Monday, February 7, 2011 | Edited by Daniel Moores
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Pepsi Taps Consumers to Shake Up Refresh Project in 2011 Pepsi Refresh Project to Fund Twice as Many Vibrant, Fun Ideas to Move Communities Forward in 2011 Pepsi has announced the program details of the 2011 Pepsi Refresh Project, a crowd-sourcing movement that supports bold, fun creative ideas that have the power to move communities forward. In 2010, the Pepsi Refresh Project, an award-winning program, directed millions of dollars to fund over 1,000 great ideas across the country. Pepsi has always stood for optimism, challenging the status quo and celebrating the choice of the next generation. In 2011 Pepsi will take the next step by building on the success of 2010, to fund twice as many great ideas and make this year's Pepsi Refresh Project even more social. Pepsi solicited feedback from the Refresh Everything community through focus groups on Facebook and interviews with grant recipients, and has evolved the project to empower individuals and communities to do more in 2011. "Consumers spoke up and we listened, setting into motion the vibrant changes we’ve made to the program," said Jill Beraud, Chief Marketing Officer and President, Joint Ventures, PepsiCo Beverages Americas. "We believe that by challenging people to be optimistic, curious and creative, and daring them to do a little more, the Pepsi Refresh Project in 2011 is helping to curate ideas that make us think that anything is possible. Anyone can make good things even better and have fun doing so." New Grant Levels In 2011, Pepsi will give out more than a million dollars in grants each month, through 60 grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to bring even more great ideas to life across the nation. The number of overall grants awarded each month will almost double compared to last year, daring people to do a little more and allowing more individuals to help bring forth awesome ideas, while still allowing America to decide which ideas they like best. To continue to make the world more fun, more vibrant, better, Pepsi is introducing four grant tiers: $5k, $10K, $25K and $50K. New Categories Starting in April, consumers can submit ideas within four categories: Arts & Music, Communities, Education, and a new rotating category called the Pepsi Challenge. Every three months, Pepsi will rotate the theme of the Pepsi Challenge category. Within these categories, a new challenge will be announced on a monthly basis, in the form of a question that Pepsi is asking America to answer. The Pepsi Challenge will aim to encourage fun ideas that will refresh communities in new and exciting ways. More Time to Submit Pepsi is also amending the submission process by accepting project entries during a five-day period at the beginning of each month. Each month, 1,500 new ideas will be randomly selected for voting, increasing the number of ideas posted to the site. Staying true to the democratic process, ideas with the most consumer votes will be funded. From May through December, voting opens on the first of each month, and 60 monthly grantees will be announced beginning in June. More Opportunities to Vote This year, people will have more opportunities than ever to vote on their favorite ideas. In addition to online voting, people can join the conversation, spread the word and vote for ideas through social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, the Pepsi Refresh Project mobile app and the text2vote program. Pepsi will also be introducing power votes from May 1 to September 30, providing consumers another channel to speak up and support the ideas they're most passionate about. Power votes give consumers the chance to apply extra votes to one idea they like on refresheverything.com by finding special codes on select Pepsi packaging. In partnership with GOOD, the project's social responsibility partner, Pepsi will continue to provide comprehensive support to Refresh Project grantees. GOOD will continue to work closely with grant recipients to activate their projects, ensure the greatest impact possible, and tell the inspiring, fun stories of grantees making a difference in their communities. Pepsi will also continue its partnership with Global Giving to administer grant disbursements and monitoring. In 2010, awarded grants refreshed hundreds American communities; for example, 98 schools along with 68 parks and playgrounds have been built or improved, and 30 prom outfits were provided to high school seniors who could not afford them. In the last year alone, the Pepsi Refresh Project grantees have received an additional $3.2 million in funding as a result of their participation in the project and 23,000 volunteers have supported funded projects. By engaging America online, more than 76 million votes have been cast on RefreshEverything.com, and more than 6.5 million voters are registered on the site. About The Pepsi Refresh Project In an effort to support those who generate innovative, optimistic ideas, the Pepsi Refresh Project awards millions of dollars in grants to move communities forward. The Pepsi Refresh Project is an evolution of the Refresh Everything initiative Pepsi launched in 2009, which showed the brand as an optimistic catalyst for idea creation, leading to an ever-refreshing world. The program has received industry recognition including Biggest Story of the Year by AdAge, Most Imaginative CSR Ad Campaign by Forbes and an OMMA Award for Best In Show, Integrated Online Campaign. (Source: BevNet.com, 01/31/11) How You Can Make Money: The Pepsi Refresh Project is one of those campaigns that draws its success from the local, grassroots groundswell -- an area where Radio excels. Your station can back a local market campaign competing for one of the Pepsi Grants, or use their idea as a template for R&D: Rip Off & Duplication. Whereas some may believe the project is being funded from some grandiose corporate philanthropy budget, that is not actually the case. "This was not a corporate philanthropy effort," says Shiv Singh, head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages America. "This was using brand dollars with the belief that when you use these brand dollars to have consumers share ideas to change the world, the consumers will win, the brand will win, and the community will win. That was a big bet. No one has done it on this scale before." Your station can put together a similar-type program using sponsorship funding from local companies and national brands with interests in your market. And it's a compelling argument for persuading those companies to pull dollars away from some of your marketing competitors and investing it with your station for greater community impact. |
