Page 33 - Internationalist Magazine 2013 66

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS GOLD

Pepsi,

#PepsiMusicNow
OMD US (Local)

Pepsi has established itself as THE beverage brand

associated with music and pop-culture - and it continues
to strive for that brand association. Pepsi is also a brand

that is evolving and changing with their Millennial
audience - a brand that is becoming a more social brand

than a ‘banner-brand’ in the digital media space. It’s a
brand that realizes it needs to activate its messaging in

the same way the audience is operating and reacting - in

real-time.

Pepsi knew it had to give the consumer a unique and
fresh musical experience they wouldn’t get anywhere

else, and had to engage them, in a digital and mobile
comfort-zone: social media. #PepsiMusicNow, launched

in partnership with Twitter, was intended to drive mass
Pepsi,
conversation around music and capture the minds of

Live for Now
music enthusiasts to position Pepsi as part of the pulse of
Deep Focus (Local-Multi)
music, Twitter’s largest interest category. Pepsi brought

For Pepsi the line ‘Live For Now’ wasn’t just a campaign the Twitter consumer three different music experiences

slogan, it was a mindset. With competitor Coca-Cola that they couldn’t get elsewhere. First was free music
leading in engagement and follower base Pepsi knew
downloads on Amazon to attract new followers and

it was going to take a smarter effort than ever to get the drive loyalty and earned media. Second, Pepsi brought
word out. Rallying the world’s online fans of the iconic the experience of weekly, custom short-form videos of

Pepsi brand around the Live For Now spirit required them what was trending and relevant in the music world.
to tap into pop culture and the mindset of their target Partnering with music-staple and production partner

audience.
FUSE TV, they produced premium content clips to keep
consumers engaged and on the pulse of pop-culture.

The brand’s social agenda completely transformed, Pepsi Last, #PepsiMusicNow brought the audience closer to
was able to ensure that every posting exuded the Live For
their favorite artists with four live-streamed concerts
Now message. Pepsi livestreamed concerts from some
within Twitter - a irst-to-market Twitter experience. With

of the world’s biggest recording artists of the day, namely performances by artists such as Katy Perry and Nicki
Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry making them accessible Minaj, fans could be a part of the show wherever they

exclusively through its social channels. Pepsi also moved were. These live-stream, in-Tweet shows trended globally.
away from polished, professionally shot images and

traded them in for social quality photos. They found that Amazon saw the highest redemption rates for music
people would ‘Like’ and share creative shots of Pepsi’s downloads they have ever seen. The live-stream concerts

iconic packaging when they were ‘handmade’. What
brought increased engagement rates, hundreds of
were friends posting? A midnight showing of a highly
thousands of streams and signiicant coverage across
anticipated movie? Shark Week? Pepsi was posting about media vehicles like The New York Times, Bloomberg

it also. In a 30-day period of time, a rapid cadence of Business Week, Billboard and Ad Age. This campaign
image-based branded content was developed making the was key in re-establishing Pepsi as a social, musical and

brand an engagement leader on Facebook and Twitter relevant brand to an increasingly inluential audience.
long before other brands got into the microcontent game.

Pepsi also implemented a detailed editorial agenda and
calendar on Pepsi.com’s ‘Now Board’ creating a well-oiled

Live For Now social content machine. Within a 30 time
period Pepsi experienced a 114% jump in average post

engagement, a 1133% jump in Viral Reach and were able
to initiate the Live For Now conversation with 46 million

unique users.

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