Pepsi drops the ball in Super Bowl ads on USA Today app
PepsiCo, no stranger to mobile advertising, is at it again with banner ads on USA Today's mobile application to build hype for the upcoming Super Bowl XLIX halftime show featuring Katy Perry.
In the past, Pepsi, the primary sponsor for the Super Bowl halftime show, has used mobile ads containing interactive, promotional content. However, this year?s strategy is less innovative, causing raised eyebrows.
?If Pepsi added a mobile opt-in component to the campaign, they could continue to engage this audience of mobile subscribers with content around the halftime performers, game day updates, music downloads, or even future promotions or sweeps,? said Kate Atty, marketing manager at Iris Mobile. ?This strategy could lead to an improved understanding of their customer?s behaviors on mobile, improved brand loyalty and more opportunities for future engagement.?
Watch and learn
The banner ad appears in the life section on the USA Today app. It displays the campaign name ?Hyped for Halftime? and entices viewers to ?Click here to get hyped!?
After clicking on the ad, users are directed to their mobile browser at YouTube.com to watch the Pepsi video titled ?There since the first #HalfTime.?
The video scene is a flashback to the earliest days of football, when players wore leather helmets, drank Pepsi from glass bottles and had no idea what a selfie was.
New viewers of the commercial might be intrigued by the video commercial, but it is undoubtedly the same video from last year?s halftime show promotion. If Pepsi is going to be directing mobile users to its YouTube channel, the brand needs to update its offerings and take advantage of this year?s talent expected to perform during the halftime show to drive excitement for the event.
In total, last year?s video has been viewed 1.6 million times, while this year?s, which was uploaded Nov. 23, 2014, has received 141,000 views.
The soda company is also trying to build hype for its TV ad that will be shown during the game just before the halftime show begins. The scene of the commercial will be set in the desert and feature desert scenery and activity. The commercial is 30 seconds long and costs Pepsi, along with every other advertiser, a record of $4.5 million per 30-second slot.
Pepsi continues to strive to remain relevant in a health-conscious world, but its sales were down 4.7 percent during the larger portion of 2014.
Known on mobile
In 2014, Pepsi continued to gulp up mobile advertisement opportunities skewed towards iPhone and iPad consumers with an iAd campaign that aimed to stand out with several interactive components.
The soda giant has long been on board with Apple?s mobile advertising initiatives and ad formats, and this campaign packed two games and a video into a mobile ad that promoted its Wild Cherry soda. At the same time that Pepsi?s initiatives indicate that it might have been seeing success with targeting iOS users, the brand?s ad neglected the growing market of Android users (see story).
For last year?s Super Bowl halftime show, Pepsi hoped to build up some brand awareness before the game with a mobile advertising campaign that also encouraged consumers to tune-in at halftime.
The ads ran in both Spanish and English on Apple?s iAd network within apps including CBS News. The ads built on Pepsi?s content strategy that the brand was growing in the weeks leading up to the game (see story).
?Pepsi is using a great deal of outdoor, online and social advertising to promote their Hyped for Halftime Superbowl sweepstakes campaign and is getting great results in part because it is appealing to a very personal attribute of their audience ? hometown pride,? Ms. Atty said. ?However, given that one of the requirements to enter the contest is to submit user-generated content, Pepsi could further engage audiences by using mobile messaging as a means to acquire the images and videos submissions from its audience.
?By using a mobile opt-in for the sweeps in addition to their existing efforts, Pepsi would have the opportunity to learn even more about its mobile audience while making submissions convenient by using a natural mobile behavior like messaging,? she said. ?Using an image and video based technology like Rich Media Messaging (RMM), Pepsi could make submissions convenient for mobile users while ensuring all data is secure."
Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York