The company now known as Pepsico was born in 1965 when Donald Kendall, the CEO of Pepsi-Cola, and Herman Lay, the CEO of Frito-Lay, decided to forge the two already successful  companies into one F&B powerhouse. 

Since then, PepsiCo has grown into a $70.37 billion multinational responsible for managing over 100 globally recognized brands. In fact, no other F&B company has as many successful brands as PepsiCo. 

However, the rise to the top has been hard earned, especially in recent years. As bloggers evolved into influencers and “multi-channel” transformed into “omni-channel,” digital marketing looks very different than it did just 10 years ago (not to mention 40 years ago). People have more purchase and media consumption options than ever making connecting with customers especially difficult. In addition, the global pandemic forced them to re-image one of their core marketing strategies: live events.

With this in mind, PepsiCo has sought to reinvent its marketing approach to become more customer-centric, data-driven and digital-first. Here’s a brief look at how.

Experiential Marketing Reinvented

Since the early 80’s, Pepsi has sought to align itself with the hottest pop musicians such as Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and even Ray Charles. However, when the global pandemic put a temporary end to live events, Pepsi had to rethink this strategy.

In a May 2021 profile on The Drum, Salman Butt, senior marketing director APAC of PepsiCo explained, “Keeping the spirit of the brand alive and relevant, the Covid pandemic has led us to think differently as traditional on-ground activations and promotions were limited. We needed a full-on digital approach to reach our target audience. With some brainstorming on the digital landscape with the agency, we decided to leverage on the new era of technology to reach out to consumers who are confined to finding experiences and things to do within their home.”

In order to accomplish this, PepsiCo has made substantial investments in Augmented Reality (AR) to stream concerts and, while doing so, engage with their target audience. For example, in order to access a recent Pepsi sponsored Siti Nordiana concert, fans simply scanned a code on their Pepsi Black Raspberry bottle into the event website using the AR tool and were redirected to the concert. 

*Image sourced from https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/05/11/pepsico-we-need-full-digital-approach-reach-our-target-audience 

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Pepsico Labs

In order to ensure it stays ahead of the curve, the company launched Pepsico Labs two years ago. Essentially a venture capital arm or business incubator, Pepsico Labs identifies and partners with startups all across the globe to both help advance these businesses and ensure Pepsico has access to the latest, cutting-edge technology. Theier formula for success in this area: opportunity, discovery, pilot and scale.

For example, they recently partnered with Marketing AI startup, CreativeX, to build algorithms that monitor promotional content to ensure it complies with PepsiCo brand standards and performance KPIs. They also co-created Zappi’s ad testing platform and it’s product innovation platform. 

In terms of upcoming projects, they recently announced they were currently running three gaming pilot programs with startups GreenPark, Anzu and StreamElements. The goal is to figure out how to tie PepsiCo products to these increasingly popular games and connect with a new, previously untapped audience. 

PepsiCo ROI Engine

Another key area they’re looking to expand into is performance marketing and analytics. According to a recent piece in MarketingDive, one tool that has proven to be especially effective during the pandemic months is the company’s ROI Engine, “a machine learning-powered measurement system that PepsiCo says allows it to make smarter decisions in measuring campaign effectiveness and return-on-investment (ROI).”

Using the tool, PepsiCo marketers are able to monitor and optimize marketing campaigns in real-time, a capability that has enabled them to save millions. As a result, the ROI Engine is now up and running across PepsiCo's North American and they expect the solution to be fully operational across another top 18 markets by the end of 2021.