219

220

CEO Indra Nooyi | Number of employees 150,000 | Company Revenues $32b | Brand core values Performance with Purpose | Brand promise Dare For More | Primary target group Millenials | Primary advertising media TV/Outdoor/Digital

Coolbrands: M

aarten &

Anouk in d

iscussio

n w

ith R

ichard L

ee

There is no bigger market than China. When Richard Lee, former vice president of Pepsi China, was given the task of increasing the famous cola drink’s presence in the world’s most populous nation, he knew he needed to go big. For Lee, who is now Pepsi International’s vice president of colas, this involved mapping out a 10-year branding strategy which has seen the company’s market share more than double in China.

Lee’s strategy included five key phases. From 1997 to 1998, the primary task was to raise awareness about Pepsi. From 1999 to 2000, the goal was to enhance its global stature. Phase three, from 2001 to 2004, involved creating one-on-one interaction between Pepsi and its core consumers. while from 2004 onwards the company has dedicated its branding activities to “Beyond the 3D experience”. While the strategy involved numerous campaigns and initiatives, the company’s core values remained the same.Pepsi runs numerous branding campaigns around the word. Each aims to penetrate the everyday life of consumers. Despite a huge diversity in marketing tools and forms, all campaigns follow the 7E Principles. These guiding pillars are: emotional power, entertainment value, brand evangelism, omnipotent exposure, collaborative engagement, execution excellence and investment effectiveness.

Emotional Power Pepsi taps the emotions of its target audience by using celebrities to generate an emotional response to the drink. “It’s about using celebrities as brand-building ingredients,” Lee said. “It’s about creating a multi-dimensional line-up to deepen brand depth.” Pepsi doesn’t just pick any celebrity. For the China campaign, the company came up with 4 key emotions it wanted to impart to potential consumers: innovation, cool, national pride, dynamism. They then went and found celebrities which best generate these kinds of emotional responses. “The Chinese basketball star Yao, for example, represents national pride,” Lee explained.

Entertainment Value Every new campaign, platform and initiative must be as entertaining and newsworthy as possible. In this way, Pepsi creates and maintains long-term hype for the brand. The company also works to create a unique multi-touch point brand experience by employing non-conventional media tools to promote Pepsi. This sees Pepsi partake in a variety of non-core business activities, such as album producer, concert sponsor and even as a movie producer. “It’s about keeping the brand fresh and exciting by changing media formats and tonalities,” Lee said. “A good example of this was in the lead up to the Chinese New Year and cans were messaged with “wishing you 100 moments of happiness”. The combined result of these activities is that Pepsi touches the lives of consumers from 360 degrees, 365 days of the year.”

Brand Evangelism Little expense is spared to get the hottest celebrities to drink Pepsi. The company explicitly exploits star advocacy to boost the consumer bond with the Pepsi brand. For one TV advertisement alone, the company flew its high profile brand ambassadors into the fabled former desert kingdom of Petra in Jordan to film one of the most talked about commercials ever made in China. “In this way we deliver the Pepsi message with the maximum memorability and engagement,” Lee said.

Omnipresent ExposureChina’s equivalent of the Oscars is one of the country’s highest profile events. Instead of having the stars walk the traditional red carpet, however, Pepsi sponsored the event and had the country’s A-List celebs walk the Pepsi blue carpet. “It created a huge buzz,” Lee said. It’s a good example of how Pepsi works to permeate the brand into the daily lives of consumers. Rather than simply running print and TV ads, the company works to create a “theatrical” brand experience. Other devices Pepsi has used in the past include sponsoring the Pepsi music chart, a Pepsi music-star search competition and Pepsi 5x5 soccer teams. The company also works to develop brand cross-overs and in the past Pepsi has developed links with major credit card issuers, Madame Tussaud’s museum studio and clothing lines such as Kappa Sports Fashion.

Collaborative Engagement In all its branding, Pepsi works to create an interactive experience between consumers and the company. It has been particularly quick to seize upon new media forums in building this relationship, such as mobile phone messages, websites offering interactive portals and Pepsi computer games.

Executive Excellence Together Everyone Achieves More. Pepsi’s results stem from this commitment to working as a TEAM. The Pepsi employee, says Lee, has an analytical mind, visionary eyes, a sharp nose to smell the trends, patient ears to understand, an articulate mouth, is action-oriented and has a passionate heart and daring attitude. “It’s not just a brand, it’s a culture,” Lee said of Pepsi.

Investment Effectiveness In all its activities, Pepsi aims to get the biggest branding bang from the fewest branding bucks. In all the company’s campaigns, Pepsi looks to leverage programs with a large amplifying affect. Since 1998 the company’s RSOM to RSOS ratio – Relative Share of Market to Relative Share of Spend – has increased from 0.43 in 1998 to 1.75 in 2008.

Pepsi Success In 1997, Pepsi represented little more than 25 percent of the cola beverage market. By 2007, the company’s market share had grown to more than 60 percent. Pepsi has more than doubled its market share in China since 2007. All brand equity indicators have grown dramatically and Pepsi is the preferred cola drink in the key 17 to 23 year old age group. In short, Pepsi has created an iconic youth-spirited brand with sustainable advantage through gradual brand platform evolution.

222221