With social media the it thing, it’s no surprise that Coke and Pepsi have spent huge amounts in trying to “create a conversation” about their flagship brands. So far, it appears they’ve bombed. In the latest issue of the popular Dim Bulb marketing blog, the always readable Jonathan Salem Baskin describes how both Coke and Pepsi have little if anything to show for their expensive forays into social media.
But should that really surprise us? What is there, really, to say about yesterday’s iconic sodas? As Baskin points out, both brands are essentially generic, but for what decades of skillful marketing has made us think about them. The advertising and promotion on which these brands have been built is one-way communication. When we open things up to dialogue, what exactly is it that the twitterati have to forward to their flocks?
Without anything of interest for people to share in the social media space, brands with slipping relevance, like Coke and Pepsi, risk looking like old folks dancing at a wedding. Yes, they may have mastered the steps and you may admire their pluck, but they look somewhere between quirky and quaint.
These giants of Marketing Yore would be better served creating something meaningful that people can’t wait to share. Digging into both their brand essence and their deep pockets, they have the stature to create and fund imaginative and relevant programs that help real people–perhaps tomorrow’s customers. Certainly that’s better than fueling expanding waistlines and empty brand blather.
I don’t disagree with you that Coke and Pepsi are pretty much the poster children for “if we do a big enough ad buy and say it loudly and often enough, they will come”. And I don’t disagree that they’ve not done everything they could to leverage social media. However, I do think they have made some interesting moves — especially the Pepsi Refresh project — that could have a trickle-down impact on corporate behemoth’s shifting some of their ad dollars from useless shouting to useful community-building and CSR initiatives.
Simon Mainwaring has an interesting take on this, too, at http://simonmainwaring.com/brands/consumers-say-catch-me-if-you-can-coke-and-pepsi-give-chase/
Now, as to whether it’s ok to be so hypocritial as to be pushing plastic-packaged sugar water whilst simultaneously trying to fix world problems, now, that is another issue.
Tracy, thanks for the riff on my essay. I really don’t understand why the big cola brands don’t do more to create and share value via social tools vs. going out of their way to do stuff that’s inconsequentially irrelevant. I throw Pepsi’s CSR efforts into that category, as it’s not even bold enough to give money to effect a real change in the world…but simply wants to use it as a tool to get people to do something (which is something other than give them a reason to buy its products). I have hope, though. This nonsense can’t continue unabated forever.
Thanks for your comment, Annie. You’re right, the Pepsi Refresh project definitely deserves a nod. It’s funding some genuine good and that has more potential to create preference for Pepsi than the insanely expensive and self-indulgent Super Bowl ads it replaced. From what I hear, it’s done a lot for internal morale as well. (And I personally agree with you plastic-packaged sugar water–subject for another day…) Thanks for weighing in–and the link to Simon Mainwaring post!
Jonathan, thanks for your comment! I give Pepsi a bit more credit than you do for the Pepsi Refresh project, but you’ve definitely got a point. Pepsi has the wherewithal to do much more-and more boldly. Besides, by now we’ve probably all been collared by enough vote-for-me crowdsourcing efforts to recognize a whiff of student council electioneering when we encounter it. So I hope you’re right–let’s hope that this madness will end, not a moment too soon.