Pepsi and the food industry have been joined to the hip and growing together since the last 30 years. In 2020, during COVID-19 lockdown the restaurant industry, the second-largest employer in India, collapsed to 25-30% of its size (The Economic Times report). Around 3 million restaurant workers lost their jobs. Today, in the time of crisis it was important that Pepsi showed up for the restaurant community. With massive layoffs, the community that served us our favourite foods was now clueless about their next meal.

Hence our objectives…

1. Provide quick access of meals to at least 50% of impacted community members.

2. Build scale & empathy and spread awareness of the plight of the marginalized workers to mobilize stakeholders (and demonstrate commitment to the community).

IDEA: Pepsi serves those who have always served us.

HOW?

Our historical texts mention a saying Annadana Mahadana meaning “Gifting of food is the greatest gift”.

PEPSI SAVE OUR RESTAURANTS program was built around this belief. In a first of its kind collaboration, Pepsi teamed up with India’s largest food-delivery mobile app Swiggy and NRAI so that at the click of a button any consumer could send a meal that would be home-delivered to a jobless worker and his family. All one had to do was add ANY (not just Pepsi) soft drink to their food cart while ordering their favourite dish on the app.

AUDIENCE:

Vibrant change makers - who wanted to positively impact the lives of millions of people impacted by COVID.

INSIGHT:

4/10 restaurants in India were at the brink of closure and 3 MM restaurant workers had lost their jobs. The restaurant workers who had worked tirelessly to create memories for us and serve us warm meals, were now sleeping hungry.

STRATEGY:

1. To notice the plight of a section of society no one was talking about (the laid-off restaurant workers), people must first notice how valuable a role they play in our lives.

2. Direct message at a receptive mind-state. Hungry app-users ordering their favourite dish from restaurants were more receptive to the message ‘It’s time to feed those who always served and fed us’.

CREATING THE RIGHT ECOSYSTEM PARTNERS

With Technology food aggregator Swiggy and industry body NRAI an efficient and direct relief program was activated.

AWARENESS & EMOTIONAL MOMENTUM

A heartfelt poignant film on YouTube & Instagram reliving how our dine-out moments were made special and memorable by the restaurant staff and now the same staff were struggling for their own meal. This film inspired close to 20 million changemakers to make a positive impact.

GENERATING SCALE SOCIAL BUZZ

More than fifty macro influencers from various fields such as Movies, Cricket, Music and the Restaurant community joined hands to become a part of this initiative. From cricket star Shafali Verma to youth icons Tiger Shroff & Disha Patani to celebrity Chef Vikas Khanna, inspired millions of their followers to make a positive change.

DELIVERING MEALS AND GENERATING SMILES

Millions of meals were being delivered on ground in partnership with NRAI.

#PepsiSaveOurRestaurants BECAME A POWERFUL HUMANITARIAN MOVEMENT FROM HOME.

•In just 45 days, through the click of a button, consumers donated 2.5 million meals (over exceeding our target by 1.5X) directly to unemployed restaurant workers’ homes.

STARTED A CHAIN REACTION TO KICKSTART THE RESTAURANT ECONOMY.

• Millions helped by ordering on the app, leading to a domino effect of creating more food sales and helping keep more outlets stay in business. Swiggy’s online food orders grew by 50% (pre & post campaign, June-July 2020).

WHILE WE SERVED THE COMMUNITY, WE ALSO GREW IN LOVE AND RESPECT.

• While consumers were incentivised to buy ANY soft drink, consumers still preferred Pepsi and made it the #1 Soft drink brand on Swiggy

• Garnered 100 Million+ digital reach and 100% positive sentiment.

• Got media coverage worth 6,50,000 USD (INR 49 Million) and 180 stories of PR worth 6,90,000 USD (INR 52 million).