Pepsi's branded emojis merge with real world for omnichannel synergy
Pepsi continues to speak the language of mobile fanatics with the latest in a series of marketing efforts featuring custom emojis by bringing the designs into the real world, extending the iconic colors of the brand with social media photography.
The new PepsiMoji designs will be featured on the soda?s packaging, Instagram photography and in a series of seven-second snippets on social media celebrating various cultural events, also available for use in a mobile messaging keyboard application. The latest rollout of PepsiMoji content is a part of its summer campaign, of which it recently featured an installation at Milan Fashion Week, incorporating the emojis and an onsite photo booth for social sharing.
"The emoji spotlight fits right in line with Pepsi's traditional brand tone, which is always highly in tune with trends of millennial," said Shuli Lowy, director of customer success of Americas at TVTY / The Moment Marketing Company. "While emoji usage is high amongst all users, that usage is even higher amongst millennial.
"About 64 percent of consumers frequently use emojis whereas 72-76 percent of millennial do (Emogi Report 2015.)"
Express with Pepsi
Mobile messaging users and fans of Pepsi will now be able to interact via the brand's new emoji keyboard, which shares a branded twist on traditional emojis. The new icons feature the iconic Pepsi colors, blue, red and white, for a fresh new look that helps Pepsi appeal to the emoji-filled language of consumers today.
Traditional smiley faces are lined with blue rather than black, for more Pepsi-focused look, while new icons also debut. For instance, one emoji features a pizza and another shows a Pepsi symbol in the shape of a heart.
The emojis will be featured on Pepsi cans and branded, and are launching with a series of digital and broadcast videos that show the origins of how the emojis came to appear on the products. Another social media push features a series of seven-second digital content to celebrate various events in culture such as Day of the Dead, Hump Day and Morning Alarm for users to share with friends.
Innovative vending machines in India will dispense Pepsi cans featuring an emoji that best fits the customer?s mood, while a social media influencer campaign will launch in the Middle East.
Pepsi campaigns
With beverage brands becoming more creative in their interactive marketing tactics, PepsiCo also recently leveraged a mobile-optimized prize wheel microsite to boost customer acquisition, resulting in approximately eight percent of offers being redeemed (see more).
A PepsiCo executive at the Mobile Marketing Association?s Mobile Location Leadership Forum emphasized that while it is easier to focus on measuring and developing creative for mobile only, bringing together multiple platforms is key for a successful content strategy (see more).
"Taking a social media focus is particularly imperative for an emoji focused campaign," Ms. Lowy said. "The campaign aims to connect people through the unifying language of emojis.
"Pepsi aims to expand the campaign beyond the physical product with the release of their own digital keyboards that contain a curated list of emojis," she said.
"The majority of digital socializing occurs on social media--making it a natural fit for the campaign."