"Live FOR NOW"
In an attempt to establish and regain brand and cultural relevance, in April 2012, Pepsi, in collaboration with Twitter, launched their Live for Now campaign. The campaign’s goal is to bring a more youthful edge and create excitement for Pepsi brand by partnering with celebrities, fans, innovators and epic events; and to deliver entertainment based on popular choices and trends (Webfluenz).
In an attempt to establish and regain brand and cultural relevance, in April 2012, Pepsi, in collaboration with Twitter, launched their Live for Now campaign. The campaign’s goal is to bring a more youthful edge and create excitement for Pepsi brand by partnering with celebrities, fans, innovators and epic events; and to deliver entertainment based on popular choices and trends (Webfluenz).
Brad Jakeman, president, Global Enjoyment Brands, PepsiCo had this to say about the Live for Now campaign, "'Live for Now' is considerably more than a positioning statement or a single ad creative – it is the central governing idea for the brand globally. Pepsi has always inspired people to embrace the 'now' by being at the epicenter of, and helping to define, pop-culture. 'Live for Now' embodies a mind-set that is true of Pepsi loyalists around the world, while still connecting with a large and growing number of consumers who share the same values. It will enable the brand to deepen its global equity in a relevant and authentic way, and has already inspired a differentiated way of thinking about brand behavior across the entire Pepsi global marketing system." In addition, chief marketing officer, Simon Lowden, states that the campaign will inform its consumers the way Pepsi behaves as a brand and that it is a fantastic filter through which they can create exciting and innovative partnerships with some of the world’s leading artists and entertainment properties (Pepsi Launches).
Pepsi's global campaign launches in the U.S. with "Pepsi Pulse," the digital segment of "Live for Now." The interactive digital platform will operate in real time, serving up trending pop-culture content, entertainment news and consumer incentives. Pepsi Pulse has several features, including an interactive display of pop-culture news content and interaction with celebrity visitors. Pepsi will also present a series of exclusive pop-up, Twitter-enabled concerts featuring major music artists. Additionally, Pepsi's first of its kind Twitter music partnership will enhance consumers' music experiences and bring them closer to what is hot in music today. Nicki Minaj is one of the many artists that are collaborating with Pepsi to help bring life to the new brand proposition. "Live for Now" in the U.S., includes TV, radio, cinema and outdoor advertising, experiential as well as digital and social media platforms (Pepsi Launches).
At the time of the campaign launch, Webfluenz (Webfluenz), tracked online conversations around the campaign to gauge consumer feedback and identify trends, here’s what they found:
- Majority of the buzz was generated from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom
- On Twitter’s character restricted platform, #now was more relative to #livefornow
- #livefornow was used more to share news about the campaign
- Love songs were the most tweeted about
- Another popular trend with #now was people tweeting about what they wanted, most commonly people seemed to want “summer”
- Pepsi listened to their audience with several of their tweets being about the end of the school term and the beginning of summer
- Majority of the buzz was generated from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom
- On Twitter’s character restricted platform, #now was more relative to #livefornow
- #livefornow was used more to share news about the campaign
- Love songs were the most tweeted about
- Another popular trend with #now was people tweeting about what they wanted, most commonly people seemed to want “summer”
- Pepsi listened to their audience with several of their tweets being about the end of the school term and the beginning of summer
Consumer responses
Throughout the campaign, Pepsi posted Youtube vidoes called “episodes”, that featured artists, pop culture, and topics trending on Twitter. The first video Pepsi posted had 2,000 views, while a video posted in August 2012 had over 100,000 views. From this information we can conclude that the campaign has caught consumer’s attention. Music artist Nicki Minaj was closely associated with Pepsi in the eyes of the consumers due to her commercial and musical performance that kicked off the campaign. In addition, Wedfluenz constructed a graph that analyzed global consumer conversations around the Live for Now campaign. They found that United States consumers accounted for 66% of global chatter, while the United Kingdom came in second accounting for 11% of chatter (Webfluenz).