Leveraging Social Media to Transform: The Pepsi Refresh Project

The Superbowl is over. Lasted for one day. Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints on the win. Congratulations to the advertisers that debuted their new commercials.

But let’s look beyond the Superbowl to the Pepsi Refresh Project.

For those of you who have not followed the story… In a nutshell, Pepsi decided not to advertise during the Superbowl. They decided to use the money that they would spend on “traditional advertising” on a social media project.

Here’s the background story (Dec 17, 2009) : Pepsi to end 23-year run of Super Bowl ads Company to focus on new campaign that will mostly appear online

This move changes everything.

A major traditional long time advertiser is making a move away from a traditional media channel.

• Advertising on television is a make-or-break, one-time shot. Money is spent. Media channel wins. Advertiser? Maybe, maybe not.
• Advertising online with a persistent presence is not a one-time shot because you can become a permanent part of the online landscape.

Hmm…

This is very similar to the way the social media technologies were used in the 2008 Presidential Campaign (Barack 2.0 Project). Obviously, I am very keen to this seismic shift in the marketplace. But even more importantly, we can learn from these moves and apply them to our businesses now.

Point 1:  Look at your actions and see if they align with your goals

Pepsi is redirecting their advertising dollars because they looked at the Superbowl advertising media as a channel. That media channel, they assessed, did not align with their goals. I speculate that they made this assessment based on the dynamics of the communication technology marketplace. Television as a media is being supplanted by online consumption of video content.

In other words, you can advertise once, but online you can create a presence that allows for people to consume your content over and over again.

** The ads that were shown on the superbowl are available online right now. So consumption, reach and exposure are no longer the only valid attributes to measure the effectiveness of advertising.

Point 2: Create an offer and environment where your audience can engage

Pepsi has created a community that fully engages the audience and “empowers” the audience to participate in a social improvement project that they support with hard dollars. This creates an everlasting ripple effect of good will and community support. This is priceless.

The new standard for effective advertising is engagement and ongoing participation with the audience. The audience is now in action for Pepsi.

• Are they becoming engaged with you and your offer?
• Are your dollars producing the returns that you are expecting?
• Are you doing what you have always done, expecting the same results?
• Are you still getting the returns from your actions?
• Is it time to think and act differently in the marketplace?

Point 3:  News Begets News Begets News

Run this search on Google: “Pepsi not advertising”. Here is the search link. At the time of this writing there are over 3.7 million listings on Google.

Major media has been covering this story for months.  Thus, the broad audience is well aware of Pepsi not spending money on advertising in lieu of spending money in the community.

Since Pepsi now has public support and media support, they have the advantage of good PR working for them.

Point 4: Supporting Marketplace Ideas

Social media is all about sharing of data and information. The most precious and most valuable commodity is a good idea. But a good idea is only the beginning. A good idea needs shaping and support to grow into anything that is valuable.

Good ideas are everywhere. But when you evaluate, activate and then support an idea with cold hard cash, you have the possibility of real success.

Sharing ideas is just a “social and human” thing to do. Pouring money back into the community makes Pepsi a wonderful corporate citizen. They are using social media communication technologies to contain the messages from the marketplace, in the most cost-effective environment to let ideas flow, report progress and let the people continue to engage.

Idea, thinking, execution and community support are the cornerstones of human existence. The more that I see technology move forward, the more I see us as “just people” moving back to our core activities without restraint.

Bravo, Pepsi, for thinking differently and moving differently in the marketplace.

The question now becomes:

What can you learn from this Big Corporate example and how can this apply to your business?