With the pandemic pausing social lives, outlets for young people to express themselves were removed. Paradoxically this accelerated the rise of creativity, moving Gen-Z from being the consumers of, to the creators of, content.

We focused on becoming the catalyst for PLAY when it was restricted. Leveraging the elite football talent at our disposal, we wanted to give fans the opportunity to express themselves.

1. Drive brand fame among football fans

To leverage our audiences' passions, grab their attention and keep Pepsi at the heart. Each Duet started with both the talent and Pepsi in frame, hooking fans in whilst driving brand association.

2. Drive engagement and participation

To drive meaningful brand engagement and participation, giving fans social equity by them creating content alongside their footballing heroes.

3. Be the world’s most-loved football entertainment brand

Staying true to the brand DNA, we aimed to create iconic, loved, off-the-pitch entertainment.

The idea was simple. What if, when fans were stuck indoors, they could play football alongside the best players in the world through a simple choreographed routine, with the product at its heart.

We created the #PepsiChallenge using TikTok’s new Duet feature, releasing films with Leo Messi, Shanice Van De Sanden, Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho, that fans at home could duet with using their mobile phone.

Harnessing a nascent trend of TikTok dances, we choreographed a football routine that was accessible, yet challenging enough for fans to want to do, take pride in and share online. The routine had the product naturally and intrinsically at its heart, whilst fans passed the ball back and forth with the player, there was an unexpected twist at the end, where the player steals the can of Pepsi from the fan, referencing the TVC narrative, in which the players compete for the can.

Through our in-depth understanding of the cultural football landscape, we identified football x music as a fertile cultural intersection that would allow us to subvert and remix two of the most powerful cultural passion points for our audience to create fresh and unique entertainment experiences.

To drive distinction within the world of TikTok and inspire our audience to engage with us, we knew we needed to provide a unique POV and an unexpected twist in order to drive salience for Pepsi.

By applying our native understanding of the TikTok user experience, we identified the Duet feature as the ideal platform experience to showcase our elite talent in an unexpected and entertaining way while also enabling us to truly involve our audience as part of the campaign.

Through the campaign, Pepsi inspired its audience to challenge convention, break out of their bubble and discover the new.

We created a shareable football challenge that leapt out of TVC into social feeds everywhere.

Harnessing the rich cultural crossover between football and music, a sweet spot within the Pepsi DNA and key to the TikTok platform and such challenges, we partnered with music artists Becky G and Burna Boy to create a bespoke UEFA Champions League inspired track ‘Rotate’, that would form the 15 second soundtrack to the challenge. Paul Pogba also challenged his friend Burna Boy to a duet.

To ensure maximum reach we launched the content first across player channels, to their 250m+ following, then supported with duets from the most influential voices in the football culture space. Our global team of 18 influencers took on the challenge; sparking UGC worldwide including Brazil, Egypt, UK, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The numbers were staggering. The campaign drove brand fame globally with 3.2 billion views over the 6 week campaign period.

With over 47 million likes and 3m+ shares of the content from fans, the campaign had a leading engagement rate of 4.73%, almost triple the benchmark. Most impressively though, 584,000 Duet videos were created by fans, showing it’s massive appeal to the brand’s Gen Z audience.

The duet performed exceptionally well across player and influencer channels too. Messi’s duet became the most viewed piece of content ever across his channel at the time with 35.7m views, whilst our influencers delivered 15.3m views, 471% above planned.

Finally, as well as delivering fame and engagement for the brand, it grew Pepsi’s equity in football and entertainment. Brand recall was at 87% versus a benchmark of 31%*, and enjoyment was at 63% against a 34% benchmark*.

*TikTok