Pepsi’s Music-Led Activation For Bangladesh ICC T20 WC

Music is playing a key role across the Indian subcontinent in rights owner and sponsor campaigns activating around the ICC T20 World Cup in Bangladesh – particularly for sponsor Pepsi.

Squeezed between its Asia Cup and IPL activation, Pepsi continues to use music as the creative focus for its ICC T20 World Cup marketing.

Pepsi Pakistan, for example, is rolling out a new T20 World Cup song and video (which ends with the tagline ‘Pepsi – Made For Cricket’),

and also launching a new strand of its ongoing ‘Dil Maange Abhi’ umbrella marketing approach which is led by a new music-led Pepsi TVC fronted by superstar Shahid Afridi and a host of other famous past and present Pakistani crickets including Umar Gul, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Sana Mir and Ahmad Shehzad

An outdoor strand of Pepsi Pakistan’s T20 campaign sees the soft drinks giant erect a ‘Big Bat’ at Fortress Stadium (Lahore) and Centauras Mall (Islamabad.). This work, designed by creative agency Nash, invites fans to sign the bat which will act as a physical symbol of team/supporter unity.

The Pepsi Pakistan campaign continues on Facebook (at https://www.facebook.com/pepsipk) where it also includes a cricketer-fronted mobile minutes giveaway strand running under the tagline ‘Free Load Abhi’.

This cap-code consumer competition (spanning Pepsi, Mirinda, 7-Up and Mountain Dew) offers the lucky winners 10 minutes of free mobile talk time.

This Pepsi ‘Win Mobile Minutes’ initiative has also been running in India for several months now – spearheaded by TV work.

In the host nation Bangladesh itself, Pepsi is also using Facebook to promote its ‘VIP Box’ consumer competition campaign.

Pepsi, a major Indian sub-continent cricket sponsor, has built a branded VIP viewing box in the tournament venues and is running a consumer competition to gain access to this exclusive cricket viewing experience.

It’s social site (at https://www.facebook.com/pepsibangladesh), which has 32,000-plus Likes to date, is pushing its on-pack cap-code competition to win places in the ‘VIP Box’.

Those purchasing Pepsi products pre- and during the competition have a chance of winning through an on-bottle cap code mechanic. Codes can be entered online and the lucky winners will gain access to the luxury Pepsi VIP Box for an ICC T20 match campaign.

Another music-led T20 campaign sees the host nation’s Bangladesh Cricket Board’s work launch a new TV commercial focused on the official Bangladesh anthem of the T20 competition – Shopner Alo.

The campaign, which has been developed in partnership with Grey Advertising Bangladesh, aims to unite the nation and build excitement around the tournament and support for the team.

The campaign again continues across the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BangladeshCricTeam

Comment

Pepsi – one of a set of key ICC T20 sponsors that also include Reliance Communications, MoneyGram International, ESPN Star Sports, Emirates, Reebok, LG, Hyundai and Castrol – is increasingly focusing on music creative in South Asia to leverage its new global position.

This ICC T20 work continues its 2013 music-led strategy which saw Pepsi tweak its Pakistan umbrella marketing concept from ‘Duniya Hay Dilwalon Ki’ to the new pan-South Asian Dil Maange Abhi’ in order to more closely align the brand to its new global ‘Live For Now’ positioning.

The objective is that this forms more than just a positioning statement, but rather forms the ideological crux of the brand and embodies the mindset of Pepsi consumers.

The focus on ‘living life in the now’ hinges on the idea of taking life by the horns and living each second to the fullest by being spontaneous and bold in your approach.

This was led by a new campaign from its Pakistani agency Walter which included a TVC featuring a campaign ‘Dil Maange Abhi’ anthem from ‘Strings’

Whilst cricket has long sat at the core of Pepsi’s South Asian marketing, by introducing music platforms the brand aims to blend this core creative approach with properties like cricket, as well as with other aspects of consumers’ lives across the youth entertainment space.

Nevertheless, as the new Pakistan Pepsi work for the T20 shows, cricket remains a personification of the brand’s core values of ‘passion’, ‘exhilaration’ and ‘pride’.

Links

PakBev / Pepsi Pakistan Website

http://pakbev.com/

Pepsi Pakistan Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pepsipk

PepsiCo Global Website

http://www.pepsico.com/

Pepsi Bangladesh Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pepsibangladesh

Bangladesh Cricket Board Website

http://www.tigercricket.com.bd/

Bangladesh Cricket Board Facebook