PepsiCo, which took over from rival Coca-Cola as this year’s non-alcoholic beverage sponsor of The Oscars, used its status to debut a new 60-second ‘memorable movie line’ spot promoting its 7.5-ounce mini cans.
The creative features a set of fragments of famous film dialogue from Oscars winners such as The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, Titanic, Good Will Hunting and When Harry Met Sally.
The commercial, developed by agency Mekanism, takes place on a series of movie sets and ends with Cuba Gooding Jr. Himself trotting out his famous Jerry Maguire phrase ‘Show me the money!’
The Academy Awards commercial was supported by a digital and social media strategy and this Oscars campaignis the spearhead of a winder marketing campaign running under the tagline ‘Little Can. Epic Satisfaction’.
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A core part of the strategy behind the new campaign is to work with retailers to feature the mini can in displays and bundles.
‘One of the things we’re trying to get to is media to shelf execution,’ says Pepsi VP Marketing Seth Kaufman.
‘What that means is our communications provide a tailwind and connect to programs at retail. Retail noise is at an all-time high. It’s really hard to break through.’
The Oscars is part of the brand’s wider strategy for breaking through via live events – other key live properties include the Super Bowl and the Grammys – by creating contextually relevant messages.
For example, Pepsi’s Grammys ad last month featured NFL football stars singing in what the brand called its ‘Grammys Halftime Show’ – thus connected two of its biggest live event property sponsorships.
‘We feel passionately about live appointment viewing events and events that create real-time sharing,’ adds Kaufman.
Rival Diet Coke’s departure as an exclusive category sponsor of the Academy Awards opened the way for Pepsi to add the Oscars to this growing live platform portfolio.
Pepsi’s smaller can has actually been on the market since back in 2011 and does have a fairly broad distribution.
Thus far it has established some popularity with baby boomers and older Generation X consumers, as well as ‘lapsed soda drinkers’.
‘Typically, in the industry when there’s been portion-control packages, the message has been functional in nature,” says Pepsi VP Marketing Seth Kaufman.
‘We want to take this to an emotional place. It’s not about it being only 100 calories.’
Links
Pepsi Website
Oscars Website
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Website