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Dunkin' Donuts Ups Its Game with the Boston Celtics: Q&A You could infer that Dunkin' Donuts is a sports fanatic. It has sponsorships with a number of sports teams and recently changed up the marketing game for its 17-year sponsorship of the Boston Celtics. The season-long game plan focuses on "high-energy," both on the Dunkin' customers who report an energy boost from the brand's iced coffee and on the Celtics game plays. The two-pronged promotion, handled by Fenway Sports Group, includes a new spin on the traditional 30-second half-time highlights. A "featurette," will air during halftime and, for the first time, will incorporate players as spokespeople. Celtics point guard Ray Allen reinforces Dunkin' coffee as a high-energy beverage as clips of "high-energy" plays are reviewed. The second component puts Celtics’ cheerleaders and mascot "lucky" out across Massachusetts to find and surprise people drinking Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee with tickets to a Celtics game. During the "Caught Cold" promotion, also supported by radio, 500 hard-to-come-by tickets will be distributed. Calling the plays is Tom Manchester, Dunkin' Donuts director of field marketing. PROMO: What was the thought process in developing the promotion? MANCHESTER: We looked at a couple different tactics to move forward with the Celtics. We usually activate a lot of our sports sponsorships through events and advertising, so we wanted to try something different. We thought it was important to reward our guests for drinking Dunkin' Donuts coffee and we know one of the biggest desires of Celtics fans is to actually go to a game. PROMO: What research have you conducted to determine your customers are Celtics fans? MANCHESTER: We do a lot of our own research so we know what their lifestyle interests are. We also get industry research from Scarborough (Research) and (Experian) Simmons that shows that in the Northeast the Celtics over-index as a lifestyle interest of Dunkin' Donuts customers. So the outside research matches up with our research and that tells us that we have an opportunity to really leverage the Celtics as a conduit to connect the Dunkin' brand with our customers' lifestyle interests. PROMO: Why iced coffee? It's cold in the Northeast. MANCHESTER: Customers tell us that they drink Dunkin' iced coffee as a source of energy and some tell us they prefer our iced coffee to energy drinks and soft drinks to give them a boost because its fresher. It's made that hour and it can be customized with a variety of flavors, the dairy and the sweetener. They drink it all year long. PROMO: Why did you select Celtics point guard Ray Allen as your spokesperson? MANCHESTER: We had a couple of different criteria: that (the player) has a high level of awareness among Celtic fans, and that he is very articulate, has a great image and a lot of energy. PROMO: Where will the street teams look for customers? MANCHESTER: Every Thursday throughout the regular and post season the teams will go all throughout Massachusetts to look for people drinking iced coffee and hand them Celtics tickets. We're mixing it up with the locations. The teams will be at the drive through, in stores, at events such as kids' soccer or hockey games, fall festivals and other locations. We've really tried to give away quality seats, a mix of balcony and loge. PROMO: How is the program going? MANCHESTER: Out of the blocks it's really exceeded our expectations. The initial launch has gone really well. It has garnered us more media coverage than we thought it would and iced coffee sales have been strong. So that's really the ways we're going to measure the success of this program. PROMO: How would you describe the marketing atmosphere with sports? MANCHESTER: The world of sports is very crowded now particularly with sponsorships and folks that really want to use sports as a platform to reach targeted consumers. Their brand has to be innovative and very strategic to make sure they are staying on message and on their business plan because it is so hard in a crowded marketing place to connect what can we do differently to be successful. (Source: Promo Magazine, 11/10/10) |
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What Stations Are Doing: 'Where Puke Meets the Pavement' That's how CBS Radio's Philly Sports/Talker WIP describes the station's annual "Wing Bowl" event. The 19th annual edition of a bona fide Philadelphia tradition went down as 20,000 listeners packed Philly's Wells Fargo Center for an event that has become part eating contest/part mid-winter mardi gras. Two-time defending champion Jon "Super" Squibb took home a $20,000 cash prize and a 2011 Dodge Ram truck, downing a record-breaking 255 hot wings to claim a "three-peat" of his championship title. Check out more pics from Wing Bowl 19 -- including those infamous "NSFW" shots of The Wingettes riding a mechanical bull -- posted at the WIP website. (Source: NTS Media Online, 02/04/11) |
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