Pepsi’s new “Design Our Pepsi Can Contest” offers $10,000 for the re-design of its soda can. Consumers create and enter their design on the site, where the public will be able to vote on a winning design that will be featured on 500 million Pepsi cans.
It’s “the first time in history” that this has been done, crows the contest site. Helloooo Pepsi: Jones Soda has been letting consumers design labels and name flavors since 2000. And Jones has a community, blogs, sponsored events and much more. Which is why young people drink Jones Soda and not Pepsi.
Never Use These Words
Here, by the way, are some words that should never be used in contests, promotions, ads or press releases:
- first
- only
- biggest
- smallest
- best
- greatest
Tags: alternative_marketing, BL_Ochman, Jones_Soda, marketing_mistakes, Pepsi, Pepsi_Design_Our_Can_Contest
I saw link to your blog on this site. Seems they are collecting nice PR pages. This pepsi news will make rounds in time to come.
http://www.netreputation.co.uk/pr
Good posts BL. And I can share with Pepsi the several wineries whose consumers design their labels through contests. Maybe Pepsi thinks they exist in a vacuum.
Lewis: what a great point you make! A lot of big companies and their agencies seem to think they can copy things that others do and, by sheer force of size and weight, erase the originals from memory.
that would be a great subject for a post! :>)
amit: i really detest sites like that, making money from google ads by aggregating other people’s original work.
there are so many of those anonymous aggregators. they suck.
In Pepsi’s defense, i believe Jones only packages their soda in bottles… not cans. So presumably this is a first.
I don’t like the use of superlatives either in copy.
It’s filler that adds no value. Just write about the user experience
Anyone want to vote on whether this will have a positive financial effect on Pepsi? If this idea, at Pepsi, were priced at $10 a share, would you invest in it? Where do you think it would go?
I’m wondering if or when big brands will stop trying to bolt on “instant social media” ideas thinking it will make them hip. The consumer generated ads on the Super Bowl were complete thuds and I’d be shorting this stock if I could.
You expect certain things from certain brands — when they do something you don’t expect, we don’t like it. Brands promise a consistent experience — this isn’t a Pepsi kind of thing, is it?
I think that Pepsi is promoting that this is the first time in “pepsi history” they are producing a can designed by “you” not history in general. I wasn’t confused when I read this and took it just as that.
BL – could you elaborate a bit on why you advocate against using the words “first” or “only” in ads and press releases? Conventional marketing wisdom says that it is important to establish your product or brand as the “first” in a given category in the minds of consumers (e.g. Red Bull in the energy drink category).
Are you advocating against the use of those words per se, or the use of them in advertisements and publicity?
Yes they maybe copying Jones, but everyone is doing it cause “its the in thing to do”.
The idea that everyone is using the Jones Soda idea will eventually hurt them. They will need to reinvent soon.
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Jones will be just as corporate as the others soon, if not already. They are all over the wall street news, and just like any other publicly traded company their primary interest is in maximizing shareholder wealth, and hitting their quarterly earnings. Maybe that’s why they sold out and started selling to Wal-Mart.
Have you looked at the Jones Website lately!? There is no personality, and they have only a couple action sports athletes anymore- they also post earnings release news on the home page (how corporate is that).
Jones is going to have a tough time being everything to everybody. At least Sobe, Pepsi, Coke, have quality websites with personality.
I would have to agree with Jessi in that they will have to change soon. They came up with one good idea (photo on the bottle), and have done nothing since. I think the novelty will wear out eventually.
However, despite all the recent news, they seem like an elusive company.
The question that I have is What do they stand for now? They seem like a very confused brand.