Pepsi Max Teams Up With Messi, Pogba, Salah & Sterling For UEFA CL ‘Play Never Stops’ Campaign

As the world’s preeminent club football competition reaches the knock-out stages, drinks sponsor Pepsi Max picked a strong team of player ambassadors to front a global activation called ‘Play Never Stops’.

This 2020 Pepsi integrated international football initiative is fronted by Lionel Messi, Paul Pogba, Mo Salah and Raheem Sterling and the spearhead spot is built around a series of rapidly shifting sequences and is set to the Wost track ‘Presidente’ (featuring Ginette Claudette).

The spot links with Pepsi North America’s Spanish language version ‘Es Lo Que Quiero / That’s What I Like’.

The multi-platform campaign, which runs in 80 different countries, also runs across in-store/point-of-sale, on limited-edition cans and retail packs with player visuals, out-of-home ads, behind-the-scenes social content

Smooth like @sterling7 #pepsicanbalance #fortheloveofit pic.twitter.com/UrK13pERy3

— Pepsi MAX (@PepsiMaxUK) February 12, 2020

and the ‘Pepsi Can Balance Challenge’ (a social media initiative unlocked via QR codes which lead to miniature augmented-reality versions of the players and a keepy-uppy game.

The initiative was developed by agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO with creatives David Westland and Jeremy Tribe and was directed by Henry Scholfield X (who helmed Stormzy’s ‘Vossi Bop’ video) through Caviar.

The media agency is OMD.

Natalia Filippociants, vice-president, marketing, global beverages, at PepsiCo, said: “We’ve taken some of the best football players, incorporated their cultural influences off the pitch and put them in unconventional situations with unexpected twists and turns, with plenty of laughter and swagger. Our aim was to play with the energy of the ad and to entertain people, rather than show people being entertained.”

Comment:

This frenetic television commercial follows in the creative footsteps of previous Pepsi work such as its ‘Love It, Live It. Football’ 2018 World Cup campaign (see case study).

The team of player ambassadors is a particularly strong line up: as in The Guardian’s most recent rankings of the World’s Best 100 Players Messi, Salah and Sterling all made the top 10 (at numbers one, five and eight respectively), while World Cup winner Pogba ranked at 55.

Links:

Pepsi Max

www.pepsi.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/pepsimax

https://www.facebook.com/PepsiMax

https://twitter.com/PepsiMax

https://www.instagram.com/pepsimax

Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO

https://www.amvbbdo.com

UEFA Champions League

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/

https://twitter.com/championsleague