Nearly 1 week ago, Pepsi released this “tone deaf” commercial and pulled the advertisement from running on the same day. Now, that advertisement is all anyone can talk about. The brilliant part is that Pepsi has not had to pay a dime for any of this placement.
Generation Next
The commercial itself has been universally called “tone deaf.” It’s difficult to argue that it is a good commercial. However, it was crafted in a way that was seemingly deliberately easy to mock. From the meaningless “Join The Conversation” signs to the very idea of ending a protest by giving a police officer a Pepsi, the commercial has a big “Kick Me” sign on its back. It’s terrible in a way that triggers the easily offended, but yet does not contain anything that is truly offensive.
Change The Game
The true genius was how Pepsi pulled the commercial on the day it was released. If Pepsi executives did not like this commercial, they could have easily canned it before anyone saw it. Yet, the commercial was released and pulled on the same day while every local and national news outlet had a copy of the commercial to show in prime advertising hours. It creates a natural controversy just by the very fact that it was pulled.
This controversy spread to social media. This ad has penetration on old media and new media for $0 in advertising costs. There are a couple caveats worth mentioning in this strategy. Firstly, this method will only be considered a success if you believe any press is good press. Secondly, it will only work if you are a large established brand. Nobody is going to care about making fun of some small no name brand. Small companies may also not be able to weather the proverbial crap storm that this ad could create. Pepsi is the perfect candidate for this kind of hacking.
For Those Who Think Young
Since this commercial launched, where has it appeared? Local TV news. National TV news. Newspapers. News websites. Late night talk shows. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. YouTube. Reddit. It is completely viral.
There have been 29,100 videos created on YouTube mentioning Pepsi in the past week, totaling 25-50MM in total combined views.
More Bounce to the Ounce
Let’s check Google Trends. Coke has a clear search demand advantage over pepsi until this past week. Now Pepsi is searched 4 times as much as Coke has ever been searched in the past 5 years. This is temporary result that will regress soon depending on what Pepsi’s next step is.
Twice as Much for a Nickel
The results are clear. Pepsi hacked old and new media for free advertising placement with a questionable commercial. This type of advertising placement would have cost Pepsi millions upon millions of dollars through traditional avenues. Was it intentional? We may never know. One thing we do know is that we are guaranteed to see this tactic used by advertisers again. It worked too well to ignore.
