The MSN gaming and content brand experience was visited by 9m consumers spending a total of 1.4m hours on site – to replicate this much brand exposure would require around 168m TV spots.The paid-for video placements generated over 450k views whilst the views attributed to the video being passed-on exploded to nearly 20m. Pepsi achieved second position on the AdAge viral chart for 10 weeks. Independent tracking showed Pepsi’s share of voice in the soft drinks market at 33% during the World Cup vs. Coke’s 8%, and brand opinion increased 9%.

Central to the campaign was the creation of a multi-market, innovative gaming experience – not a space-filling, ‘one-play’ game but a multi-player, personalised series of games with rewards and incentives built in. The multiplayer experience and built-in tools encouraged consumers to get their friends involved as well, facilitating that sought-after viral effect.Beyond the gaming experience – rather than create a 30” TVC – Pepsi created a wealth of video and music content, and exclusive extras that could be viewed, commented on, and most importantly shared through social platforms – providing consumers with a reason to spend time with the Pepsi brand.To ensure we maximised the effect, we distributed the content through all available online and mobile touchpoints, and used multiple offline channels to drive people to the various destinations

Pepsi’s challenge globally has always been to compete with its behemoth rival Coca-Cola, despite lower budgets and lower market share. Prior to 2010 campaign planning, OMD identified that Pepsi’s challenge should be not to raise awareness – already broadly high relative to Coke – but to build engagement with the consumer and increase metrics closer to purchase, where they lag further behind.With 2010 being World Cup year – football fever would abound in the run up to the tournament – and consumers would be looking for cool, fresh, and relevant content.Pepsi and OMD used the lack of youth-focused football content to their advantage – creating an alternative World Cup experience with fun, irreverent content matching the Pepsi brand values.Providing this content to our consumers was a great opportunity to go beyond generating awareness and really engage with our key youth consumer.