Amish Shah

Pepsi’s Refresh Campaign Blazes New Trails with Online Marketing Technology and Advertising

Pepsi has decided to blaze its own path down the advertising super highway forgoing their iconic commercials from one of the most-watched television programs of the year, The Super Bowl.  Despite the rampant decline of television viewership due to cable and sought after Internet options, advertisers are still willing to pay big bucks for a spot on such highly watched sporting event. As you may have noticed Pepsi decided not to advertise this last February in the Super Bowl, but instead they have generated a social campaign that allows Pepsi to be in direct communication between them and consumers by initiating “The Pepsi Refresh Project”.

Pepsi spokesperson Nicole Bradley says the project’s main goal is to create an accessible discussion between loyal and prospective customers.

“The Super Bowl broadcast can be an amazing stage for broadcasters, and [PepsiCo subsidiary] Frito Lay will be there in a big way,” she tells DMNews. “But our beverage brands’ marketing strategy in 2010 [is] less about a singular event and more about a movement. We are always looking to further develop our two-way conversation with consumers.”

This hits hard on the head of social engagement, attracting consumer thoughts on sustainability.  Rather then spending the money on the ads, Pepsi has allocated $20 million to fund thousands of projects from the ideas of Americans. Since January, the Refresh Project has been giving $1.3 million for 32 grants each month from literacy projects to programs that provide tuxedos for prom. Then online voters choose winning projects.

Recently, Pepsi added an additional $1.3 million toward ideas that will help refresh the oil spill that hit the Gulf of Mexico, proving that corporate contribution and social responsibility is an action Americans want to see, moreover, become involved with. 

But from a business point of view, is Pepsi seeing the social success?

Irbtrax, an independent SEO marketing firm has been closely monitoring the Pepsi Refresh Project resulting in some interesting analysis.

According to Irbtrax founder Scott Moir,  ”At its core it’s a well planned Internet Marketing campaign based on Advocacy that is utilizing it’s existing Social Media assets to spread the word virally. Its appeal has been enhanced by perception. A perception that was fueled by the publicity and Internet chatter they created when they ‘pulled’ their Super Bowl advertising.”  Using two core on-line marketing strategies, trends and timing, Pepsi used the trend towards social media and the timing of the Super Bowl to their advantage, gaining an on and off line buzz.

A further look at the Pepsi Refresh Project from an internet marketing research and statistical perspective, Irbtrax shows the following:

- Campaigns of this magnitude generally take months to plan, develop and refine – -refresheverything.com is a stand alone website. The Domain name was apparently registered on 11/30/2009.



-The top four traffic generators for refresheverything.com are Google searches, Facebook, Pepsi.com, and Twitter. This traffic experienced a huge spike just prior to and after the Super Bowl.

 Since the Super Bowl, the site’s traffic has increased about 800% and remained consistent. The result of this traffic spike is that refresheverything.com has a United States Alexa ranking of 4,083.  About 75% of the site’s traffic is coming from the United States.

International Refresh Project coming?

- The refresheverything.com Meta Title is ‘Pepsi Refresh Project’ and contains 21 characters.

- The refresheverything.com Meta Description is ‘Pepsi is giving away millions each month to fund refreshing ideas that change the world. The ideas with the most votes will receive grants, so vote for your favorites. Do you have an idea that needs support? Learn how Pepsi can help.’ It contains 233 characters.

- The Keywords are: ‘Fund your project with a grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project!’

With two votes casted every second, more and more people have been driven to Pepsi’s site to get involved, showing an increase in website traffic, which helps direct communication with no clutter coming in from third parties. This long term internet advertising plan also could be the beginning of many marketing strategies we may see coming from corporate giants.

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