Pepsi's Back in the Big Game: Why No Play Didn't Pay - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

quotWhat does a doctor say when he cuts the wrong thingquotThat39s the premise of one of my favorite Bill Cosby bits It39s the one where the surgeon is operating on a patient under local anesthesiaamp8212so quotthe guy39s awake down there reading a magazine or somethingquot amp8212and the surgeon is doing his surgeon thing mumbling demands for incomprehensible medical tools from the nurse like doctors doquotScalpelamp8230quotquotTweezersamp8230quotquotMurfrerreatoramp8230quotquotDefillagigamp8230quotAnd then really softly quotOopsquotBelow him the patient quotWhat did you sayquotquotNothing Just lie downquotquotWHAT DID you sayquotquotNothing Lie DownquotquotDid you say 39OOPS I39ve said 39oops39 before I know what I did when I said 39oops39WHAT DID YOU DOquotThat bit was the first thing I thought of when I read this week that Pepsi which pulled out of the Super Bowl last year and instead launched a much ballyhooed 20 million plunge into social media was coming back to the Big Game This year the cola marketer will compete using its version of Doritos39 quotCrash the Super Bowlquot consumergenerated ad contest for Pepsi Max the quotdiet cola for menquot which makes about as much sense as quotdefillagigquot but never mindAnd that heroically hyped social media gambit a causerelated effort called Pepsi Refresh Pepsi39s still doing itSo why did it cut and run from an event it39s virtually owned for a generation to begin withYou might remember last year39s Super Bowl 106 million viewers one of the more spectacular aggregations of eyeballs in television history Huge social network component Incredible value for advertisersPepsi wouldn39t admit it I didn39t expect to hear it and it39s not surprising that the implication is they39re back because the Doritos idea is all that and a bag of Jalapeno Popper Flavored Tortilla Chips so it makes sense to imitate it Still one can39t help but suspect that in reality the folks up in Purchase may have looked at last year39s decision in hindsight and said really softly quotOopsquotCouldn39t they have done both Big Game ads and the social network effortShouldn39t they have done bothIsn39t that the new playbookflat integrated everything working together old new emergingIs it possible that the reports of bigTV39s death were exaggerated and the soda seller was pumpfaked into a miscue Could it be also that Pepsi saw an opportunity to save some bucks and look cutting edge so it called an audible and went for the long pass the big PR hitamp8212and then the play developed completely differentlyEither way I think this is a great object lesson for any marketer and their agencies struggling to make sense out of a complex and confusing communications environment Zero sum doesn39t work on this playing field Not anymoreEspecially not in the Super Bowl Just ask Bill Cosby who after yet another false rumor about his death hit the chattersphere last month tweeted quotAgain I39m rebutting rumors about my demise But I39m confirming I have an appquotMichael E Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink LLC a leading Los Angeles and New York Citybased advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing advertising media entertainment and digital technology Michael can be reached at michaelmedialinkllccomRead all Michael39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Michael Kassan MediaBizBloggersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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Pepsi's Back in the Big Game: Why No Play Didn't Pay - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

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