PepsiCo and the Super Bowl: Performance with Purpose

With nearly 100 million viewers every year, the Super Bowl has massive communication power. What to do with that power, however, is the ultimate challenge for a brand. This year, PepsiCo is stepping up to the plate, and using Radian6 to keep their finger on the pulse of their community.

What they’re doing:

PepsiCo views their digital presence across their brands as part of a full ecosystem, with every facet of the communication execution playing a role in the bigger picture. Social media, for example, isn’t a siloed operation, but one component of a sprawling and interconnected digital media landscape.

For instance, in 2008, PepsiCo launched a huge New Year’s Eve extravaganza (part of their “Refresh Everything” campaign which will continue with the Super Bowl), that included environmental, mobile, print, web, video, TV, music and product promotions. The components of the effort worked together to engage customers and viewers and help bring them from channel to channel.

The intricacies of a comprehensive Super Bowl presence are many, and the Refresh Everything campaign is no exception. This year alone, PepsiCo is planning giveaways, consumer-generated media opportunities, TV spots, print ads, and a sweeping digital presence that even includes some of their prominent brands on Twitter. It’s about engaging their customers on several levels, in multiple ways, and allowing them to carry on a dialogue of their own.

So how does listening play a role for them?

First and foremost, they’ll be using Radian6 to listen to the conversation around all of their Super Bowl activities – not just those initiated in social media, but how the buzz is happening around all of their initiatives and being posted online. They’d like to learn how engaged people are with their TV spots, ads, in-person experiences, online efforts, and how the conversation starts in one place and carries over to another.

In many ways, it’s the ultimate integration of online and offline communication, and listening carefully will give PepsiCo the ability to not only see all those points of conversation, but watch where the ensuing dialogue leads. Customers don’t engage in a single medium, and PepsiCo is determined to listen, bridge, and be present where they are. Listening with Radian6 will enable them to follow the paths of those diverse and meandering conversations – wherever they may lead – and learn from the perspective of their customers what drives them to talk about the brand.

Why does that dialogue matter?

PepsiCo’s corporate vision is “Performance with Purpose”. In other words, as a public company, it’s their job to perform well. But that performance needs to be for the greater good. In their eyes, that means bringing bigger value to people – and the world as a whole – outside of just consumerism. They believe they’re in it ultimately to do good and serve a human purpose in the world.

They understand that the power of digital conversation – and monitoring it- is that what they learn change the entire process of how communications are created. And to support their larger purpose, being able to track the ubiquity of their brand online and engage in the most impactful ways means that they can truly create cultural change. So it’s not just about sales, or product placement, or even eyeballs. It’s about changing the world through global conversation.

What’s next?

Already, listening has been changing some of the decisions PepsiCo has made about their media, and it’s going to continue to shape the processes and decisions they make about their digital ecosystem. From listening earlier to listening longer and engaging in more places, they’re slated to use what they learn to amplify and sustain conversations around their activities.

So be sure to pay close attention to PepsiCo’s Super Bowl efforts this year, online and off. Tell us what you think, what you see, what you’d like them to know. They’ll be cranking up Radian6, listening, and hoping to start conversations with you.