Pepsi and the NFL have tweeted a Super Bowl teaser image of superstar Beyonce, with the Big Game’s date painted on her face. The promotional photo as good as confirms rumours that the Grammy Award winning ‘Single Ladies’ singer will front the game’s Pepsi-sponsored Halftime Show.
When Pepsi signed a 10-year $2.3bn NFL sponsorship deal for the 2012/13 season (one of the biggest partnership contracts in history) it also the sponsor of the 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
The Halftime Show is the most-watched musical event of the year in the USA. In 2012 it racked up more than 112.5 million viewers and Beyoncé follows in the footsteps of previous show headline acts such as Madonna, The Black Eyed Peas, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and U2.
To promote the initiative further @Pepsi, which has more than one million followers, has begun tweeting with the hashtag #PepsiHalftime and the company is also using promoted tweets and pulling in tweets with #PepsiHalftime and #LiveforNow on Pepsi.com.
The singer’s own @Beyonce Twitter feed, which has a massive 6.8 million followers, is also thought to be tied to the wider Pepsi Super Bowl halftime work.
The drink and food giant is also placing similar content on its Facebook page (which has 9.3 million fans).
It seems certain, considering the size of the sponsorship activation and the appearance of Pepsi’s most famous brand ambassador, Pepsi is set to make a big statement at Super Bowl 2013 (hosted in the New Orleans Mercedes-Benz Superdome) – using the advertising industry’s single biggest annual jamboree to take the fight to rival Coca-Cola.
The beverage and food giant will put Beyonce at the heart of its activation, with a multi-platform campaign that will also include both a Pepsi Super Bowl ad and a promotional video for the half-time show that uses crowd-sourced photos.
Since 29 December fans have been invited to submit images to what Pepsi is calling the first ever crowd-sourced Super Bowl Half Time Show introduction. The brand set up a website, www.pepsi.com/halftime, which has a daily pose (from shouting and head bopping to feet tapping and hip shaking) and fans are asked to send in photos of themselves (with the #PepsiHalftime hashtag) in each daily pose.
This initiative was launched when Pepsi put up a digital billboard in Times Square (New York), just in time for New Year’s Eve, to invite fans to submit their photos.
Participants can enter up to 50 photos per day and hundreds of the images which best represent originality, creativity and Pepsi spirit will be used to create an on-air video introduction to the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show on CBS on 3 February. Furthermore, Pepsi says it might include some submissions on the website and in creative ad executions during the promotion period.
The soft drinks giant says it has already received thousands of photos and all those received by 11 January are eligible for the 50 grand prizes – return airfare, hotel accommodations, ground transportation, $500 cash and participation on the field in the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
The TV spot that ran was all fast edits and cuts to boost pre Beyonce excitement.
Other Super Bowl Pepsi work will include a local promotion for host city New Orleans residents which will see an additional 50 winners from local retail partners will also receive an on-field experience.
Pepsi’s Super Bowl activation looks set to work under the brand’s umbrella Live For Now marketing idea. Indeed, Pepsi’s Halftime Show aims to bring the brand’s ‘Live For Now’ mindset and unique consumer engagement opportunities to provide fans a halftime experience worthy of pop-culture’s biggest stage.
‘Pepsi is bringing to life its ‘Live for Now’ mindset which places fans at the center of this experience,’ said Pepsi marketing VP Angelique Krembs. Live for Now, first launched in April 2012, is Pepsi’s global pop culture campaign.
Comment:
Towards the end of 2012 Pepsi signed a mega endorsement deal with Beyonce reported to be worth $50m. This fairly unconventional deal is thought to give the star an unprecedented amount of creative control over the Pepsi partnership activity. While it will include the usual set of TV ads and print work, the contract will also see Pepsi help fund a number of the singer’s own chosen (and as yet undefined) creative projects.
This innovative deal may well become more of a standard approach in the celebrity endorsement arena as artists turn even more towards commercial partnership but demand more creative control.
Beyonce is also set to star in the new upcoming “Live for Now” global TV commercial, currently planned for release in early 2013.
Another interesting area of PepsiCo’s Super Bowl related activation that will be worth keeping an eye on is its co-branded retail push with fellow NFL drinks sponsor Bud Light.
The two behemoths are cooperating in-store to leverage each other’s complementary strengths and to aim to generate in-store marketing synergies.
PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev are placing PepsiCo snacks and Bud Light together for the first time under the new effort (which insiders claim AB InBev is internally calling a ‘National Big Bet’). Thus Doritos and Lay’s chips (but not Pepsi itself) will be paired together with Bud Light in retail activation, in-store signage and promotion.
The co-branded marketing materials include display signs showing two bags of Doritos, two bottles of Pepsi and two bottles of Bud Light along with the Super Bowl logo and the slogan – ‘Super Bowl. Super Team. Super Party’.
It is not expected this link will stretch as far as Super Bowl TV ads themselves. Indeed, according to ad buyers, CBS has already sold out its ad inventory for Super Bowl XLVII at between $3.7m and $3.8m for 30-second slots.
Links:
Pepsi Halftime Show Website
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