. I would like to see a Super Bowl commercial that is made from a great number of user-generated videos in a huge contest – it would make a stunning collage of American culture. They could save on the cost of paying Britney Spears this way. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, are forgetting that social media users are fickle and could just as easily change their mind about Facebook in 2011. While too many campaign sites are unnecessary, it would be wise to invest their time (personal, human time) in connecting with consumers on their own websites as well as Facebook.
Do you think that Coca-Cola and Pepsi need to work on building a community online, or do you think, like me, that they just need to figure out way to get their offline community going online? Which one do you prefer: Coca-Cola or Pepsi? Would you connect with Pepsi if you only drank Coca-Cola?
Popularity: 20% [?]
great post as usual!