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

"What does a doctor say when he cuts the wrong thing?"

That's the premise of one of my favorite Bill Cosby bits. It's the one where the surgeon is operating on a patient under local anesthesia—so "the guy's awake down there reading a magazine or something" —and the surgeon is doing his surgeon thing, mumbling demands for incomprehensible medical tools from the nurse like doctors do.

"Scalpel…"

"Tweezers…"

"Murfrerreator…"

"Defillagig…"

And then, really softly: "Oops."

Below him, the patient: "What did you say?"

"Nothing. Just lie down."

"WHAT DID you say?"

"Nothing. Lie Down."

"Did you say 'OOPS ?!?

I've said 'oops' before! I know what I did when I said 'oops!'

WHAT DID YOU DO?"

That 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 Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl" consumer-generated ad contest for Pepsi Max, the "diet cola for men" (which makes about as much sense as "defillagig," but never mind).

And that heroically hyped social media gambit, a cause-related effort called Pepsi Refresh? Pepsi's still doing it.

So why did it cut and run from an event it's virtually owned for a generation to begin with?

You might remember last year's Super Bowl. 106 million viewers, one of the more spectacular aggregations of eyeballs in television history? Huge social network component? Incredible value for advertisers?

Pepsi wouldn't admit it, I didn't expect to hear it, and it's not surprising that the implication is they're 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 can't help but suspect that in reality, the folks up in Purchase may have looked at last year's decision in hindsight and said, really softly: "Oops."

Couldn't they have done both Big Game ads and the social network effort?

Shouldn't they have done both?

Isn't that the new playbook--flat, integrated, everything working together: old, new, emerging?

Is it possible that the reports of big-TV's death were exaggerated and the soda seller was pump-faked 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 hit—and then the play developed completely differently?

Either 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 doesn't work on this playing field. Not anymore.

Especially not in the Super Bowl. Just ask Bill Cosby, who after yet another false rumor about his death hit the chattersphere last month, tweeted, "Again, I'm rebutting rumors about my demise. But, I'm confirming I have an app."

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based 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 michael@medialinkllc.com

Read all Michael's MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers.

Check us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggers.com
Follow our Twitter updates @MediaBizBlogger