Times are changing…Pepsi skips Super Bowl, invests in Social Media

Pepsi has had some memorable Super Bowl ads over the past 23 years, with such notable celebrities as Britney Spears and Cindy Crawford.  This year however, Pepsi opted to forgo the Super Bowl in lieu of Social Media…is this a sign-of-the-times?

No question online marketing has been gaining traction over the years, and for good reason—online marketing is targetable, trackable and provides amazing ROI. The Holy Grail of online marketing is creating/getting something to go “viral,” meaning something that will resonate with people so much that they share it with their friends and those friends share it with their friends…and so on.

In Pepsi’s latest social media program, they are giving away $20 million in grant money, some critics say that if you’re going to spend that kind of money for a charitable cause, why not spend another $3m for a Super Bowl spot?  To start with $3m is just for one 30 second spot, so they’d more likely spend $9-12m, plus production.  I actually believe it was a brilliant P/R move on Pepsi’s part…think about all the media attention they’ve gained by NOT being in the Super Bowl this year (including this small blog post)…that alone is worth forgoing the big event.  In addition, marketing is about about testing and taking chances…since Pepsi is such a big brand, they can easily take a year off from the Super Bowl and use that money to test the social media waters in a big way.

Tell me what you think…brilliance or blunder?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Interactive/Web NEWS.