Will football soon be the only reason to watch the Super Bowl? That’s what I was asking myself when I came across this article on MediaBullseye.com.
For Super Bowl XLIV, Pepsi has decided to forgo its traditional Super Bowl ads – like the one below from 2009 – in place of a cause-based social media campaign for its newly launched Refresh Project. The Refresh Project is designed to accept nominations and award grants to people and organizations working to make a positive impact in their community. Pepsi will use Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and other social media sites to raise awareness, generate submissions, and interact with their customers about the project.
The Super Bowl is one of the few times annually when people are not fast forwarding through commercials, so I was fascinated that Pepsi has decided not to go with a big television ad this year. While what Pepsi is doing is a potentially groundbreaking decision, will it really stick? I think back to my college and graduate school communication classes where professors drilled into us the importance of traditional media outlets like newspapers and television. They repeatedly stressed that we should not rule these outlets out in our future careers, despite the rising popularity of new media platforms. But with the decline of newspapers and decisions like this one by Pepsi, will academics and public relations professionals soon be changing their outlook?
Undoubtedly, the value that Pepsi sees in social media is the personal aspect. This is an opportunity for people to see Pepsi as a “person” that they can interact with, thus helping Pepsi grow trust and establish credibility. From the article:
“The floodgates are going to open and nearly every business will want to do the Pepsi thing. False prophets are waiting for your money to help you talk at your customers. The rest of us will talk WITH each other, like PEOPLE do.”
Pepsi has done its homework and will use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to effectively manage the expected onslaught of Refresh Project consumers. This gives Pepsi the capability to tailor each message to the individual customer by tracking information the customer has already provided, enabling an interaction that can grow, becoming more involved and personalized. Pepsi understands that people will respond better if the Refresh Project is seen as a “person” that they can relate to and interact with.
It’s a fascinating, and sometimes overwhelming, world that we live in today where social media is often misunderstood yet embraced at the same time. The fact that a company like Pepsi realizes the value of social media enough to throw its total weight behind it in lieu of the biggest television advertising opportunity of the year says a lot about what tools like Twitter and Facebook can add to a campaign. It will be interesting to see how well this works for Pepsi and the Refresh Project – but I believe a move of this magnitude helps pave the way for less innovative companies and organizations to fully embrace social media and become “friends” with its customers.
Nice find, Rachael! I agree that this is a bold, innovative step for a company like Pepsi. It certainly displays their belief in the value of social media outlets, and their willingness to try and tap into the opportunities they present.
With respect to your point about traditional versus new media: I think it is becoming increasingly important to think about all of these outlets as available tools, each with different strengths and weaknesses, but each worthy of equal consideration. In this instance, Pepsi has clearly decided that the tactical value provided by social media outreach outweighs the value they find in a Super Bowl advertisement – but I think it is vital make these types of decisions with the overall campaign goals in mind. The existence and rising popularity of social media doesn’t justify this decision on its own. Instead, we’re starting to see social media – along with other online tools – become a fundamentally integrated part of all outreach efforts.