The 2020 election was the most polarizing in modern American history. It sparked an opportunity to connect with Latinx youth and inspire them to unapologetically unmute their voices.

The ask was to leverage Pepsi's rich history in music and entertainment as the perfect platform for a meaningful and timely campaign to inspire Latinx youth to get out and vote.

The objective was to create behavior change with a voter registration campaign, delivering positive brand sentiment and sales growth.

We were inspired by the idea of "unmute yourself," a phrase that has become ubiquitous thanks to WFH culture during the pandemic. We turned the unmute button into a symbol that shows the power of being heard and inspired. That plus Pepsi's rich history in music and entertainment fueled a campaign across multiple platforms, concerts, and activations to connect with our young Latinx audience.

We focused our campaign on engaging the young Latinx audience, who is passionate about speaking out but often doesn’t take the action needed to make the changes they wish to see in the world. In particular, fewer Latinx registered to vote in 2016 despite being legally able to do so, thus muting their own voices through inaction.

This truth became the perfect metaphor for Pepsi to communicate the change it wished to inspire among young Latinx: to have their voices "unmuted" by registering to vote. Our approach was to leverage Pepsi's rich history in music and entertainment as a springboard for a fully integrated campaign with multiple brand experiences ultimately driving Latinx youth to vote and engage with the brand along the way.

The campaign goal was to achieve a high reach of multicultural millennials by activating across channels where young, diverse voters are engaged. Budget funded a 360 campaign, linear, FEP, social, streaming audio, video, digital OOH, and custom content.

The campaign launched during the VMAs with a custom segment. Millennials were reached in first-to-market partnerships with Triller and Nativ.ly, leveraging the power of music and talent to encourage fans to vote. FEP, social, audio, and video efficiently reached the audience where they spend most of their time, while digital OOH prioritized markets with a high composition of multicultural millennials.

Through strategic media negotiations, Pepsi tapped into Upfront partners and innovative platforms to secure production and talent within the media plans across Viacom, Nativ.ly, and Triller.

Post-exposure tracking was clear, 91% of our audience reported being more likely to register to vote. That’s a whole lot of Latinx voters unmuting their voices by taking action to affect change. Not only did we persuade them to register to vote, but the VMAs initiative also delivered 87% positive sentiment for Pepsi.

Even better? Our business metrics were pretty remarkable too. The creative reversed the low brand linkage and category misattribution by nearly doubling our brand linkage and purchase interest. Despite minimal branding in the work, this goes to show that the right message will resonate with the correct target.

In addition, Unmute Your Voice outperformed SLTV norms as the Pepsi brand resonated with viewers, leading to a purchase intent 19 points higher than the norm.