One of the largest sporting events in the World, Super Bowl, is almost as important to the world of advertising as it to the sports in America. But this year, one thing will be different… A company well known for its Super Bowl advertising isn’t advertising this year. Instead it’s putting advertising $s into social media (SoMe) networking… It’s like companies are waking up to the fact that people using SoMe platforms are here to stay and they want to talk, and they want to be heard
Since organisations first saw the internet as a space to occupy with ‘push messages’, we’ve pretty much got used to seeing ads of all different guises everywhere: pop-ups, banner ads, roll overs, pre-rolls, post-rolls and even a site dedicated to ad space by the pixel (The Million Dollar Homepage)
But SoMe platforms are different as the traditional ‘push message’ is seen as an intrusion – an invasion of personal space – and like Space – it’s like shouting in a vacuum ‘no-one hears you Aadvertising or trying to ‘hard sell’ in the SoMe space has exactly the same effect. So the first rule of Fight Club applies here, “you do not talk about Fight Club Selling!”
Pepsi's Refresh Everything project . Voting starts 1st Feb 2010
Pepsi (Pepsico) is one of the world’s largest traditional advertisers, but this year their $20 million ad spend is being used for its SoMe project ‘refresh everything‘, promoting “sharing ideas to solve world problems”. Their overall aim? To move customer relationships from impressions to connections… refreshingly refreshing 
You can download the ‘Idea Toolkit‘ then upload it, promote it and let the people vote for it.
The Director of Social Media for Pepsico, Bonin Bough, said:
We’re always going to buy impressions, but if we can’t drive those impressions and have those impressions be the beginning of a relationship that starts a deeper connection with audiences, then we’ve kind of lost where the real power of social media is at.
Personally, I think this is a great way to engage with people, identify ‘their’ causes – while softly promoting the Pepsi brand at the same time. Take a look, and let me know what you think…
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! That is a BRILLIANT idea. Finally a huge corporation is giving back into the communities rather than purely focusing on the bottom line. This is the kind of advertising I would be happy with. If more big business related this way we could really have a 'joined up' world. What a fantastic possibility.
Its hard to see how this could be negatively construed at all, the message is loud and clear, and whats more it will make people look at Pepsi ( quite an old and perhaps jaded brand) in a new light- more as an ethical brand, even though they only sell soda.
And, you know what's also great, where one leads…..others will follow. To think social media brought us to this. Amazing.
I thought it was a great idea – and one that will give them far greater exposure
I also think that there are so many other ways SoMe can be used to engage with communities – softly – than the traditional HARD sell. And it will be interesting to see what well known brands will be doing in the future.