Our client Pepsi defeated Coca Cola in the Germany World Cup 2006. Pepsi did not want to be inside the boring original transmission, where Coca Cola only could have logo presence and a simple animation for a few seconds. On the contrary, Pepsi stole the show to all sponsors (knowing that audience was anticipating from the beginning of transmission), using available positions before any match, airing the soccer video clip “Bienvenidos al Baile” (Welcome to the Dance).

Even though it was a low budget production, the strategy helped to increase SOM in 1.08%, and a PepsiCo consumer tracking study (by Millward Brown Andean Region), determined that Pepsi obtained 41% of positioning as official sponsor, Coca Cola made a distant second with 20%, McDonald’s 5%, and Adidas 3%.

Prior to World Cup 2006 transmissions, team Pepsi created a videoclip using shots for historical matches and jingle for Bienvenidos al Baile campaign. The video seemed to take part of original transmission and audience watched Maradona, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo scoring goals, like they’re dancing along the rhythm of Pepsi jingle. The video became an announcement for each match, and the analogy of dancing and soccer made it easier to associate it with Pepsi.

In Guatemala, FIFA World Cup is bought by local TV stations exclusively, and the whole target audience was anticipating the event, that could only be accessed by such media. Nevertheless, local transmission has always been non dynamic, even boring, and added restrictions from FIFA, meant that Pepsi had a hard time taking advantage of the fuss.