In August of 2023, Pepsi would celebrate its 125th birthday.

The Brand faced challenges – it needed to drive share against its biggest competitor and unveil a whole new logo to both old and new audiences.

Relaunching the Brand with a new generation takes a lot of investment and resources. In the face of share swing goals and budget declines, Pepsi knew it could look to media to drive outcomes. This required crafting compelling narratives for an audience whose attention was getting more costly to earn & maintain. Not to mention, the costs associated with the complex rights landscape that encompassed decades of collaborations with artists and talent that were now long expired.

53% of people report feeling happy when experiencing media from the past. Even for Gen Z and Millennials, there is a fondness for eras that harken back to shared iconic moments and seemingly simpler times.

Nostalgia as an emotional driver and a means to earn attention is nowhere more apparent than in the food and beverage category. According to Mintel, 8 in 10 US consumers said they like brands that allow them to savor food and drinks from happy moments in life.

With these insights, a legacy story to tell, and a new visual identity to launch, we needed to bring our challenger mindset to the forefront and ignite media partners to help reclaim Pepsi’s icon status.

In a world where resources to connect with audiences were limited, we tasked every media partner with their own Pepsi Challenge: Ensure that every $1 invested converted to $2 to drive share.

Our overall strategy hinged on three elements: media scale, storytelling, and star power.

Media Scale: Be everywhere Pepsi’s audience, the unapologetic enthusiast is, and emotionally connect with them through their fandoms by leveraging a mix of micro and macro moments to create surround-sound visibility and impact for this epic celebration.

Storytelling: Lean into trusted, pop culture-first media partners to story-tell Pepsi’s legacy, blending editorial and advertising in new and engaging ways that call back to fond memories and shared cultural experiences.

Star Power: Unlock archival footage featuring Pepsi music, sports, and entertainment icons past & present via media partnerships, saving the Brand upwards of $10MM in non-working dollars.

Each media partner embodied Pepsi’s Challenger Spirit during a 125-day celebration:

• People Magazine: Took over the hardcover of the 9/4 People issue and reminded fans of past collaborators like One Direction and the Spice Girls.

• 2023 VMAs: Premiered nostalgia-inducing TV spots featuring past Pepsi Icons, Britney Spears and Madonna

• Billboard: Leveraged its music chart cred to rank Pepsi’s most epic Super Bowl Halftime Shows

• VOX Media: Created entertaining, informational content across Vox’s broad portfolio

• Vulture: Depicted how Pepsi created the first radio jingle in 1939

• Polygon: Delivered a retrospective on Pepsi’s role in gaming

• Eater: Visually recounted how the Brand won the cola wars with the Pepsi Challenge

• Rolling Stone: Highlighted Pop Star Legends, diving into the History of Pepsi’s Gladiator Spot

• Snapchat: Developed a filter allowing Gen-Z to co-create engaging videos using the Brand’s new visuals

The Brand celebrated its 125th birthday with fans engaged in over 250 pieces of content over 125 days. Emotionally connecting with unapologetic enthusiasts and issuing a Pepsi (Media) Challenge to pop culture tastemakers and publishers resulted in:

•Over 28BN+ Earned Impressions

•6.5 Minutes spent on Rolling Stone’s “Oral History of Pepsi’s Gladiator Spot” - 2.5x the 1:50 benchmark

•Over 13 pages of coverage in People Magazine

•9/10 VMA viewers appreciated Pepsi for being nostalgic. One fan (Female/38) said: “Love the throwback ads. Really engaging for the older audience and lets the younger people see it for the first time.”

•AdAge named Pepsi as the #1 Logo Change in 2023

•Every $1 spent worked 2x as hard, ultimately offsetting the cost of the program

With + 6% Sales Growth and over $5.8BN in sales, the Pepsi (Media) Challenge provided a playbook for which to build the next 125 years on.