The Pepsi Refresh Project: A

Thirst for Change

Consumer Behavior
Section B
Group 2

©IIM Sambalpur
02-08-2022 1
Should the Pepsi brand team continue to fund for the Pepsi refresh Project? If
yes, then what is the motivation? If no, then comment
Continue Pepsi Refresh project
● Positive response form Baby Boomers (14 million
votes) Gen Xers (9 million votes)
● Widespread awareness of the project (38%) and
increase in purchase intent (+4%) and positive view
of brand (+7%)
● Increase in brand health score
● Campaign generated %66 million earned media for
the firm
● Success of program in terms of gaining social media
followers and accolades from the award shows,
magazines
● Excitement and positive sentiment of employees
propelling the project and ‘feel-good’ about the firm
02-08-2022 ©IIM Sambalpur
Discontinue Pepsi Refresh project
● It do not resonate with half a century old brand
personality
● The user engagement that PepsiCo targeted to
create with the campaign wasn’t successful.
People hardly spent any time on the website (avg
time: 3.5 min)
● The campaign did not resulted in positive sales
conversion, and sales figure fell by more than 5%
● The individual grantee are quite less (100) as
compared to non-profit groups (230), indicating
that the campaign was ineffective in bringing
individuals to better the society
● Decrease in weekly ideas started, site visits and
votes indicates a decrease in user engagement
● Inability of campaign to link itself to product
purchase by customers
● Negative press garnered by the campaign
2
What is the value of
customer engagement?
How should they calculate
the value of social media
engagement?
Customer engagement value is a
comprehensive term that
measures the total value of the
customer through capturing his
transactional and non-
transactional behaviors. Hence, it
is an essential term for
measuring the value of the
customer in direct marketing.
02-08-2022
Calculating the value of social media
engagement:
1. Unique visitors to the site (1692487)
2. Cost per unique visitor (total cost/number of
unique visitors, 20 mil/1692487 = $11.81)
3. Time spent (3.5 min)
4. Page views (3.9)
5. New visits (47.4%)
6. Total votes (5729842)
7. Share posts (161784)
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What is Murray's Psychogenic need for Pepsi in 2011? Comment on the success and
failure of the Super Bowl advertisement taking in account consumer personality.
Murray’s Psychogenic Needs
Success and failure of Super Bowl ad
Change: Pepsi refresh is a change in Success:
branding of PepsiCo from a cool and fun
brand to socially conscious and caring.
Eg: Allocating the budget for Super bowl
advertising to funding the social cause
Achievement: Giving a sense of
accomplishment to people by engaging
in social initiatives. Eg: Ads showing
people meeting their social goals
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Is Pepsi the right brand for the cause marketing Program like Pepsi refresh
Project? Why or why not?
● Building brand affinity requires a brand to partner with a concern that is important to the target
market.
● The Pepsi Refresh project gave social media users the opportunity to choose the causes that
Pepsi would support.
● Various NGOs could apply to be featured through the project and then advocate for their
support network to go and vote for Pepsi to support the project financially.
● Pepsi redirected its Super Bowl marketing funds to support this concept.
● Pepsi's market share declined.
● The sales metric was disregarded.
● Given that Pepsi is a drink, it might not be the best brand for the cause marketing campaign.
● Instead of using its products to promote health and social causes, it uses campaigns to do so.
● It targeted millennials' attention in order to grow its market share, but it ignored the main
objective.
● As it was still a carbonated beverage, it gave people reason to talk about the brand but not to
share it
5
 For any cause marketing programs explore the risk and
reward from consumers and media?
Rewards:
1. Directly enhances sponsor sales and brand;
2. Cause-related marketing is a respected and
accepted business practice;
3. Heightens customer loyalty;
4. Boosts a company’s public image and helps
distinguish it from the competition offering
materials a corporate PR officers;
5. Helps build employee morale and loyalty;
and Improves employee productivity, skills
and teamwork
Risks:
1. Limit product promotion- When creating cause-
based content, brands must consider whether
to mix in product promotion. The two don’t
necessarily sit well together
2. Choose causes wisely- Brands must select
causes that fit their values, and not simply
jump on the bandwagon of topical issues
3. Accept mixed reactions- By definition, cause-
related advertising links to issues people feel
strongly about, so there will always be people
who disagree with the brand message.
Ensuring authenticity should minimise negative
backlash, but if brands associate themselves
with contentious topics they must be prepared
for controversy
6
What metrics or indicators are pointing in a positive direction that Pepsi
Refresh Project will succeed?

Indicators pointing in the positive direction:

● Increase in purchase intent, awareness for brand involvement in
community and a brand that does good in world
● Positive brand health metric in terms of:
○ Consideration to buy
○ Desired brand
○ Better taste than others
○ Brand people can associate with
○ Comfort of a favourite brand
○ High quality brand

7
Thank You!!!