Pepsi rethinks Superbowl and Social Branding

The social effort Pepsi Refresh has been launched with prizes of more than $1 million every month across dozens of ideas selected from site submissions and prizes would replace the budgeted spend on their Superbowl ad. Definitely a new healthy beginning, though the Superbowl may not be out of fashion for long.

This year, instead of spending $20 million on Superbowl ads, Pepsi decided to put the money into Pepsi Refresh, a social marketing campaign which solicits the best ideas from consumers and plans to dole out $20 million in grants to good causes and “great ideas” throughout the year. The site opened up about 10 hours ago to take ideas from people applying for grants. On February 1, voting will begin to decide the best ideas, which will receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $250,000 each.

It’s a bold experiment in social marketing, but it is also risky. Not helping matters is the Pepsi Refresh site isn’t working properly. An attempt to submit an idea resulted in a database error. But even worse, applicants’ personal information was compromised.

If you want to read about the security fracas, read nobosh.com and TC here
Social Marketing Gone Awry: Pepsi Refresh Needs To Refresh Its Security Settings.

Former Neighbours actress, Australian Erin McNaught

In 2005, they invited J Lo to its advert premieres, cutting down on Superbowl ROI, but launching the new campaign in Spain with a mafia theme from Hongkong. J Lo works with footballer and Barça opponent Real Madrid’s Beckham (also LA Galaxy) and Beyoncé

Let’s hope the Idea memes last and voting on them is Fun in the week leading to the Superbowl and thence till Pepsi withdraws the campaign. This year’s Hit Refresh campaign’s face is Aussie “Neighbours” actress Erin who pipped Ruby Rose from MTV for the same. (via Digital Spy