Pepsi’s Latest Viral Marketing Strategy

Those crafty people at Pepsi are using viral marketing strategies to sell their latest product to the American public.

As you may be aware, viral marketing is a tactic used on the internet generation. For example, if you build a funny video or interesting email and send it to your friends, they will send it to their friends, who will send it to their friends, etc. and continue spreading the message much like a virus.

Now if you can make that humorous video just a carefully constructed advertisement for a product, the unsuspecting lemmings will do all the marketing work for you.

Case in point, here is a video teasing Pepsi’s recent attempt to bring name recognition to their recent product:

If you go to the site, you can upload a photo of a friend (or enemy) and it gets incorporated into the video, along with a bunch of other personalizable data. The kicker is that the girl in the video (aren’t we all suckers for hot chicks with an accent? ) tattoos the marks name across her body.

The unusual product Pepsi is hocking is called Diet Pepsi Max. It would have hit the states sooner, but one of their main ingredients needed to be approved by the FDA. (apparently its some kind of synthetic, discovered by accident artificial sweetener that blends with aspartame and is 200 times sweeter than regular sugar). Just perfect for the fat-ass Americans to drink by the gallon.

Its really interesting to see how this drink was re-invented for each market Pepsi was shooting for:

-In early 2005, they added a lemon-lime flavor and dropped it in to the UK and Australian drink markets, calling it Pepsi Max Twist.
-Later that year, they added ginger and cinnamon to the drink and called it Pepsi Max Punch for the UK.
-In slow 2005 and early 2006, a coffee-flavored variety was introduced in France, Finland, Ireland, Norway and the UK. Known as Pepsi Max Cappuccino.

Then, the mad scientists in Pepsi’s labs deep underground in a secret base somewhere in the South Pacific (or so I think) carefully deduced that the American soft-drink market – the largest consumer of carbonated, sugary crap – would probably appeal to the word “diet” prominently in its name, so they dubbed the drink, Diet Pepsi Max and further customized it by adding Ginsing to it.

So now that the synthetic, chemically altered, overly-sweet, non-nutritive, cola-based carbonated liquid is being sold in the US, Pepsi felt it was time to consume a viral marketing strategy to help spread the word.

Technically, this is a gorgeous well done marketing tactic. Ultimately, its fun to assault your friends with this video and they will want to do it to their friends, who will want to do it to their friends, etc. And thus, the virus (or in this case advertising message) spreads.

Whether this will convince you to try Diet Pepsi Max, I dont know. But at the very least, you are now aware of the product and that’s all Pepsi cares about.

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