Pepsi turns ad focus online (No Super Bowl ADs)

IncomeSlayer

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Jul 16, 2009
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Found this pretty interesting , Pepsi Not running adds on super bowel Sunday and taking to money to spend in on line marketing.

Associated Press
MILWAUKEE -- Pepsi's Super Bowl streak is over after a 23-year run.

Ads for the drinks won't appear in next year's Super Bowl on CBS. Instead, the company plans to shift ad dollars to a new marketing effort that's mostly online.

Pepsi was one of the biggest advertisers in this year's game and has advertised every year since 1987. Frito-Lay, a unit of parent company PepsiCo Inc., will still have Super Bowl commercials in the 2010 game.

The company, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., spent $33 million advertising products like Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos during the 2009 Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it on Pepsi alone. Ad time for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average.

Those prices may have dipped to as low as $2.5 million per 30 seconds for the 2010 game, according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research for TNS Media Intelligence. Final figures won't be known until after the game, which takes place Feb. 7 and airs on CBS. The network said last week it has sold about 90 percent of the game's commercial time.

Shipper FedEx also said Thursday it will not advertise again in the Super Bowl due to costs, the same reason the company gave for sitting it out last time around.

Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl. According to TNS, the company spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, which spent $216 million. The brewer of Bud Light confirmed Thursday it will have 5 minutes worth of advertising in the 2010 Super Bowl.

Pepsi recognizes Super Bowl ads can be effective for marketing, spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said, but the game doesn't work with the company's goals next year.

"In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement," she said.

Notable Super Bowl ads from Pepsi over the years have included celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and Will.i.am.

The nation's second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its "Pepsi Refresh Project" starting next month as its main vehicle for Pepsi. The project will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities.

A Web site will go live Jan. 13 where people can list their projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read. People can vote starting Feb. 1 to determine which projects receive money.

Pepsi estimates the effort will fund thousands of projects and says other businesses will pledge money, too.

The company does plan to hold events related to its new effort at the Super Bowl.

Pepsi's move leaves the Super Bowl soft-drink field open for rival Coca-Cola Co., which has been widely reported to be advertising this year, though Coca-Cola declined to comment. The world's biggest soft drink maker was the eighth-highest spender on Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008. It spent $30.5 million on two Super Bowls within that decade.

Most advertisers on the Super Bowl do not have as long a history as Pepsi, Swallen said, averaging three to four years in a row before dropping out. They will often cycle back in, though, because it is a rare chance to reach such a wide audience. The 2009 matchup between Arizona and Pittsburgh attracted 95.4 million people.

"It is arguably the one TV programming event of the year where people tune in as much for the commercials as they do for the game that's being played on the field," he said.


Source - Pepsi pulls out of Super Bowl advertising, ending 23-year run - ESPN
 


I see more ads online since I download most of my TV; but there's no avoiding those online commercials you get stuck watching before some video segments.

But I know I watch less TV than most people. Love my internetz.
 
Seriously, what they should do is hold an online "Pepsi Challenge" of sorts. Maybe have an independent advertising campaign where they promote an online contest during the Superbowl for a $1,000,000 prize. Whenever CBS breaks for commercial, viewers go to a Pepsi website and view a clue and then have to text in the answer. Then at the end, if they participated in every commercial break clue and sent in an answer, they get into the draw for the million. I know, lots of holes in it but you get the picture. They basically can own a large portion of the Superbowl audience for far less and for much longer than a 30 sec ad.
 
$2.5m for a 30second slot?
If you look at the viewership figures, that's an insanely expensive CPM, and people still aren't any more or less receptive than at any other time.
Seriously consider how much of a saturation campaign you could get online for that kind of money.
People sitting there, reading their mail with the red white and blue slowly undulating in the background. "Hmmm, thirsty, think I'll get a pepsi..."
Or a total takeover of Facebook for a day or some shit.

The idea of getting people to SMS premium numbers is actually a pretty good one. Those premium SMS services bring in a pretty penny, and you'll be getting people doing it multiple times thinking they'll have a better chance because of it.
One of the events I was involved in in Q3 this year ran an SMS contest for the 10,000 attendees. Made about $7,000 profit from, and was only giving away gold passes for the next year.
 
That is insane I can only dream of generating enough revenue to be able to invest 2.5 million in marketing. I guess they figure they have masses of exited intoxicated individuals staring at the TV hoping your feeling impulsive lol.