PEPSI REFRESH PROJECT
We took $20MM of Pepsi's Super Bowl budget and gave it away in the form of grants to refresh the world. We created the Pepsi Refresh Project platform as a way to invite people to submit and vote for ideas that help make the world a better place.
Awards
Bronze Cannes Lion, Cyber Category, 2010
Silver Effie, 2010
Bronze Andy, 2011
Silver Clio, 2011
Grand Prix Disruption Award, 2010
Stats
Over 86MM votes registered on refresheverything.com
Received more votes than any presidential election in history
Over 3 Billion media impression
CASE STUDY
LAUNCH SPOT
Yes "One People" (below) was directly inspired by the Japanese band SOUR. The creatives on this Dustin Artz and Chris Jones found the video and brought the concept to the table. The idea and feel was so loved by the agency that we wanted to create something similar is sort of an homage to the work.
We produced quite a bit of work for the initiative - from an LTO package design to newspaper, magazine and OOH executions, we carried on the "wordplay" campaign but made it about putting optimism and hope into action. We asked people to DO GOOD and submit their ideas at refresheverything.com
PRESS
Whether you believe that it was a success or failure, the Pepsi Refresh Project was the first of its kind, and for that reason it garnered a lot of talk. Despite the brand's lofty ambitions to refresh the world, one Pepsi at a time, the effort's approach of building brand health did not satisfy stakeholders who wanted to see immediate conversion to purchase at shelves so the project was dismantled after 6 months.
BEHIND THE IDEA
Inspired by one of Lee's brilliant pieces of creative direction, John Dwight, Michelle Lewis and I locked ourselves in a a conference room for three hours and created the underlying concept and mechanism behind the Pepsi Refresh Project. We showed the idea to our CDs at the time- Al Kelly and Jason Nichols who helped us to refine it a little bit more before we showed it to Lee.
I love looking at an architect's sketches - the doodles on the napkin who look startlingly like the finished building. Here was our process....
