Pepsi’s Big Game Gamble Marketing | February 5th, 2010
by Kelly Fogarty
In the marketing world, Super Bowl commercials can make or break a product’s image. From classic commercials like Mean Joe Green and Apple’s 1984 ad to lighter fare like Terry Tate Office Linebacker and E*Trade’s wazoo, companies big and small invest millions of dollars for airtime during the Super Bowl each year.
But this year Pepsi has left conventional logic on the ground wondering why it didn’t retire last year (…oh no wait that was Bret Farve after the Saints were done with him) by abandoning television commercials during the big game for a $20 million Pepsi Refresh Project online marketing campaign.
Check out the Pepsi Refresh Project here.
The big question is will this gamble pay off? Will Pepsi, which at one time spent millions on Super Bowl commercials featuring big name celebrities like Cindy Crawford and Britney Spears, see this year’s unconventional jump to online marketing generate more revenue than the cost of a Super Bowl ad campaign?
People are certainly talking about Pepsi right now. You can read articles about their gamble here.
What do you think? Does this move help or hurt Pepsi? Or is this much ado about nothing, like the Pepsi Clear debacle?
Oh, and Pepsi awarded New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees a $100,000 grant The American Cancer Society Patrick F. Taylor Hope Lodge this afternoon, so they’ve certainly got the Who Dat vote…not that any of us are actually going to watch the commercials this year.
