As the festive season closes, sports fans in America turn their attention to the NFL season and specifically to the Super Bowl and sponsors like Pepsi have already begun hyping 2017’s Big Game.
The New Year saw the soft drinks giant and league partner roll out fresh football content in its ongoing #BreakOUtThePepsi NFL player/fan mutual admireation ad series.
The initiative plays on the theme of what fans imagine it feels like to be a star player in a clutch moment and vice versa (what players think it feels like to be a fan).
The latest spot sees office hero Jim save his workmates from the hassle of a jammed printer and, while he basks in the reflected glory, wonders whether this is what Stephen Gostkowski feels like when he kicks a field goal.
The commercial then switches to the New England Patriots player knocking the ball splitting the posts in a game and wondering whether this is what it feels like to be Jim when he is triumphant at the office.
The spot, which launched on 4 January, closes with the tagline: ‘Every office needs a hero. This is your time to shine. Time to #BreakOutThePepsi.
The seeds of this campaign actually first emerged several months ago during the offseason when the Patriots Snapchat and Instagram accounts took New England fans behind the scenes as Gostkowski showed off his acting skills on the commercial’s set.
The new commercial sees Gostkowski follow in the footsteps of fellow Pepsi NFL player endorsers Odell Beckham Jr
and Antonio Brown,
whose #BreakOutThePepsi commercials were released earlier in the season (see previous case study).
Developed with agency TBWA ChiatDay, the campaign aims to link athlete ambassadors and ordinary everyman sports fans in an attempt to close the ever-widening gap between star sportsman and the supporters who pay them to play.
Comment:
Overall, this light-hearted (and lightweight) campaign leverages the fact that with Chrsitmas out of the way, American sports supporter thoughts are turning towards the NFL playoffs and the Big Game itself.
Thus, NFL partners like Pepsi begin switching their activation strategy from a regular season focus (which for the soft drinks giant means primarily social content and competition initiatives) towards the Big Game (and a more mixed media approach that includes traditional advertising).
This TV work follows on from the brand’s ongoing, 2016/17 season socially-led NFL leverage activity which has ranged from the web video ‘Zone Reads’ series to the joint Pepsi/Tostitos ‘Unreal NFL Experiences’ competition.
The former has stretched from Episode 1 (which launched at the start of the season back in late August and focused on Fantasy Football),
to Episode 9 (which debuted on 27 December, focuses on the upcoming playoffs and has already notched up 82,000 YouTube views),
while the latter offered spots on the sideline at the 2017 Super Bowl and VIP trips to the London games and an exclusive on-field masterclass with New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.
Links:
Pepsi:
http://www.Pepsi.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/Pepsi
http://www.Twitter.com/Pepsi
http://www.Facebook.com/Pepsi
http://www.Instagram.com/Pepsi
TBWA Chiat Day:
http://tbwachiatday.com/
NFL:
http://www.nflshop.com/source/bm-nflc…
