A branded reality show, a virtual restaurant and soda experiments starting from nitro-infused cola to Peeps collaborations are only a couple of of the creative swings Pepsi has taken in recent years to determine what it bills as a “disruptor” repute. As a give attention to boldness continues, Pepsi executives are shaking up a visual identity they view as too sedate to match the liveliness the beverage giant desires to bring to the table.
“We’re doing all these items that should not shy, they don’t seem to be recessive,” said Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s chief marketing officer, in a recent interview. “The logo and visual system just felt inconsistent with how our brand has been behaving.”
Pepsi today unveiled an overhaul of its logo and touchpoints spanning digital and physical channels, including packaging, fountain and cooler equipment, trucking fleets, dining and fashion. Years in the works, the makeover was developed internally at Pepsi, with feedback along the best way from various agency partners. The latest look will probably be implemented across brand touchpoints, starting in North America this fall for the brand’s one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary.
“It’s really been a progress, a journey,” said Mauro Porcini, chief design officer at PepsiCo, on the decision with Kaplan. “This is the landing of that journey, and the start anew.”
Goodbye to minimalism
With this latest chapter, Pepsi is enacting a tough pivot away from the form of minimalist branding that’s overtaken marketing over the past decade-plus. The soda’s muted blue color scheme has been swapped for a loud electric shade, complemented by sharper black tones to create contrast. The update also puts Pepsi Zero Sugar, which already uses the colour black on its packaging, front-and-center in the marketer’s portfolio because the better-for-you option becomes a more substantial growth driver, in response to Kaplan.
“It really is the first time we will truly embrace this idea of a master brand approach,” said Kaplan.
(*14*) alteration consumers may soon notice is that the word “Pepsi” has been shifted up to look contained in the soda’s globe-shaped logo, an try to bring more cohesion and adaptability to the design while harkening back to past iterations of the iconography. The revamped “wordmark” is written in a bolder custom typeface, differing from the present version’s soft, lower-cased letters. Along with rejiggering existing assets, Pepsi is introducing a “pulse” motif to speak a way of energy and movement and pay homage to the music-oriented efforts which have resulted in a few of its most memorable marketing.
Collectively, these changes are united by the brand’s guiding mission of “unapologetic enjoyment,” or the enjoyment people feel from cutting loose and indulging, per executives. The revisions are also tailored to acknowledge the demands of an increasingly digital and “phygital” era, where fewer facets of promoting are static while jumping between tactical and plugged-in experiences is in vogue. A press release announcing the news nods to Pepsi’s interest in emergent channels like Web3 and the metaverse, in addition to a desire to attach “younger generations” to the corporate’s heritage.
“We have to be sure that we’re not only a JPEG in the corner that folks cut and paste,” said Kaplan. “We should be embracing these latest mediums.”
Years in the making
The timing of the makeover aligns with Pepsi’s one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary in the autumn. That’s when a consumer-facing push promoting the shakeup will kick into high gear in North America before expanding globally in early 2024. Pepsi declined to share details of what the marketing will seem like, while noting it is going to be a “big moment” for the brand. PepsiCo has performed well these days despite a volatile economy, beating analyst expectations on earnings in revenue in the fourth quarter, though it’s also enacted price hikes on account of inflation.
The latest visual update marks the most important gap in time for Pepsi between making such alterations. The last major update was 14 years ago, just a couple of years after the iPhone’s debut and well before the ascendance of apps like Netflix and TikTok led Pepsi to rethink its media playbook. Pepsi last 12 months stepped away as Super Bowl Halftime Show sponsor after a decade amid a prioritization of digital, though it preserves a relationship with the NFL. Looking forward, staying agile with fast-shifting consumer behaviors stays the highest mandate.
“We’re now on the verge, in the subsequent 10 to fifteen years, of an explosion of where we’ll go as you consider Web3 and the metaverse, as you consider digital overall,” said Kaplan.
In that way, one force behind Pepsi’s current makeover might be read as a desire to cater to younger cohorts like Gen Z that has already led the soft drink marketer to speculate more in apps like TikTok and content creators. But Kaplan noted that Pepsi is a mass consumer brand, with key offerings like Pepsi Zero Sugar ceaselessly targeted on the older crowd. Pepsi Zero Sugar became the centerpiece of the brand’s skilled football marketing last season and ran a Super Bowl campaign around a reformulation.
“What’s great about this latest system, for an older consumer it looks like a modernized version of something that is familiar. For a younger consumer, it feels daring and on-trend,” said Kaplan.
“There should not quite a lot of 125-year-old brands that may proceed to feel currently relevant to the time that they are operating in,” Kaplan added. “Lots of brands and legacy brands, as they’re called, get stale over time.”
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