Pepsi Plunges into Social Media with One Heck of a Splash & a Brand New Look

Box 1. Hand-delivered at 10 am: white, oblong, no return address. As a guy hand-delivering it made his way back towards my office, the buzz began. A dozen long-stem roses? A major new technological breakthrough for moms? Inside the box stood five pristine Pepsi-Cola cans, each with a different evolution of the Pepsi-Cola logo, starting in 1898 and ending in 1950.

Box 2: 10:30 am. This box, with the delivery guy now looking like the Pied Piper as curious staffers trailed along, brought us cans with Pepsi’s brand evolution from 1962 to 1998. The logo became more clear, crisp and highly recognizable.

Last box. 30 minutes later. At this point the entire office had gathered to find out what was up with these mystery deliveries. And there stood the new face of Pepsi. A can flushed blue with a stylized logo and a whole new outlook. We love the visual about face: from white to blue, from red print to silver and with a whole new logo:

The enclosed letter read:

You’re a part of a handful of digital and social influencers we’re reaching out to regarding a multi-year, companywide transformation…Pepsi is looking to change the game. We hope you’ll partner with us in defining how digital and social media is shaping the world today and beyond.

And of course, by then I knew - Bonin is behind this!

My very favorite part of living and breathing social media has been the opportunity to work with exceptionally smart, forward-thinking people. I first ran into with Bonin Bough at a Las Vegas conference, when he was heading up the social media team for Weber Shandwick NY. Bonin, simply put, embodies cool. Brilliant, a thought-leader and activist steeped in emerging new media, adjunct professor at New York University, and super-connected, it came as no surprise to me when Pepsi chose Bonin to head their new global social media initiative over 300 other candidates.

Again, not surprisingly given his engaging personality, Bonin has nearly instantly put the new media world on alert as Pepsi makes a strong entrance into this space. He introduced me to his new social media colleagues, Bart Casabona, who he calls the “special czar of Pepsi,” and Josh Karpf, “social genius,” charged with the challenge of evolving how Pepsi speaks with their consumers. As PepsiCo repositions itself to reach the 21st century online world.

In a flurry of exciting rebranding, Bonin has announced Pepsi’s news with old-fashioned flair. Reminding us of how the old reach mode has morphed. Here the snail-mail outreach sparked online debate, just as online social media sparks real-world conversations and influences consumer purchasing decisions.

With a day of travel in between, I am doing what any impassioned social media recipient would do, only late! Up comes my post – out go the Tweets! Hello to my Ning Communities, Mom blogger community, Moms at www.MomCentral.com, Facebook, and Plurk, just to name a few!

Here a few of the other 25 selected social media influencers as compiled by Daryl Parker

Chris Brogan - Pepsi Reaches Out to Digital People in Analog

CC Chapman - The New Pepsi

Tara Settembre - Pepsi Mailman Rings Thrice

Peter Shankman - New Pepsi… Heard it Here First

Mack Collier - I Have Three Packages to Give You

Steve Hall - Pepsi Unveils Packaging to “Digital and Social Media Influencers”

PSFK.com - Evolution of the Pepsi Logo

Charlene Li (author of Groundswell) - Flickr post of Cans

Shannon Paul - Nice Cans

Greg Verdino - Pepsi Gets A 2.0 Makeover

Valeria Maltoni - Your Logo is a Symbol, Your Product Can Be a Social Object

David Armano - Care Package from Pepsi

Of course, social media can’t launch without an ability for everyone to join in the fray: Check out Pepsi’s room on FriendFeed and join the conversation.

No doubt more will be coming soon. Bonin has invited us along for the ride. We can’t wait.

Meanwhile, we will have to expect the unexpected.

User Rating: / 2
PoorBest