Armin over at Brand New had a great in depth look at the massive, and all around expensive (1.2 billion dollars over the course of 3 years! Who says companies aren’t spending money on advertising?) rebranding of Pepsi. New York firm Arnell Group is responsible for the rebranding while TBWA\Chiat\Day handled print and television campaigns. Over the holiday season I started seeing the new distinct wide mouth Pepsi logo displayed all over print and video ads. The new wide mouth design is actually inspired by a vintage version of the logo. On a design front, I think the ad’s, NOT the new logo are very well executed and attention grabbing. The subtle change to the Pepsi logo goes almost unnoticed, and boy are they trying to get your to notice. I found myself asking, “Does any of this really amount to anyone wanting to go out and advocate, spread the word, or even ponder at what’s new with Pepsi?”.
Some of that new Pepsi money went to good use, like having the Pepsi Pop up events that were co-opted with two of our favorites Rickey Kim and Jeff Staple, but does anyone care? Did more people drink Pepsi vs Coke because of it? I’m not convinced that a massive rebranding is the way to go to drum up sales for the number two soft drink conglomerate. Further discussion of the topic with Alicia prompted this response:
It’s funny that you ask what’s new with pepsi. Because honestly besides some big flashy logos, the answer is nothing really. I mean in the midst of a recession, do they think a new logo and some fruity colors with a little play on words is going to make people go out and buy a pepsi, when we all know that coke tastes better. I think that they should take a hint from other companies rebranding and make people wonder “what is pepsi going to do for me?” In this day and age, if it’s not going to save me money, save some time, or decrease my carbon footprint, I probably don’t want it. I don’t need a bright new flashy pepsi, I need(and probably a lot of other people too) something that I don’t feel guilty about(especially if its loaded with high fructose corn syrup).
I’d like to leave you my favorite takes on the Pepsi vs Coke today by the very missed (please, please please! start doing comedy again!) Dave Chappelle.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9T3DNAdaI
UPDATE: Check out John Mills-Pierre’s take on all this Pepsi shenanigans.
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Tags: Advertising · Marketing5 Comments
5 responses so far ↓
when i saw all the ads in the BART stations i thought they were ads for Korean Air (http://www.koreanair.com/). I thought, ‘what does korean air have to do with ‘sody pop’?’.
This re branding wreaks of KNOCK-OFF. The correlation between Pepsi re-branding and Obama campaign dull at best. Did Pepsi really need to pay $1.2bn to figure out Obama’s Age of Hope is an infectiously popular marketing scheme. I would have given them the advice for half the cost and probably would have been more subtle, too. This tells me Pepsi needs to go on my stock SELL list.
whaaaa…pay korean air their money!!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IPDJKtbraiY/SKkFeje92MI/AAAAAAAAANw/iQpEEbn3KT4/s1600-h/KOREAN+AIR.jpg
I’m am not a fan of the new logo at all. Why destroy one of the few internationally recognizable logos and replace it with a sloppy one (or three including diet/max)?
I like the stability of the old one, the new just looks like a muffin top.
We haven’t heard a comment yet that we don’t agree with. Tsk, Tsk Pepsi.